Flying - Escanaba In The Daylight

Delta County Gun Owners [The county in which Escanaba is located] and Michigan Open Carry held their 2nd Annual Picnic in Escanaba.

This time I'd be flying up there in my own aircraft.

I also had a couple passengers who wanted to go as well. Both were ATP Pilots with Endeavor, a subsidiary of Delta. Both fly Regional Jets. No pressure, right? They were also on board as backup in case the weather turned and we needed someone with an IFR cert to take over. Both the Diamond and Seneca frrm Last year were also flying along so we had a three ship visit rather than two last year.

So this would be not only my longest cross country as pilot in command to date, but also my first over a great lake.

Aside from about a 15 minute window, the route I had planned kept us within gliding distance of land should an issue arise. They liked that plan.

So I flew on up.

9,500 feet, about the highest I've flown so far as well. Altitude is your friend when crossing the lake.

The air was nice and smooth and it was a great flight up. I picked up flight following and soon talked to various flavors of Great Lakes Approach and then Minneapolis Center. Quite a bit of radio work and frequency and transponder code changes.

Unfortunately which flying near Saginaw on Great Lakes Approach (Saginaw) frequency, we heard an emergency in progress and as a plane went down due to an engine failure. You could tell the controller was shook up and a few planes assisted in looking for the ELT and rescue was dispatched to the location of the crash. Thankfully, it seems injuries were minor and everyone survived- 25 News: BREAKING NEWS: Plane crash in Saginaw County.

On we flew, and going "feet wet" over Lake Michigan was pretty cool.

When over water you don't want to adjust your power setting, mixture or fuel tank as those are the three most likely causes of engine failure, which would be bad.

I landed at KESC just minutes behind the other two aircraft in the group.

The landing was one of my best, nice and smooth and one of the pilots on board said it was smoother than how they land their CRJs. Bit of an ego boost, that as I always like to have my passengers happy with my landings.

Then to the picnic.

Quite a good turnout and both State Senator Ed McBroom [in the blue shirt] and State Rep Beau LaFave were there. Both are pro-second amendment and have been working on a variety of bills, including one to fix an issue with Concealed Carry Permits.

Some speeches took place including one from Tom Lambert, President of Michigan Open Carry.

Food was eaten, friends made, and as usual the people up in Escanaba are just top-rate nice folks.

Heck, even the airport manger was at the picnic and he was open carrying! He replaced the prior airport manager who had been from California and called the Sheriff on us last year when our passengers were open carrying in the General Aviation section of the airport, which is legal. Bit of a culture change at the airport.

On the flight home however, weather presented some issues. We were able to remain VFR but had to skirt some storm cells and instead of trying to thread through them we decided to stay on the west side of the state to about Grand Rapids to get well around them before heading for Pontiac. One of the flight tried to IFR their way through and ending up delayed and re-routed to the north to avoid the storms for quite awhile and I beat them home by a considerable margin even as they had a faster airplane. The ATP pilots were very helpful in planning the route back, the guys had weather route planning down to a science and made it look easy - I learned a lot from them and still have more to learn for sure.

Large cloud formations abounded, and I could only get as high as 6,500-7,500 due to cloud layers.

Here's the route back:

Contacting Pontiac, I was told to notify them when I was 2 miles from the downwind and then to land on 27R.

Again I did a really nice smooth landing. I was most pleased at keeping the professionals happy. Both enjoyed the flights a lot and enjoyed getting out for a jaunt in a GA aircraft. Really nice guys the both of them.

Thanks to a tailwind, we were doing 130 knots ground speed on the way back, so even with the route we got back quicker than when we headed out into a 9 knot headwind. 3.0 hours there versus 2.6 back.

It was a great flight both ways.

That's 5.6 hours and 2 landings.

Delta County Gun Owners Picnic

Delta County Gun Owners and Michigan Open Carry were having a picnic in Escanaba and we were invited. 

We arrived at Escanaba airport at 12:30 and they kindly picked us all up and drove us the 5 minutes or so to the park where the event was taking place.

One of the passengers on the Seneca was Rick Ector, a notable Detroit Gun Rights Activist:

His first flight on a General Aviation aircraft.  A most excellent passenger and a real nice guy.  He enjoyed the ride.

A few local political candidates attended, and it was a large turnout with a very nice bunch of folks.  7 of us flew up from the lower peninsula to join the event.

Lots of families, kids, and dogs were present and it was a very nice time indeed.  Lots of good conversation, food, hospitality and good-natured ribbing of us Trolls (Trolls because were live in the lower Peninsula - under the bridge as it were to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan). 

Most people present were open carrying and did so without any issues.

Since Escanaba is Michigan's first line of defense from Wisconsin, this is a good thing.

 Holsters were quite diverse and ranged the gamut from Safariland ALS and similar with excellent retention, which make a lot of sense when open carrying, to some decent kydex, to some leather with retention straps, to Serpas, to Fobus, to nylon floppies on a floppy belt, all the way to a shoulder holster that did not even cover the trigger on the firearm that was in it.  

There's a lot of diverse options for holsters out there.

A very nice and hospitable event.  Then we said our goodbyes and headed to the airport.

Arriving back to the airport, we then had a fun experience.

As we headed into the airport via the General Aviation entrance and GA pilot's lounge, an airport worker saw the fellows who were open carrying and stated that firearms were illegal in the airport.

He was politely told this was not true.  He then said he'd call the Sheriff, which he did.

As we were pre-flighting the planes, a Sheriff Sargent pulled up to the airport and then came out on the tarmac with the airport worker.  He had a discussion with him and then chatted with us. 

The Sargent was a nice fellow and pointed out to the airport worker that he was wrong and all of this was perfectly legal, which it was.   We had a nice chat, everyone shook hands and the Sargent then left and went about his business and we then took off. 

It was a great visit to the Upper Peninsula and the first one I've done since going up there with Murph a long time ago.  Now that I can fly and have use of a plane to get there, future trips will be in store.

Saturday Fly Day - To Escanaba In Da Daylight

Yesterday the day began with weather that was less than promising, with Low IFR conditions at Pontiac and along and at the intended destination.

I had been invited to fly up to Escanaba for an event. A day in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.



This being a fun idea and getting a calendar clearance from she-who-must-be-obeyed,  I said yes and arrived at Pontiac at 10:30 instead of 9:30 as originally planned due to the weather delay.

I was given an opportunity to fly right-seat in this:

A Piper Seneca.  My first multi-engine flying experience.

Since the Pilot also happened to be a CFII MEI, this would be a good opportunity to learn. We also had a couple passengers on board.

So we completed the checklist, got our IFR clearance and headed off to Escanaba, climbing up to 12,000 feet.



It was very smooth at altitude.

A very nice aircraft, the owner has upgraded the avionics most impressively with all the digital upgrades which made for very easy flight management.

After the event we headed back in VFR condiitons.

I handled the taxi and takeoff, which was a lot of fun, and hand flew it for awhile before George the autopilot took over.

Then we linked up with a fellow aircraft that had gone to the event for some pictures. Both our pilot and the pilot flying the Diamond at the time had prior training in formation flying and this was pre-arranged.

I managed to get some decent pictures and after a bit we broke off (video by Eric Coggin in the DA-40): 

'

After that we picked up flight following from Saginaw and returned to Pontiac, landing on 9L.

That was a darn nice couple of flights.

3.9 dual received, 2 landings.