vfsit
Pre-Flight
I posted this over on a Comanche forum but figured it might be of some use to post it here too.
This is a kudos, review, and a day trip report all rolled into one. To do it right its going to be a little long....
Been a little while since I did this trip and I have been really busy with work, but I had to give kudos and link to a photo album for the trip. The idea for this trip started out with my friend (CFII), that is doing my IFR with me, and me cramming and passing the ATP written before Aug 1. We decided to do a day trip to the beach to take my son before he went back to school and to celebrate both of us passing the written. I am based at 4A7 (south side of Atlanta, GA) so Pensacola, FL was a good cross country to work on more of my IFR time in the process. I started looking a week prior to figure out where to land that could get a car and spend the day going to the Naval Aviation Museum at the Pensacola NAS and hit the beach. I quickly ended up looking at KPNS and then narrowed into Innisfree Jet Center. I called to get a better idea and talked to Raina. She told me everything I needed to know and said that she and Sadie (gotta look at the photos for that one
) will be waiting for us. One of the additional deciding factors was that they guarantee the lowest fuel prices within 50 miles... at KPNS.... that was my 1st surprise. Another surprise was her telling me she would take care of the rental car and get us basically a $40 discount on what I would have paid if I went online to a rental car company to get it.
The flight down was great, foggles and all. We get close and they are doing visual approaches on 35 (I don't have GPS in my plane so we didn't push it and didn't worry about an instrument approach.) ATC kept me high over some of the outlying military fields and then started dropping me down. At that point my buddy decided I had enough of hearing the rest of the people on board talking about how beautiful the coast and the bay was and happily told me to remove the foggles so I could enjoy it too. (last 10 min of the flight. Great sweeping right turn over the bay as I line up for a great landing. Taxi to Innisfree to a line guy that parked me right up front with the typical red carpet (mat). As we got out he stated "Welcome for Pensacola, we have been expecting you Mr White, hope you have a great flight..." Then over on the sidewalk Raina and Sadie was waiting for us. Welcomed us inside with all of our stuff and while the other guys took care of their personal business I took care of the important stuff like the rental car and the aircraft. The line guy (I really wish I remembered his name) said he would top it off and then asked if it was ok to park my plane in the hangar to get it out of the sun. Umm yes!
Quick note, this facility is very new. Not sure exactly how old but I would guess within a couple years. We took care of getting our couple bags into the rental car and Raina made sure we were loaded up with bottles of water, coke, muffins, and bananas. On the previous phone call a week earlier I had explained our plans to her. She remembered the part about visiting the beach and told us that the shower upstairs (very nice btw) would be ready for us when we got back with soap, shampoo, and towels.
We head out to the museum and proceed to have a great day there, the harbor area where we stop for lunch, and obviously... the beach. Since this is mostly a kudos report I'll save the details and let you all look at the photos. We get back to the FBO a little before sunset and although the crew has changed over their attitude had not. The new lady behind the counter asked how our day was and told us that the upstairs shower and snooze room was all ours to freshen up, help ourselves to the refreshments, etc. While one of the other guys were taking a shower, the line guy asked if I was ready for the plane to be pulled out. I told him we couldn't pass up the opportunity to use their crew car to go get ice cream before we leave. He smiled and said he would get the crew car... an umm....... fire engine red 1969 PONTIAC GTO CONVERTIBLE!!!!! ready for us to use. Oh yeah... can't pass that up!
Everyone gets ready and as the others take showers we hang out on the 2nd floor balcony overlooking the ramp and the rest of the airport with the sun setting off to the west. Once everyone was ready we get into the lowly little crew car and head to ice cream. The looks we got driving that car were priceless, heck even had two guys in a modern sports car pull into the parking lot behind us to ask us about it and comment on it. My CFII buddy got his turn to drive it on the way back and when we pulled back up my aircraft was waiting on the ramp for us. Upon checking the fuel I noted that the earlier line guy actually DID know where to fill it to and not the bottom of the neck. Another check mark noted. Everything checked out, we did all our planning, filing and got ready to blast out.
Flight back was a great night flight (under foggles again) and I was even able to get about 30 min of actual including an approach to about 700' above minimums. We landed and put my bird back in her barn around 12:30am.
Great trip and a great day that was made over the top by Innisfree Jet Center at KPNS.
Link to my picasa photo album for the trip: https://picasaweb.google.com/113954...&authkey=Gv1sRgCMDM8_Pbir6Icg&feat=directlink
If you happen to want to see the flight track for the flight down and approach over the bay... http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N6641P/history/20140731/1325ZZ/4A7/KPNS
I will definitely be heading back here in the future!
Andy
This is a kudos, review, and a day trip report all rolled into one. To do it right its going to be a little long....
Been a little while since I did this trip and I have been really busy with work, but I had to give kudos and link to a photo album for the trip. The idea for this trip started out with my friend (CFII), that is doing my IFR with me, and me cramming and passing the ATP written before Aug 1. We decided to do a day trip to the beach to take my son before he went back to school and to celebrate both of us passing the written. I am based at 4A7 (south side of Atlanta, GA) so Pensacola, FL was a good cross country to work on more of my IFR time in the process. I started looking a week prior to figure out where to land that could get a car and spend the day going to the Naval Aviation Museum at the Pensacola NAS and hit the beach. I quickly ended up looking at KPNS and then narrowed into Innisfree Jet Center. I called to get a better idea and talked to Raina. She told me everything I needed to know and said that she and Sadie (gotta look at the photos for that one
) will be waiting for us. One of the additional deciding factors was that they guarantee the lowest fuel prices within 50 miles... at KPNS.... that was my 1st surprise. Another surprise was her telling me she would take care of the rental car and get us basically a $40 discount on what I would have paid if I went online to a rental car company to get it.The flight down was great, foggles and all. We get close and they are doing visual approaches on 35 (I don't have GPS in my plane so we didn't push it and didn't worry about an instrument approach.) ATC kept me high over some of the outlying military fields and then started dropping me down. At that point my buddy decided I had enough of hearing the rest of the people on board talking about how beautiful the coast and the bay was and happily told me to remove the foggles so I could enjoy it too. (last 10 min of the flight. Great sweeping right turn over the bay as I line up for a great landing. Taxi to Innisfree to a line guy that parked me right up front with the typical red carpet (mat). As we got out he stated "Welcome for Pensacola, we have been expecting you Mr White, hope you have a great flight..." Then over on the sidewalk Raina and Sadie was waiting for us. Welcomed us inside with all of our stuff and while the other guys took care of their personal business I took care of the important stuff like the rental car and the aircraft. The line guy (I really wish I remembered his name) said he would top it off and then asked if it was ok to park my plane in the hangar to get it out of the sun. Umm yes!
Quick note, this facility is very new. Not sure exactly how old but I would guess within a couple years. We took care of getting our couple bags into the rental car and Raina made sure we were loaded up with bottles of water, coke, muffins, and bananas. On the previous phone call a week earlier I had explained our plans to her. She remembered the part about visiting the beach and told us that the shower upstairs (very nice btw) would be ready for us when we got back with soap, shampoo, and towels.
We head out to the museum and proceed to have a great day there, the harbor area where we stop for lunch, and obviously... the beach. Since this is mostly a kudos report I'll save the details and let you all look at the photos. We get back to the FBO a little before sunset and although the crew has changed over their attitude had not. The new lady behind the counter asked how our day was and told us that the upstairs shower and snooze room was all ours to freshen up, help ourselves to the refreshments, etc. While one of the other guys were taking a shower, the line guy asked if I was ready for the plane to be pulled out. I told him we couldn't pass up the opportunity to use their crew car to go get ice cream before we leave. He smiled and said he would get the crew car... an umm....... fire engine red 1969 PONTIAC GTO CONVERTIBLE!!!!! ready for us to use. Oh yeah... can't pass that up!
Everyone gets ready and as the others take showers we hang out on the 2nd floor balcony overlooking the ramp and the rest of the airport with the sun setting off to the west. Once everyone was ready we get into the lowly little crew car and head to ice cream. The looks we got driving that car were priceless, heck even had two guys in a modern sports car pull into the parking lot behind us to ask us about it and comment on it. My CFII buddy got his turn to drive it on the way back and when we pulled back up my aircraft was waiting on the ramp for us. Upon checking the fuel I noted that the earlier line guy actually DID know where to fill it to and not the bottom of the neck. Another check mark noted. Everything checked out, we did all our planning, filing and got ready to blast out.
Flight back was a great night flight (under foggles again) and I was even able to get about 30 min of actual including an approach to about 700' above minimums. We landed and put my bird back in her barn around 12:30am.
Great trip and a great day that was made over the top by Innisfree Jet Center at KPNS.
Link to my picasa photo album for the trip: https://picasaweb.google.com/113954...&authkey=Gv1sRgCMDM8_Pbir6Icg&feat=directlink
If you happen to want to see the flight track for the flight down and approach over the bay... http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N6641P/history/20140731/1325ZZ/4A7/KPNS
I will definitely be heading back here in the future!
Andy
