For Independence Day I flew to a suitably patriotic site: The Kalamazoo Air Zoo.
Flew VFR with flight following. Pontiac airport was rather quiet at even at 9:00 am they still were using the ASOS rather than the ATIS. Called up ground and got flight following. I decided to fly to KAZO via the HAAKK waypoint so it kept me away from Battle Creek where there was a TFR for an airshow there and would otherwise be directly in the route.
So I flew there and it was quire a nice day. Very smooth conditions.
Some haze and a layer at around 5,500 that stopped me from climbing to 6,500 as I had planned.
Flew by Battle Creek, safely outside the TFR.
Got clearance to land on Runway 17, and was told to enter a left base and did so and then did a nice landing. Stopped lined up right for the taxiway to go right to the Air Zoo, which was fortuitous and rather perfect for arrival. Did the very short taxi and parked the plane and got let in through the back of the museum and signed in. We were in the second building, the Flight Discovery Center, where they do the restorations and had the place to ourselves in the morning.
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| Grumman F-11 Tiger in Blue Angels Livery |
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| F-104 Starfighter |
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| F-117 Nighthawk - the only one on display outside of a government museum. |
There is also an F-86 Sabre and a MiG-15 on display:
Lots of cool things to see in the building, including their work restoring a SBD-1 Dauntless recovered from Lake Michigan. The plane went down in 1942, killing the trainee pilot and was recovered in 1994, 52 years later.
The restoration is coming along, per the status board:
Very cool and it is not far from being restored to display condition, even as it doesn't look it. Unfortunately, it will not be restored to flying condition, only display. When complete, will be shipped off to the Pearl Harbor National Memorial Museum.
We then went to the main building, the Flight Innovation Center, which had more people there.
And lots more aircraft to see.
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| SR-71 |
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| V-1 Missile |
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| XP-55 The Only One Left In The World. |
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| P-47 |
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| Buchon, the Spanish copy of the ME BF-109 |
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| A Pink P-40 |
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| F-14 Tomcat of Top Gun fame |
We also got in line and tried the full motion simulators.
Yes, you can do a full 360 degree roll in them.
Much fun.
Then we walked back to the Flight Discovery Center and saw more aircraft on display outside.
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| F-4 Phantom II |
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| MiG-21 |
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| S-3 Viking |
A decent cloud layer was in place. Time to fly back VFR and play dodge cloud.
Did a weather brief, and pre-flight, and called Kalamazoo Ground for flight following back to Pontiac via HAAKK, and to taxi.
Got all that done and did a nice takeoff.
On connection to Great Lakes Approach, they asked me if I had put the HAAKK waypoint in myself. I said I had. The controller then said nice job putting it in to avoid the Battle Creek TFR.
Quite a few clouds about. I was at 3,500 and couldn't get above for awhile.
Then I got a break in the clouds and climbed to 7,500.
But I soon had to descend as the clouds further ahead were going up higher than I could climb. So I descended to 5,500 to make a clear way through and maintain VFR.
I got handed overt to Detroit Approach and they noted a large area of heavy (and unforecast precipitation) between me and Pontiac. I could actually see the area of heavy rain. Heavy enough that it blocked out all visibility, and the rain shadow was visible for a good distance.
So, I diverted south to avoid it, and then once past it and with sufficient distance away, I resumed heading back to Pontiac. I got the weather at Pontiac, and got handed off to Tower, and entered the downwind for Runway 27L, but was then switched to 27R and made a nice landing.
That's 1.4 there and 1.2 back and two very nice landings, and a great time in Kalamazoo.
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