Welcome Back · · PAGE 453. 

November 30, 2019:  Today was the Sunday after Thanksgiving in the USA.  The LAST flight of the Enterprise was August 24, 2019 to test out the ADS-B OUT transmitter.  I have been doing my day job at home and on the road since August.  I actually took a nine-day vacation with my friend Linda in July to see a lot of America's Heartland including one day at Airventure in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.  I have plenty of photos, but not for now or here.  I will eventually publish some pages during the Christmas 2019 Holiday when my day job comes to a halt as it does every year.

Some of you may know I spend a lot of my time with my lady friend who lives in the Kissimmee / Saint Cloud area of Central Florida.  When I go to the Rockledge Airport from here, the route is 50.6 miles on the GPS ground track.  Here is the complete ground track for today's flight and my trip in my car to the Rockledge Airport and a return via my normal residence to pick up my mail and my telescope as winter in Florida can have some really clear nights to see the heavens.

For now, we need to discuss my most recent flight in the Central Florida area.  When I got to the airport on Saturday, November 30, I found the airplane up front in the hangar and the battery trickle charger unplugged.  I got that plugged in and discovered the battery voltage was down to about 11.7 volts.  I got the charger plugged in and was greeted by the RED LED that says it was charging at a rate of 2 amperes.  The GREEN LED comes on when the charger is in "trickle" mode at low current.  The tires were also at low pressure considering it was a hot summer day when I put new tires and tubes on the wheels.

I took off the front bowls of the main wheel fairings and completely removed the nose wheel fairing to put air in all the tires.

Compare this picture with the first one in this series and you can see the difference with 10 PSI versus 40 PSI when I started putting the wheel fairings back on. 

Finally the fairings are in place and ready to fly, EXCEPT for that low battery voltage.  It was time for lunch anyway, so I went to the nearby Wendy's to get my usual light lunch of Caesar side salad and small chili.

When I came back, a quick check of the main battery voltage was above 12.4 volts.  The engine started up easily and after a warm-up at the north end of the runway, it was time to fly to Umatilla for fuel.  I saw ONE airplane pass by heading East as I was heading West.  The other airplane was about 500 below me and about half a mile off to the left of my path.  I had my digital camera with me, but it did not make into the airplane.  I discovered the lack of the camera when I was on autopilot flying along the north side Orlando Class B air space at 4,500 feet.  The only camera I had was in my cell phone.  Here are a couple of images I could not preview in flight like I can with my digital camera.  The reflected sunlight from a couple of lakes caused the image to be underexposed.  I use a polarizing filter on my digital camera, but that is not possible with the cell phone camera.

  
The second image suffered the same fate to a lesser degree.

Taking a photo of my instrument panel came out much better.  My GPS alerted me to begin my descent toward Umatilla and to "thread the needle" past the nearby military gunnery range restricted area and the north side of Orlando Class B.

After a fuel stop at Umatilla, I took this photo before beginning my engine run-up tests at the north end of the field for runway 19.  I was glad to see the full-length taxiway was completed since the last time I flew in for fuel.  You can see the flying weather was perfect today.

Here is my GPS ground track for the arrival and departure from Umatilla.  Take notice of the track when I was on the new taxi way.

The first big lake I crossed after leaving Umatilla is Lake Apopka northwest of the Orlando metro area.

Flying down the west side of Orlando reveals a chain of lakes with populated areas all around them.  I passed over Disney World with seeing anything of the park out my window.  I was above the 3,000 feet AGL restriction as I flew past here at 3,500 MSL.  The Disney World ground elevation is about 95 feet MSL.

I flew around the Kissimmee Airport (ISM) and its Class D air space and I am remaining below the Orlando Class B air space on the south side of the Orlando area.  The big lake ahead is the northernmost lake at the north end of the Kissimmee River which flows south to Lake Okeechobee down near the West Palm Beach area where I learned to fly in the early 1990's.  This lake is named Tohopekaliga and is the Lakeshore for the town of Kissimmee.  I am on an east bound heading for this photo.

Here is the GPS flight path around Kissimmee Airport and my two turns-around-a-point for my friend to see my airplane in flight.  Look closely at the map below and you will see TWO lakes with the name Tohopekaliga.  My departure from this area back to the Rockledge Airport arrival only took 15 minutes of flight time.

Here are the GPS tracks near the Rockledge Airport and the Melbourne area for today.

Here is the GPS ground and air paths near the Rockledge Airport for November 30, 2019.

The flight time added today is 1.9 hours for a new total of 435.0 hours on the Enterprise.