Bravo

On Tuesday, friend and coworker Mo (who has been my passenger before) went with me on a cross-country flight to Snohomish County / Paine Field (KPAE). It was a rare nice day during this protracted, rainy spring, with light winds and just a few puffs of cumulus here and there.

We departed Olympia and climbed above the scattered layer to 5500' where it was smooth as glass. We had to divert a little around some of the taller cumulus, but for the most part we were looking down at the tops of these beautiful cloud formations.

There was quite a bit of turbulence in the descent, but the approach and landing at Paine were uneventful. It was Mo's first chance to see the wide variety of big iron there--freshly minted aircraft from the Boeing factory. Two of the Dreamlifters were on the ground as well--it is always a treat to see them.

We headed southeast from Paine to Lake Sammamish (basically following the last leg of my long cross-country flight last summer, during training). I requested a transition through the Class B airspace (colloquially "the Bravo") across Seattle-Tacoma International (KSEA), not only since it's a shortcut, but because it provides some terrific scenery of downtown Seattle and the airport itself. I have been wanting to fly the transition since I became a private pilot in August, but Tuesday was really my first good opportunity.

The experience didn't disappoint. Mo enjoyed the scenery and captured some video; I enjoyed the challenge of handling the radio and trying to maintain altitude +/- 50 feet.

It was a lot of fun and definitely something I plan to do often in the future.