More Flying - Bremerton- August 2006

My friend Mike and I went flying a few weeks ago. I'm just now making my blog entry. Unfortunately I had forgotten my camera but was lucky that Mike had remebered his. He was able to get some pretty good pictures. The week before Mike and I had made arrangements to go flying the weather had been amazing. Clear, and in the 80's. So when the day came along for our flight the weather had sucked all day. It was overcast and in some areas of Seattle it had rained that day. Imagine, rain in Seattle. Who knew? Anyway...by the end of the day the clouds had broken up and the weather was good enough for VFR flight.

We were only flying from Everett (Pain Field - PAE) to Bremerton (PWT). It's a short 30 minute flight southwest from Paine Field. We departed to the south and turned South EWest and headed over the water. The evening clouds actually made the evening sky very beautiful. Not to mention that Seattle is surrouned by so much water that the flying in the Pacific Northwest is amazing. It always seems different every time I fly. Despite what most people believe, alot of the time, Seattle has amazing summers. It's the winters that suck.

We flew down across the sound near Elliot bay and within sight of Downtown Seattle. It was beautiful against the clouds and the sun shining from the west as it was setting. As we came closer to Bremerton we skirted to the South of Bremerton due to the TFR (Temporary Flight Restriction) over the Naval Shipyard. Although the Flight restriction is actually permanent. The inlet from Puget Sound to Bremerton (don't know the name) points directly to Bremerton National Airport but we followed the southern shore line directly to the airport.

Once we arrived at Bremerton we hopped out of the airplane and walked over to the restaurant. They are known in the area for thier Fish & Chips. They are really good. So we ate dinner there and stuffed ourselves. The only thing that would have made it better is a Beer. But can drink and fly !

So we departed Bremerton to the East and flew toward Sea-Tac International Airport. I levelled off at 1,500 feet and contacted Seattle Tower on 119.9 and requested the West-East Transition. They assigned us a squawk code and instructed me to fly over the southern end of the airport over the numbers for 34L and 34R. It’s amazing to be able to fly over such a busy airport with all the airliners taking off and landing below. Obviously Sea-Tac is not as busy as many other airports in the U.S. But as we were flying over there were several Alaska and Southwest 737s on approach and a few taking off. We could also see the airplanes parked at the terminals. It gives a very unique perspective to the airport you can’t normally get as a passenger waiting for a flight or even departing or arriving.

Once we completed the Transition, we were over Kent. This placed us directly south of the airspace for both Renton (RNT) and Boeing Field (BFI). During the transition I had tuned in the ATIS for Renton and had the Tower frequency (124.7) ready to switch over. After being released by the Sea-Tac tower and the frequency change was approved, I contacted Renton tower and requested a Touch-and-go departing to the north so that we could continue back to Paine Field to complete our flight for the evening. My request to the Renton Tower was approved. After completing the touch-and-go we departed over Lake Washington and flew up the Each Channel directly over Bellevue.

The flight over Lake Washington was nice and smooth. I received the airport conditions at Paine Field and then contacted the Tower for clearance to land. We were cleared for 34R and landed with out incident.