I’m going off the beaten path today with another flight in the left seat of a TBM. The flight today is from Vero Beach, home of Piper Aircraft, to Morganton, in the hills of Burke County, North Carolina. One of the beautiful things about general aviation flying is that the airports you can fly into are pretty much limitless, and the TBM combines the short-field capability to visit most of them with the range to be a serious cross-country platform. This makes it ideal for GA trip reports, as it can cover a lot of ground in a lot of time, such as the distance between the southern half of Florida and western North Carolina. Hope y’all enjoy this one!
Server: Solo
Operator: Private
Aircraft: DAHER TBM 930
Origin: Vero Beach Regional Airport, Vero Beach, Florida (VRB)
Destination: Foothills Regional Airport, Morganton, North Carolina (MRN)
Callsign: N930TS
Route: KVRB-KMRN
Seat: N/A
Time En Route:
After loading everything into our TBM, we’re walking back to it to climb in after getting a bottle of water our of our car. We’re flying to Morganton, located near the Pisgah National Forest at the feet of the Appalachian Mountains. Should be a pretty flight up the Florida and Georgia coasts and across South Carolina today!
Taxiing down the Vero Beach flightline by the two-gate terminal and Sun Aviation ramp, and toward the Piper Aircraft factory. It’s funny, in a way, to be flying a TBM out of here when one of the type’s competitors, the Piper Malibu M500/M700 Fury, is built right here in Vero Beach. There’s even a M700 Fury lining up on the runway right now for a pre-delivery checkout flight.
Taking off from VRB on Runway 30L. 850 horses are screaming up front as the big five-bladed Hartzell pulls us into the air. The TBM’s rocket-like takeoff performance never ceases to impress us, as we slip the surly bonds of Earth at just under 100 knots. Off to North Carolina we go!
Climbing over coastal Florida with the airspeed indicator showing 200 knots or so. DAHER really knocked it out of the park with the TBM 930, creating perhaps the swiftest single-engine executive turboprop in the world. Able to do 330 KTAS up high, the TBM can really leg it across the country, and on one engine, too.
Heading up the coast of Georgia at 24,000 feet. We’re taking a more northerly course to Morganton to avoid a cold front that’s covering most of the southeast part of the state, before turning northwest for the last part of our flight around Columbia, South Carolina. We may be able to get above most bad weather in our TBM, but thunderstorms are a whole different ballgame. Turbulence strong enough to rip the yoke out of our hands if we’re not careful, windshear, icing, and the remote possibility of being struck by lightning and losing all electrical power means that we steer well clear of them.
Nearing Columbia as we finish up our detour. We just got a METAR that the thunderstorms brewing over Georgia that caused us to head this far east in the first place are going to be heading into the area around Charlotte, North Carolina. Looks like we’ll be trying to beat the weather into Morganton. It’s gorgeous outside and has been since we took off, but it isn’t going to last; in fact, it’s going to get real ugly, real fast if we’re not careful.
Lowering the flaps as we descend over rural Cleveland County, just west of Shelby, the county seat. Cleveland County is perhaps most famous as the birthplace and boyhood home of banjo legend Earl Scruggs, whose three-finger picking style forever changed how the instrument is played. To paraphrase the late, great John Hartford, while people in this area of North and South Carolina have been playing three-finger-style banjo for close to two hundred years now, but if it wasn’t for Earl, we wouldn’t care who invented it. We got to see him live in 2006 at the Ryman Auditorium. 82 years old and still the best there ever was. Anyway, we’re about 15 minutes out from Morganton.
Pulling the throttle back into beta range after landing at MRN. Foothills Regional can handle aircraft up to super-midsize and certain large-cabin jets, namely the Bombardier Challenger family and the Dassault Falcon 900. As it happens, there’s a rare Challenger 600, N100LR, in from DeKalb/Peachtree this afternoon.
Turning off of Runway 03/21 for a scenic taxi to the tie-downs. In the background are the Blue Ridge Mountains, part of the larger Appalachian Mountains. The clouds are starting to thicken up, heralding the arrival of the bad weather.
Looking back at our aircraft after a picturesque flight from Florida to this little gem of an airport. Somewhere in the distance, thunder booms ominously. We’re already hightailing it for the shelter of the airport building. Another happy flight in the TBM is in the books!