Sunday, May 10, 2020

Day 1

And off we go!

Expecting some hard-core headwind that slowed us down almost 20 knots (that’s 20% of our speed), we finally departed the North Eastern homefield on route to the South West. packing took a while, we are luckily well below the max takeoff weight but the weight needed to be placed correctly in order to stay in the limits of weight and balance.

As our farewell committee (Robert and Andrew) bid us farewell, i was already thirsty for the celebratory beer they held in hand. Well, that will have to wait.

Flying though the beautiful Amish country, full of small farms that are being interestingly worked into curved shapes. First stop Allegheny County (KAGC), reloaded on cheap fuel and free coffee and headed out West, onto the industrial part of PA.

Bayley Mine was a place I always wanted to photograph, and I was not disappointed. We have seen some serious destruction of the land especially as the mine is surrounded by the vast areas of green. The mine was actually closed due to the COVID-19 outbreak at the time of the photography.

However, the weather was coming. The fast-moving cold front that has been driven by a heavy low pressure system over the Lakes brought some heavy winds, extreme drop in temperature and a lot of rain. Luckily, we have landed before the hell started, and it was at some point so bad that we had difficulties holding the airplane in place as it was weathervaning onto the ever-changing wind. We decided this night will be spent in the airplane instead.

Tired, wet, but happy we fell asleep quite fast.