A flight to nowhere?

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jb642DA
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Re: A flight to nowhere?

Post by jb642DA »

Nice flight Rick!!
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Re: A flight to nowhere?

Post by juliei »

Yes, my husband and I take off every now and then in our DA40 NG for a local scenic flight over Lake Keowee and Lake Jocassee from our home base at KAND. We did this a couple of weekends ago and it was lovely. The winds both on the surface and aloft were calm and the visibility was unlimited--severe clear as they say. We also flew over Seneca, SC where a tornado struck on Easter Sunday. We were able to get some shots of the Borg Warner plant that was severely damaged. We do this from time to time just for fun. Soon I would like to fly up the coast of North Carolina starting from home at KAND to KMRH to W95 to KHSE to KFFA, but I want to wait until restaurants/museums open. I hear Amos Mosquitos Restaurant at Atlantic Beach in Beaufort, NC is excellent.
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Re: A flight to nowhere?

Post by Boatguy »

My wife and I have been making pretty much weekly flights for "picnic at an airport". Restaurants are closed so we take a picnic lunch and our folding chairs. We've only needed the chairs at one airport (KSMX). At O22, KMER (via Yosemite), KWJF, KTRK (via Susanville), KLMT and KRBL we always found a convenient picnic table. FBOs or apt offices were sufficiently open to provide a restroom and we never needed fuel for an out and back of up to 600nm.

We wear a mask when entering to use the restrooms, but the airports have been very quiet and we don't see many people.

ATC has been generally pretty quiet as well, though a few sectors are totally jammed. We actually got minute by minute updates on primary radar targets over Yosemite from Oakland Center who clearly wasn't too busy. Not much commercial traffic in the FLs, and they were covering GA as far south as SOCAL Approach. Same thing in northern California where center seemed to have plenty of time to chat before handing us off to Seattle Center.

Towers have more limited hours, but we flew day VMC and the towers (where there was one) were open. Some were embarrassingly quiet with literally 2-3 operations while we ate lunch!

Enjoy!
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Re: A flight to nowhere?

Post by CFIDave »

In my experience going IFR with the smaller number of airline flights due to the virus, ATC controllers seem to be just as busy -- but the sectors are now huge. I get fewer handoffs between sectors than before.

In other words, ATC (centers and TRACONS) seem to have been able to reduce their staffing needs by creating a smaller number of larger sectors.
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Rich
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Re: A flight to nowhere?

Post by Rich »

Flew nowhere today - a perfect flying day. Sunny and clear with 100+ mile visibility - hardly a bump in the air. And a gajillion airplanes :D

Wifey suggested we go flying (I was planning to anyway). She got to test out her newly restored vision (cataract surgery in both eyes over the last couple of weeks) and was ecstatic over her improved ability to pick out other aircraft and details on the ground.
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Re: A flight to nowhere?

Post by Colin »

able to reduce their staffing needs by creating a smaller number of larger sectors
They do this at night normally. When I fly south from SF to LA the frequency list changes if it is past 9pm or so.
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Re: A flight to nowhere?

Post by rdrobson »

CFIDave wrote: Fri May 22, 2020 2:23 pmIn other words, ATC (centers and TRACONS) seem to have been able to reduce their staffing needs by creating a smaller number of larger sectors.
A couple of weeks ago I was flying NE of Denver and on with center and got a laugh out of this exchange:

SKYWEST: Skywest 1234 with you on 122.35. Good grief, how long are we going to be talking to you anyway? Seems like we're following you all across the sky.
ATC: Thanks Skywest 1234. I'm running 7 sectors right now. Everything north and east of Denver.
SKYWEST: Wow! This Covid stuff must really have your traffic numbers down.
ATC: No, I'm just that good.

They talked longer and ATC fessed up to only handling 1500 flights/day in that area when normal traffic was 6000. I wasn't sure if that was all of Denver center or not.
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