My son is a high school football coach in Northern Virginia. Last night was the final game of their season and if they won the game, they would be the district champions. I had already been to two games this season despite the fact that it is a 2.5-hour drive to NOVA. This time I decided to fly my airplane up to the game. Danny Anderson and I made the trip. The
The first choice I needed to make was which airfield to fly into. Leesburg, Manassas and Dulles were on my short list. After looking at cost and logistics, Dulles was the clear winner. It was closer to the game site, and we could use the Metro to get there. Atlantic Aviation’s pricing was very good (it costs less to park my airplane overnight than it would have cost me to park my car in the average DC parking lot).
The weather looked pretty crappy for the flight up, but by midday on Friday it was improving a lot and ended up being a very nice VFR trip. The wind even cooperated and we were essentially on a 40 mile straight into the 01L runway. After landing we had close to three miles of taxiing to get to the FBO.
Shout out to Atlantic Aviation. Super professional and easy to work with. Didn’t even push back when I complained about the below average selection of halloween candy they had at the check in desk. Also very nice for them to drive us over to the metro.
The game was GREAT. Drew’s team notched a solid come-from-behind win and won the district championship (5th time in the last 35 years). Danny and I went out to celebrate the win with Drew and the other coaches. Probably the first time I stayed out until 1:30am in several decades.
The weather for the trip back was miserable at our destination. Great ceilings, but low visibility with fog and mist. We decided to delay our departure until about 6am when the weather forecast was for excellent conditions at both KIAD and KFCI. It worked out great and the flight back was very easy. A two hour post flight nap was also very nice…
It may seem a bit intimidating to fly into a very big class bravo airport like Dulles, but it really isn’t too bad. The controllers are very, very good at what they do and everything operates smoothly.
Would definitely do it again.
