Flying at Sunset

I reserved the NEFC four seater Beech Sundowner, and planned to fly to Portsmouth NH. I was going to take Zain with me. Everything turned out to be as planned, except that Zain woke up sick with cold. When I pushed Maheen to go with me instead, she cried because she had a play date with her friend! When I was a kid, I could have skipped a hundred days of play just to get one ride on a Cessna. I did get to sit in a Cessna once, when I was in grade 2, and I still remember that day 30 years later.  But my kids think its no big deal. I drove to the airport alone.  Luckily I did not have to fly alone, as Scott, who was at the airport to give me introduction to starting the planes in cold weather, agreed to accompany me. 

The weather was perfect with no clouds, very clear, and warm near 60 degrees. We changed the plan to get to Nashua NH, eat at a restaurant there, then head back in the smaller 100 HP two seater skipper.  That was a drastic change in the plan but Scott acted as a navigator, and we had some great views of the sunset.

We took off at around 2:40 PM frorm Lawrence, and were landing in Nashua at 3:00 PM.  The skipper is a great plane, and much lighter in control. The performance was not bad.  Although it was a cool day, you can see that we got good 600 FPM climb rate with two people in it.

This is the Lawrence VOR that we intercepted to get to Nashua. 

In the way I saw a familiar apartment complex near freeways 495/93.  I have a feeling that I have driven to these before. Anyone of my friends lives here? 

We landed at Nashua.  I am looking at the airport from the landing pattern.  When we landed at around 3 PM, the restaurant had already closed.  We were so hungry that we debated about eating at Keene airport, about 30 miles west, but then decided against it for we were not feeling like flying at night (we were 1 hour from Sunset), and headed back to Lawrence.

The sun was about to set when we flew over Lowell.

The sunset was very orange today as we landed at Lawrence on runway 23.

I fueled the plane using this truck. Pulled the plane right up to the truck, started the truck, and trned on the fuel pump, then dragged the fuel line to put fuel in both tanks. Even fueling can give you a rush. 

By the time the plane was tied down, it was almost dark.  I was able to take a snapshot of a helicopter about to depart in the shadows of night.  Scott nudged me and remarked, "Be careful, people get suspicious if you take pictures at the airport".