Captain Micah: It’s Been Too Long, Teterboro

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

It’s Been Too Long, Teterboro

I had a feeling that this new job would take me to New York City quite often. But, truth be told, this trip was only my second time there in a year.

That’s OK. It just makes me appreciate it even more when I do get to go.

Especially now that we usually stay long enough to make the trip worth it. In this particular case, we landed in Teterboro just west of New York City on a Saturday afternoon and didn’t leave for home again until the following Thursday.

Sounds good to me!

With such a long flight, we really have to load the airplane up with fuel. Luckily, enough went in through the single-point fueling port that we didn’t need to unlock the over-the-wing fueling caps to allow for another fifteen gallons or so.

The flight will take just over four hours to get there. I love tailwinds.

I was the first one to the airplane, like usual. So I started getting her primed and ready for her big ~~date~~ flight towards one of my favorite places on earth.

Great joy comes when thinking that I will even have time to explore the city for a few days! Eek!

With some passengers and their baggage loaded up, it was time to be on our way. We passed one of the two FBOs here on the field.

I love being part of a private hangar, where we don’t have to use an FBO at our home field. It’s awesome!

At the beginning to Runway 21, we waited for this old Learjet to land before it was our turn for takeoff.

Those things on his wings? Those are fuel tip tanks because his old engines burn so much!

Goodbye, Home! See you next week! But only for an hour before we are gone for another three days.

Busy few months? I should say so.

It was a little hazy today, but that can happen here occasionally. I pretend that it isn’t caused by pollution.

But it very well could be. Who’s to say?

That’s a little winglet peeking out from Gladys. She don’t need no wingtip fuel tanks!

We crossed the Great Plains on our way to Teterboro this morning. Since it was March, it made sense that there was still a lot of that yucky white stuff down there on the ground.

I’m not a fan, really.

With the tailwind helping to push us along, we made great time from home to the east coast today. We even had an excess of 400 pounds of fuel, above our usual 900 extra pounds!

But that is just insurance, since New York Center usually has to drop us down lower quite a ways out, which burns more fuel. It all worked out well today. We had the extra to burn.

Even though our indicated airspeed at Flight Level 450 was only 197 knots, we were going 503 knots groundspeed. Awesome! We were still able to get about 445 knots true up there, which is pretty derned impressive.

But I am biased. You should know that by now.

It’s really a small miracle that anyone can read my chicken scratch when copying a clearance. They usually talk so fast! But I have to admit that flying into Teterboro is a heck of a lot easier than into JFK.

Yuck! I wouldn’t mind if we never had to do that again!

Speaking of Teterboro, we flew the Wilkes Barre Four Arrival into the area this afternoon. Luckily, it wasn’t crazy busy, so we were cleared directly to the Wilkes-Barre VOR to begin the arrival.

And why isn’t it very busy down there? Because it’s nasty windy, that’s why.

It was gusting about forty knots when we landed, and it certainly wasn’t straight down the runway.

It was a rare instance where it felt really good to be back on the ground…after so many bumps on the descent from the Low Level Wind Shear, as well as a tough approach and landing by El Capitan.

Wind is my least favorite form of weather, I think. But that white stuff isn’t very fun, either.

It looks all calm and sunny out there, but from about 12,000 feet to our touchdown in Teterboro, we were getting knocked around quite a bit. I even tightened my seatbelt a time or two.

It’s no fun for people in back when the bumps are so strong. But they handled it like champs!

This is the MetLife Stadium and IZOD Center in New Jersey, where some of the professional teams play. A few days after landing at the airport, I rode right past these stadiums in a bus on my way into the city.

They look a lot smaller from the air…

On final approach for Runway 1, I had a great view of the city from the right window. Can you see the One World Trade Center being built? How about the Empire State Building, which just got passed by the One World Trade Center as the tallest building in the city?

There’s a lot to explore over there, and I’m so excited to have a few days to spend!

What a relief to be on the ground with such awful winds.

OK, I’ll stop complaining about it now.

But it was windy, just so you know.

Speaking of things that I hate, look at those piles of snow from the winter plowing? Isn’t that crazy?

We got to admire lots of pretty airplanes on our long taxi to the Meridian Aviation FBO. We love going there!

Gulfstreams, Falcons, and Westwinds. And there are five FBOs on the field, so this is just a few of the incredible display of airplanes parked at Teterboro.

You see, Teterboro is the corporate reliever airport for the New York City area. It’s really hard for the non-airliners to get into La Guardia and JFK, so we come here instead. It’s just a short half-hour drive through the Lincoln Tunnel and into the city from here.

And believe me…it’s a lot easier on the pilots!

With our passengers loaded up in their car, we were soon enjoying the view of some other metal on the ramp where we parked.

This old Gulfstream has the old, loud, low-bypass engines, but they have fitted a silencer of sorts to help it meet the strict noise requirements of lots of the popular airports these days.

Can you see the white cones attached to the ends of the engines? Shhhhhhhhh.