When I bought Mooney 58V the insurance company required that I fly with an instructor for 25 hours and receive a complex aircraft signoff prior to soloing or taking passengers. I started taking dual instruction with Drew out of Norwood Memorial. We would go out after work and fly to New Bedford, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket along with a host of other airports practicing landings and emergency procedures.
Having the airplane gave me something to do after work other than sitting in the Hilton and eating bad food. Eventually I amassed enough hours and Drew felt safe enough to sing me off. He congratulated me and later over dinner and drinks mentioned that with the Mooney I could take my wife out to lunch in Washington DC and be back in Danbury in time for Happy Hour.
I mentioned this to Judy on the telephone when I called her from my hotel room later that night. That weekend when I asked her where she wanted to go for her first trip in the airplane Judy said “I want to go and have lunch in Washington DC”.
The weather was pristine for the trip so we bought some charts and took off at ten in the morning. I called New York Approach on 126.4 and in my best pilot voice said “New York Approach Mooney 58 Victor off Danbury Climbing to 8500 requesting VFR flight following to DCA”. The controller came back with a squawk code and a clearance to climb thru the bravo and asked for me to say destination again. I proudly said “Delta Charlie Alpha” , he said “well ok”.
As the flight progressed south west bound I was handed off to the various different controllers and with each of them the dialog was similar. “I’d say Approach Mooney 58 Victor checking on 8500” they’d acknowledge and ask “58Victor where did you say you were heading to” and I’d say “Delta Charlie Alpha” and they say “well OK”
Finally we were handed off to Washington Approach and once again I checked in but this time it was different. On my initial call up and I said “Washington approach Mooney 7458V is with you at 8500, information Juliet, looking to start a VFR descent into Delta Charlie Alpha” that was met with silence on what was, until my call, a fairly busy frequency. I got the “last calling approach say again” and I said Ma’am its Mooney 58Victor checking in 8500 Information Juliet looking to start our VFR descent into Delta Charlie Alpha. The controller comes back and says “Nooooo 58Victor do not descend stand by”
We were told to contact Washington approach on a different frequency where another controller issued us vectors for our descent and finally after about 20 minutes of flying different directions and altitudes we were handed off to the tower and cleared to land on Runway 22. We were off by the first taxiway and received progressive instructions to Signature.
We took a taxi into town and then enjoyed a lunch at the Capitol Grille on 600 Pennsylvania Avenue. We walked around a bit afterwards then took a cab back to Signature where we paid our bill and got into the plane to depart. Getting out of there VFR was more difficult than the trip in.
We landed at 4:45 and by 5:00 were at the bar at Chucks for Happy Hour just like my instructor told me.
No comments:
Post a Comment