My Student Pilot's Log
Key West

Flight 26, part 2

Flight 26: continued

By the time we finished our planning and preflight, however, the fog was gone, and we were able to go VFR. I had volunteered to fly the first half (so I could do the landing in Key West- pretty clever, eh?).

We intended to fly at 5500 feet, but for the first half hour or so, I had to stay below 3000 and zigzag a few times to avoid clouds. I called St. Petersburg to open the flight plan and Tampa to request flight following.

Eventually I got back on course and climbed to 5500, almost twice as high as I'd been before, and above the (statute) mile mark. It was also the first time I've flown above clouds.

That's Naples (APF) on the left.

When we passed over Fort Myers (RSW) I turned due south toward Key West. A few minutes later we were over the Gulf of Mexico, and shortly after that passed the last land we would see for at least a half hour.

The next checkpoint was our destination. There was nothing to see but sky, water, sun, and an occasional bird or boat, but it was fun flying over international waters. The flight from Tampa was about 220 nautical miles, about 85 of which were over open water. We were about 30 miles from land during that part of the flight.

The air over the Gulf was as smooth as could be, partly due to the lack of clouds, and also because there's no land to deflect the heat and cause turbulence. Navigation was easy- all I had to do was fly due south.

If I had been off course to the east, there are 150 miles of Keys to point me back to Key West. Too far to the west, and the absence of land after enough time had passed would have been a clue as well. Once we got past Naples, there was no traffic until Key West was in sight.

We had a decent tailwind and got into Key West in 2 hours, 5 minutes. The airport was busy, and since it is within three miles of a Naval Air Station, some traffic heads for the wrong airport.

Somebody else did that right before we arrived, and proceeded to tie up the Key West control frequency by arguing with the controller. That makes it hard for the tower to do its job, so we got a nice aerial tour of the islands waiting for them to get back to us.

(There's little excuse for mistaking one airport for the other on such a clear day. Key West has a simple east-west runway; the NAS is much larger with several intersecting runways. Another clue is that the NAS is the one with all the military planes!)