The FAA has published a flight restriction for Nantucket from Wednesday (tomorrow) at 10:30 am until Monday at 5 pm (details). Who’s taking a 6-day vacation on the beach island? Probably Vice-President Joe Biden, given that the flight restriction has a 3 n.m. radius (it would be 30 n.m. for the President) and that Biden’s 2008 Thanksgiving sojourn in a $4 million Nantucket house was covered by the press (example). [according to Henry Blodget, the $4 million house might not be worth as much anymore]
The taxpayers’ role in this Thanksgiving feast would have begun a couple of weeks ago with the Secret Service sweeping the island, dozens of monster SUVs being driven up from Virginia and ferried over, and perhaps a few helicopters being flown in. For Biden and his immediate family’s departure tomorrow morning, the Air Force will be putting some jet fuel into a Boeing 757’s 11,500 gallon tank.
My plans for tomorrow? Flying the Cirrus to Martha’s Vineyard for the day to see some friends, which should burn about 10 gallons of fuel for the round-trip. The challenges of the flight include possible airspace restrictions related to Biden’s arrival, ceilings down to 500′, mist, and the main runway at MVY being closed except for 15 minutes prior permission.
Weather Underground had forecast happy partly sunny skies at both Bedford and the Vineyard for today. The actual weather turned out to be a ceiling of 300′ and about 2 miles of visibility departing Bedford. The Vineyard had a 600′ ceiling and good visibility for landing out of the GPS 6 approach (no approach lighting). The weather was down to about 300′ and 1 mile viz at 3:30 pm departing the Vineyard. We saw the approach lights for the ILS 11 at BED at about 550′ above sea level and the runway closer to the decision height of 383′. Two uneventful flights, but a good workout for the avionics in the Cirrus.