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Report:
 It was a beautiful night for a moondance. We had left the most serious weather behind us when we departed the Atlanta area and made a bullseye for Milton, DE to visit the home of Dogfish Head Brewing. For this journey though, we had the pleasure of partaking in the wonderful IPA provided by the Sweetwater Brewing Company of Atlanta, and GB and I couldn't help but think of those intrepid travellers of centuries past who must of enjoyed similar full bodied moons and brews.
With a decent wind and clearing conditions beckoning, we figured it would be a great time to really stretch the legs of the Pilatus PC-12. Although we had toyed with her prowess to a degree, it was time to find out what this baby had at altitude. GB had figured out how to get the GPS display to reside on monitor #2 and with the bit of tuning with the autopilot, we were at FL180 in no time. Here in the rarified air, this bird started to really show why she is regarded as the finest single-engine turboprop workhorse in the world.
 The rising full moon was peaking at us through the Peidmont cloud cover when we stepped her up to FL240, then ultimately to FL280 where, with the kind wind's assistance, our ground speed topped 300 kts. We were making time now and we had to start playing catch up with the IPA consumption, else we would land with supply in hand.
We could hardly believe the ETE read outs from the GPS as we bore down on Sussex County Airport. If we had flown this leg during the daytime, we would have shot for DE25, a smaller, barely lit strip closer to Milton. But, as a somewhat conservative team, we decided that Sussex County offered more comfort with better lights and a wider runway. GB needed it too, as it seems that the 5.9% alcohol content of the IPA had its detrimental affects on his approach. I had visions of trees blasting through the floorboards as we plummeted short of the threshold of runway 32. At the last minute, the prodicious power reserves of the PC-12 kicked in and saved us from a punishing trip to St. Louis to get a new plane. Gotta get him to shoot some more approaches!
 As we settled into the Milton area, we couldn't help but pour praise upon the IPA from Sweetwater. Amazing how much better a leg is when it is fuled by beer of quality. Now that we are here, we will be shooting some approaches and stocking up on the many flavors of brew from Dogfish Head. See if we can make it through the next leg of our journey as we head to Canada.
GZ
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