Picked up a brand-new Diamond DA20 Eclipse from the factory in London, Ontario, which is about sixty miles inside the Canadian border near Detroit, MI.
It was all pretty spontaneous, asking my boss on Wednesday if I could do the delivery, flying out to London on Thursday, and starting the return flight early Friday morning.
 |
| DA20 Cross Country |
While at the London Airport, at the Diamond Delivery Center, I saw a woman and her daughter hanging on the airport fence, looking longingly at a departing B737, where obviously a beloved family member was leaving. Took some photos, sent them to her. I'd forgotten how significant the impact of separation can be on families. It was a good reminder that for some of us flying is not the wonderful thing I think it is, but is something that can bring pain.
Got around the bottom of Lake Michigan, into Kankakee, IL, without incident. Scud running is the term for working your way under a cloud layer, trying to find clear sky. Had weather reports of severe clear 40 miles ahead, which turned out to be true. Spent the rest of that day dropping in to various small airports, refueling, refreshing, and heading out to the Pacific Northwest.
Stayed over in Rapid City, SD, near the badlands, then headed out the next day over the desert, through the mountain passes, back over the next desert, and finally to arrive at Boeing Field early Saturday evening.
It was about eight years ago when my friend Mark encouraged me to get back into flying. I'd taken lessons many years earlier. He is my aviation mentor, and so you can understand how interesting and meaningful it was to me to be handed off by the Seattle Center controller to the Boeing Field tower, only to hear the tower clear me for landing behind a Cessna 180, whose tail number and pilot I recognized as Mark. What're the odds that I'll fly two thousand miles across the majority of the country, only to wind up in the traffic pattern behind my good friend and mentor?
Anyway, 18.9 flight hours into the logbook, and some great stories. Wish the photographs were good, but I was kinda busy. One of the outstanding images is the Anaconda Copper Mine at Butte Montana, where the water color was so turquoise that you could taste it.
Would do that trip any time.
