Crosswinds and Lunch at Easton

My flight today was originally planned to go to Wilmington, DE. After getting the weather report I was concerned that I would get caught up there if I went. The weather didn't sound terribly bad but it wasn't all that good either. A quick check of the area around Easton revealed what sounded like better weather. And since I hadn't been out to Easton since they made the airport tower controlled, I thought that I might give it a try. My passenger today was a former airborne traffic reporter so he was right at home in the 172. The only difference was that the aircraft he flew in were much older that our year 2000 SP model. The other thing that was odd was that his pilots would fly the airplane from the right seat. I still haven't found out why yet. During the preflight I noticed that the wind was a lot stronger than I had expected. Once we were ready to set out I had a steady crosswind on the runway for my takeoff. After the crosswind takeoff I we got into some bumps. The ceilings had been around 5000ft overcast and even thought the visibility was stated at 10sm it sure looked hazy. All in all not a great day to fly, especially because we had some light to med. turbulence for the flight. I probably would not have taken a new or non-flyer out in it, but since my passenger had flown often before, we were doing alright. Here is our actual takeoff. You can see the windsock on the right showing the crosswind as well as the flat gray sky conditions.

Once we got out over the bay things seemed to smooth out a bit. We got over to Easton without too much trouble and landed. We were able to taxi right up to the terminal and the lineman guided us in. Once we shutdown I asked if there was anywhere to eat other than across Route 50. He said that there was a restaurant inside and it closed at 3:00pm. It was about 2:45 so we hurried in and took a seat. We closed the place after a light lunch.
After that I got a flight plan back into the ADIZ and we started up and taxied out for takeoff. After we got our takeoff clearance and on our climb out the tower called me up and asked me to call them on the telephone when I landed. Anytime a controller asks you to call them it usually means that you've done something wrong and either they want to tell you how to correct it or they want to report you to the FAA. I was naturally worried but I couldn't think of what I could have possibly done wrong.

We headed back out over the bay and got our clearance into the ADIZ. It was still bumpy and as we approached Tipton I could tell that the crosswind hadn't subsided. We got into the pattern and I could see that the crosswind was from the left and blowing steady. I ended up with a tailwind on base leg that blew me to the right of the runway after the turn to final. So much so that I had to go around. After running the approach again and correcting for the crosswind we lined up on final and stabilized for the ride down. It was one of my better crosswind landings even though it was a little long. I found out that my passenger had taken video while we landed. He it is below. If you look closely, you can see the windsock to the right of the runway blowing sideways. I landed a little long, probably because I had a little more speed on to account for the gusts. I was also trying not to "drop it in." I actually succeeded in that, it just led to some floating. The nervous laughter at the end is the adrenalin release after a good landing that I really had to work through.



Once we shutdown it was time to call Easton Tower. It turns out that while we were taking off a maintenance vehicle about 3000ft down the runway had disobeyed orders from ground control and crossed our runway. Since it was so far down and we were up by about 900 ft down the runway we never even saw it. It still counted as a "Runway Incursion" and FAA Flight Standards had to be notified. So in actuality I had done nothing wrong. That was a relief.