Beautiful day to fly

Pat and I took off at 3:00 and landed at 4:00. It was a nice day to be flying and we weren't the only ones that felt that way.

Pat was in charge of two things today. He was the official flight photographer and I'm hoping he managed to get some nice shots.

His second job was to use my iPad to keep an eye on the other planes around us because it was a little crowded up there today.

First there was a lot of traffic at the airport with students doing touch & gos and pattern work. We ha to wait a bit before the runway was available for us. One arriving pilot was kind enough to wait in the keyhole after landing while we took off.

Then I discovered that it was crowded in the sky with several other planes flying in the same area we were in. At one point Pat spotted a plane on the screen that was half a mile behind and 200 feet below us.

Then there was the five or six bright yellow helium balloons tied together in a bunch that passed a few feet off my left wing while we were flying over the river near Sugarloaf.<

Finally there was the bald eagle flying over the north end of the airport when we landed.

All things considered, it was still a great day for flying. I stayed between 2,300 and 3,300 during the flight, depending on how bumpy the air was. It wasn't really bumpy at all so we stayed as low as we could for most of the flight.

And my landing was spot-on. Hopefully Pat manage to get some video of it so I can post it.

There was no ATC record of the flight so here's a Google maps view I created using their measuring tool.

I know that I fly that route a lot but it's beautiful country and seeing it from 3,000 feet is something not a lot of people have ever seen.

Trust me, it's beautiful. The Quabbin to the east, the Berkshires to the west and the Connecticut river down the middle. I'll be flying the route until I can no longer fly.

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While it was a beautiful day to fly, it was a crappy day to be a New England sports fan. The Patriots managed to lose to the Panthers and the Red Sox manage to lose to the Astros.

Not the best of showings from the two sports teams I follow.

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I'm going to watch some Storage Wars.

While I do that, you can click on these:

• Only in Texas.



• Oh Canada.
  (Actually, my daughter, the vet student, might find that kinda interesting)



• Shenanigans is not a word you hear very often in todays society.