A week and a half back I had an epic day of flying. It ended with the flight where Patrick and I mounted the camera on the beacon of the Cherokee 6. However, it started with an awesome flight to Beaver Island, Michigan with Don (one of the partners in the Cherokee 6) in his Twin Piper Geronimo (yes, that means he has two planes).
I met up with Don and his buddy at the airport around 8am Saturday. They were fueling up the plane and preflighting when I got there. Even though his Geronimo is 50 years old she looked great on the ramp with her new paint job.
On the flight up I rode in the second seat and was able to play with the Garmin 496. We have a 496 in the Cherokee but I’m usually flying and using the Garmin 530 for setting up my routes and activating procedures. I haven’t had much time to interact with the 496. It was connected with XM weather which allowed me to easily get METARs for airports we were passing and check out the enroute weather conditions.
When coming into the area we cruised down the coast of the island and overflew the harbor and downtown. We then landed at the airport and jumped in the car that Don keeps there to get to and from his cottage. Beaver Island was what I was expecting in many ways. Lots of dirt roads, one primary downtown area, a mix of very simple dwellings and serious lake houses. One thing that was surprising was the size of the island. It was definitely bigger than I was expecting: two airports, multiple churches, schools, nice fire stations and even a large hospital. I was picturing more of bare bones summer vacation location. Not a fully equipped city with all the amenities in the middle of Lake Michigan.
We had lunch at a delicious little diner, spent a little time at his cottage and then headed home.
The title of this post is “first time” to Beaver Island because it is a little over 60 minutes in his twin, probably 90 minutes in the Cherokee and I imagine we’ll be doing it again. It’s an easy flight and a great way to spend a day on the weekend.
All captured in about 4 minutes of footage, enjoy.
