June 21, 2008
Once again I planned an early morning flight to avoid the heat and the convective turbulence. I had spoken to a co-worker who wanted to take his five year old son on an airplane ride. We met at the airport at 8AM. I was already halfway through my pre flight when they arrived. We got over to the airplane and as I finished up we took some pictures and I gave my pre flight briefing. I knew that we needed fuel so after startup I taxied over to the fuel pumps and shut down. Since I had a kid on board I did my standard lame joke and asked if he liked his ride. He immediately retorted and asked, "When area we going to fly?!" His dad and I explained that we needed some gas and I proceeded to get to work. Unreel the ground wire. Unreel the fuel hose. Get the step ladder. About this time one of the mechanics came out of the hanger and waived at me and said that there was no electrical power. Since I knew I was going to top off both tanks I never checked them in preflight. When I did check them with a wand I found that I had about 4 gallons in the left tank and about 13 gallons in the right. I wasn't about to take off with that little fuel. The mechanic said that he would check what fuel they had in the hanger and put that in my tanks. I waited but got a call on my cell that said they had no fuel in the hanger. I went inside to the "ops" building and found out that the power to the airport is controlled by Fort Meade. They said that BGE was working on the problem. I knew how dissapointed my friend's son was going to be so I offered two alternatives. The first was that we call off the flight and do it another day. The second was to make two flights in the pattern. That was a compromise that would still get us flying even though it would be short. The mechanic came over and said that he would get me another plane and hopefully it had some fuel. Long story short, I found another plane with 28 gallons of fuel in it, completed a pre flight and then headed out. I had originally planned on flying my friend over his house but since we got off to a late start I decided on my standard route that I take new passengers on. I like give people a look at areas they are familiar with but perhaps have never seem from 1300 ft AGL.
We headed Southeast toward the South River. Once we got a little closer I made a left turn and joined the Severn River. From there I can point out the Bay, the Bay Bridge,Greenbury Point, the City of Annapolis, Lee Airport, The US Naval Academy, the David Taylor Center, and the Magothy, Severn, and South Rivers. Since my passengers were on the right side I stuck to the Northern side of the Severn River. That gave them an excellent view of Annapolis. Once we got to the mouth of the Severn River at the Chesapeake Bay I made a shallow right turn that eventually lined us up with the North side of the South River. My friend's son was very excited and very chatty. There were times when I had to isolate his intercom to avoid getting distracted or missing radio calls. Once we got back toward Fort Meade I headed over Capitol Raceway and got ready to set up for the entry in the pattern. I warned my friend that his son's intercom would be turned off so I could concentrate. I set up for runway 28 and set down with a good landing. I got one of the best compliments a pilot can get from a passenger. My friend said everything was very smooth. "Smooth" is what passenger carrying pilots want to hear. That's high praise.
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