I am writing my first blog post for my new blog at 10,000′ over the Phillipsburg VOR on my way to Chicago Executive Airport, KPWK. I am flying the airplane with my COO, my Assistant and our Director of Sales and Marketing in our Cirrus SR22 Turbo. We are truing out at 175kts above a layer with the outside airtemp of -4c. All is right with the world.
We left KILG Wilmington, DE in a snowstorm, with snow rates of about 1-2 inches an hour. All the taxiways were unplowed and the runway had about 2 inches of snow. It was a basic non-event except for the challenge of a foggy windshield. The taxi was straightforward and the takeoff roll was all rudder at about 30kts.
The climb out was again a non-event with ice protection on normal there was 0 buildup on the wings. The ceiling was 600′ overcast and we were in the snow until about 9,000′. Another great experience in the Cirrus. It is a true time machine. The Philly airport was backed up several hours due to the slow arrivals and departures and just the general traffic flow. Once we got the plane out of the hangar we were in the air in 10 minutes. We will be buying chains for the tug as it was a bit of a challenge pulling the plane out. In fact, it was the toughest part of the flight!
Kevin, Chris and I pulling the plane out.
- I have the great gift of being able to combine my passion for flying with my overactive career as a CEO. We have 22 offices scattered around the US, with about 16 readily accessible via the airplane on leg to leg flights. We will board the plane on a Monday morning at 7am and visit 7-10 offices in a week, and return back to our families on Friday night. What a great way to travel. Even though I do the flying and flight planning I arrive much more refreshed than if I travel commercial. We go on our schedule and if we are late it doesn’t matter. We can all work in the plane on our laptops and have face to face discussion. On days that I cannot fly we have a roster of “relief pilots” that can move our executives around quickly and easily. It is possibly one of the best investments the company has made.
2:48 to go and deeply involved in a vendor discussion on how to improve our relationship! This simply would not happen flying commercial.
