Our 3rd #BlooForceOne Flight! Join Alumni along this yearly tradition of watching a sneak peek (at the time) of Bluecoats Drum & Bugle Corps 2018 production "Session 44", during their Spring Training.

The journey starts early morning on May 27th, 2018, my wife and I hustled up to Burke Lakefront Airport to ready the Cessna Centurion for another fun trip. After an hour of positioning the GoPros, setting up Bloo Gift Bags for each passenger, and doing a thorough preflight, we loaded up the aircraft and got ATIS.

Weather wasn't much of an issue today, we had a weak front moving southeast out of Ohio, and would be coming up behind it. There was a Tropical Storm moving up into the Ohio Valley on Tuesday, but that wouldn't affect today's operations.

It was a typical departure out of Burke Lakefront, a right turn to 350, up to 2,000 ft and over to departure. Cleveland departure, one of my favorites, cleared me to our cruise altitude of 6,000 ft. almost immediately, and turned to 300, then 270, then direct.

We had 4 passengers, and planned on picking up 2 more Bluecoats alumni in Cincinnati, which was now just a bit over 1 hour until touchdown.

As we passed Mansfield, I noticed I hadn't been handed off to another sector or approach, and started to worry that they had forgotten about me. Sure enough, my worst fears were true! I pulled up Foreflight and dialed in the closest sector, and Columbus approach was very helpful in setting me straight! It wasn't that I felt "lost" but was worried about the lack of radar coverage (when I thought I had it). Weather being VFR, it wasn't much of an issue.

As the flight quickly transistioned from cruise to arrival, we noticed that the GoPro camera on the wing was great at 160kts, but not so much at 180kts! While not a full failure, it did slip from its original position. This was the first time using the wingcam, and I have since tweaked it to make this never happen again.

Cincinnati approach was BUSY! Major props to everyone there, you are under a heavy load, and perform flawlessly. The terminal approach was uneventful, and Lunken tower was very helpful and welcoming.

What can I say about Waypoint Aviation? Its one of the coolest looking places I've been to! Brand new facilities, and incredible service. Highly recommend everyone visits there at least once. It's my goto for Cincinnati for sure now.

After taxing Bravo to Charlie and then a right on Hotel straight into Waypoint. My alumni passengers were already waiting for us, and the turnaround was effortless, after making a few tightening turns on the wingcam.

On departure, tower was extremely helpful: they knew I was departing to Marion, IN, and tried to get me off of 3R, but approach unfortunately cleared someone into 21L just as I taxied up to 3R. Tower informed me that I'd need to backtaxi. Departure was beautiful out of Lunken. The Ohio River and its tributaries off of our wing as we turned to the north as scenic as Ohio gets.

The last phase of the flight consisted of transitioning from the Northeast to the Midwest, and there was no doubt that we had arrived in Indiana, after hearing the dialect change abruptly!

Some scattered cumulus started building at our cruise altitude of 6,000 ft., so I asked for 4,000 ft. and continued a mildly bumpy ride into Marion Municipal Airport for a straight in approach to 33.

If you haven't checked out my channel, I have been flying for over 20 years now, and just started documenting my travels and adventures in various aircraft, most recently the Cessna 210 Centurion.

Here's a quick video on why I fly:

   • Why Do I Fly?  

Here's a previous video on a flight to TopGolf, a place my passenger mentioned as we flew over:

   • Video  

And finally, if you haven't checked out the Bluecoats Drum & Bugle Corps, you're missing out! An incredible organization of talented artists, and one of the best things I've ever done in my life.

   / cantonbluecoats