Monday 5 November 2007

Today we are going to fly from Orlando Executive(KORL) to Key West(KEYW).

The plan is to fly there, find a place to stay, and return to Orlando the next day.

Aircraft for the trip is, once again, C182T N2144V.

Departure from Executive is at 0900h and we set course to Winter Haven under 'flight following' with Orlando Approach. As we pass abeam Kissimmee approval is given to climb to our planned cruising level of 5500' and to set course to our first waypoint at 'DEEDS'. The cruising altitude of 5500' will keep us below the MOA that exists over a large area of Central Florida between Orlando and Lake Okeechobee.

Cruise is uneventful as we cruise at a TAS of 132kts under the watchful eye of Miami Center.

Fort Myers, off to the west, is the only real point of interest as we fly over fairly featureless landscape for the next hour or so.

Once we reach the waypoint at 'DEEDS' we could have routed direct to Key West (EYW) at this point but I have decided to continue south towards Marathon (MTH) on the Keys to reduce the time over water. This takes us over the Everglades which is just as unattractive in the event of a forced landing. The choice of flying over the Everglades compared to over water has very little gain. Forced landing in the Gulf of Mexico will probably mean sharks to contend with while a forced landing in the Everglades will probably mean alligators. I trust that the Coastguard helicopter will turn up fairly quickly!

We, eventually, start to pick up a view of the Keys ahead of us and Marathon Airport shortly after.

Overhead Marathon we turn right and commence a VFR descent into Key West. Once the descent is commenced we lose two-way contact with Miami Center so a call is made to Boca Chica Approach to advise them of our problem and to transit their airspace.

Boca Chica is the large US Navy airbase just to the east of Key West. One other good reason to fly a dog-leg into Key West is the proximity of the Navy observation balloon situated just to the north-east of the Naval Air Station. The big danger to any aircraft is the cable it is run out on and can extend to thousands of feet. The observation ballon is mainly used to keep an eye on Cuba and any illegal activity in the Gulf of Mexico.

The cable is marked on the GPS map display.

If you look very carefully in the top left of the picture below you may just be able to pick out the balloon at, I guess, about 6000'.

As we approach Boca Chica NAS we are transferred to their Tower frequency.

He instructs us to keep at least 3 miles south of his airfield and not to descend below 2000' as he has an F18 Hornet jet in the circuit. We comply with this and, once clear, we call Key West Tower. A join is made right downwind for runway 9 and an uneventful, albeit windy, arrival is made.

We park at the local FBO and our aircraft is, subsequently, towed to the line.

Flight time Orlando/Executive to Key West was 2h 10min.

Hotels in Key West are fairly expensive so it is probably worth booking in advance to get an internet discount.

The rest of the day is spent doing the tourist thing around Key West.