To Confinement V

On Friday, I rose early, did some work that has to happen at the beginning of every month, loaded my bags in the car, and headed top Pontiac Airport.

Mr. B flew in from Indiana to pick me up and we were off to Confinement V.

Organized by Michael Z. Williamson, it was my first sci fi/fantasy con. I had heard about it from him when I met him up here in Michgian and he said I ought to come check it out, so I decided to do so and Mr. B. agreed to come along.

I parked and met Mr. B at the terminal on the south side of the airport (my hangar is on the north side but you're not supposed to leave your car out there long term) and headed out to the plane. I loaded my bags and we got some additional fuel for the trip.

Then, we got in his beautiful Cessna 340 and I got in the co-pilot's seat on the right, plugged in my headset, got out my IPad.  The flight plan was filed and we got our clearance, did the run up, and headed south. We climbed to 3,000, then 10,000 and finally to 14,000.

We were in and out of IMC during the way there.

We would go from above the layer, to in the layer, to getting a bit of ice, then be in a layer horizontally but with the sun right above us to melt the ice off.

It was a nice smooth flight almost the entire way down.

Then in Tennessee, the weather started deteriorating and our destination, M54 in Lebanon, TN started getting below minimums.  Their ASOS kept reporting lower and lower visibility.

So we decided to divert to Nashville but still kept the M54 ASOS available.

As were got on the ILS to fly into Nashville, it lifted just enough at M54 to try the approach.

So we gave it a try.

Mr. B. had the plane on the approach needles like it was on rails.  I mean perfect.

The runway came out right in front of the plane.

 Darn nice flying on Mr. B's part.

A great landing, and were were down, did a taxi to the FBO and shut the plane down.

We then got an Uber to the con hotel, well we thought it was the con hotel, but Uber app sent us to the wrong hotel initially, so I had to grab another.

This was sort of fortuitous as we then got to meet this Uber Dog.

I mean, due to the mix-up, we got to pet a very friendly good dog as part of the trip to the con.  Worth it.

Checked in at the Hotel, put our stuff in our room and we had arrived at my first con.