We can’t believe it’s already been two years since we last posted one of these… Time may be flying by, but the airports are still there!
Dispatchers Zach and Hunter both have been building their XC PIC time to work towards their instrument rating, so they took advantage of a beautiful day and flew to KRUT (Rutland/Southern Vermont Regional).
After a pre-flight inspection of the aircraft, we planned our route with both weather and terrain avoidance on our minds. The METAR was showing “clear & a million” but we did notice that there was a temperature inversion in the atmosphere and that visibility may be less than reported for the first few thousand feet on our climb out. After discussing our game-plan for logging simulated instrument time, we fired up the plane and we were off!
As we climbed out of PSM and contacted BOS DEP for flight following, we were already above the haze and it was apparent that this was going to be an awesome flight! The air was smooth, the atmosphere was happy, and the sun was shining! The only bad thing? The 35kt DIRECT headwind… However, we knew that would make for a fun tailwind coming home. The visibility was so high, there was nothing between us and Mt. Washington!
Our initial cruising altitude was 4500 feet and a little after we passed by KMHT, we began a climb up to 6500 as we began to approach some higher terrain (and ski resorts!). As we were cruising along at [now] 6,500 feet, we learned how funny it is to watch people skiing below us… definitely something everyone should watch!
As we descended into KRUT, we had not yet been able to hear the AWOS, but we decided to press on knowing that the signal was being blocked by a mountain in our path. As a result, we had to level off every 1000 feet-or-so, but soon-enough we heard that the winds were calm and made the appropriate CTAF calls.
We overflew the field 500’ above TPA before making a left-teardrop entry to the right downwind for runway 19, and after doing a stop-and-go on the runway, we were back on our way to Portsmouth! Although we would have loved to spend some more time exploring the area, we had to head home - but we will certainly be back!
Heading home, we climbed to 7500 feet and enjoyed a solid 40kt tailwind as we cruised back around 150kt (gs). This allowed us to shave 30 minutes from our return trip, which is always fun!
Thanks for reading & see you soon!
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