The $100 hamburger is what pilots call the trip to some random airport that has a good burger, because all told, it will cost you about $100 to get the burger. Actually, those figures are inaccurate, as it will cost more than $100 if the place you’re going is any distance away, and the hamburger doesn’t even have to be good. People fly to Cross City to feed beer to the alcoholic pigs, and will land on a short, crappy grass strip in Kentucky to witness the Virgin Mary as she has manifested herself in a bowl of spaghetti-o’s. You may be thinking “Gee, it sounds to me like these guys could see this stuff almost anywhere.” You’d be right. The $100 hamburger could be cardboard and Styrofoam. It is merely a reason, any reason, to fly somewhere. On Saturday my flight instructor and I flew to Savannah for what turned out to probably be a $1000 Grouper Melt, and it was great. We navigated as if he knew what we were doing, and in one of only a few flights I have had where my instructor wasn’t shutting off engines and making me do stalls and recite checklists, I learned more about how to FLY the plane rather than just control it. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that knowing what to do when things go bad is probably the most important part of flight training, but I’m not interested in aviation because I like engine fires. I’m interested in it because I like to fly. In order to fly safely, I have to know all of these procedures and regulations and be ready to use them, but it is good once in a while to get in a plane and go somewhere for the hell of it. I still felt constantly on guard for an engine to cut out, though. Part of the conditioning process.

We left Peachtree city at 1 pm, and were in Savannah by 2:40. Sure beats driving, which would have taken over four hours. We landed, parked the plane, and the FBO gave us the keys to a courtesy car. We hopped in our shiny silver Ford Focus and buzzed off to the river. I had never been to Savannah, and we missed our exit to the street that runs along the river and wound up driving right through the middle of town. I think the city was founded in the late 1700’s, and is so charming and southern that you just want to barf. Every street it seems was a boulevard, with wise old oaks dividing the center, each draped in Spanish moss. The houses were big and stately and screamed “old money”. A few also screamed “former slave owner”, but were still awesome to behold. This is really a beautiful city that I wish I could spend a few days looking around. We got to the river and walked out to find a place to eat. By now I was so hungry I was hardly conscious, and we went in to a little seafood joint and had the special, the grouper melt. Tasty.

This is a picture of the shops and apartments lining the river. I didn’t say it was a good picture, but how often do you see a Honda CRV?

We returned to Savannah International, paid for fuel, and went out to the ramp to find our little Seneca surrounded by much cooler airplanes. The one on the right is a Falcon 10, and the one on the left is a Citation X, which happens to be the second fastest passenger jet in the world (Concorde being the fastest). Planes like this sell for $12 to $18 million, depending on the bells and whistles. In other words, these guys were looking at a $122,431.63 grouper melt.

Funny, the Seneca looks so much more impressive when it is parked next to a bunch of 172’s and 150’s

We left Savannah after 4:00 sometime, and were in the air just in time to see the sun set. Seeing the sun set from an airplane is a totally different experience than from the ground, and so far I have yet to hear a logical reason why. You can see the whole thing. The horizon was clear, and we were flying west, so the whole spectacular affair seemed to last an hour.

Sun setting from my seat in the Cockpit. The fact that the left engine is running and we are at a somewhat normal attitude indicates that this was not the usual training flight. I know, the sun doesn’t set at 4:36. Not everything in the plane works as it should.

On the way home, I really learned about how the plane flies. I took the time to trim it up and get it to hold heading and altitude without touching the yoke. This is not a spectacular feat of airmanship by any means, but I was able to learn volumes about how the plane behaved with the tiniest of control inputs. I also found that the less you are doing to try to keep it where you want it, the more you notice the most minute weight shifts and changes in engine performance. Very interesting to say the least. Tomorrow I have to run through all of my multi-engine knowledge one last time, and I have my multi-engine checkride on Wednesday. Nothing like a couple of hours of simulated emergencies and stall recoveries to relax a guy. Then there will undoubtedly be another long drawn out entry about how that whole affair went.

Really, I am going to post an entry about the Halloween party and all of the other stuff I have promised. Just have to stop being so lazy and scan some pictures and stuff.

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