Plant City KPCM

Video: Plant City

Located between Tampa and Lakeland Plant City is known as the Winter Strawberry Capital of the World and hosts the annual Florida Strawberry Festival. Stretching back more than 80 years, this Plant City festival bursts with midway hilarity, on-stage entertainment (much of it free), livestock and, of course, plenty of ways to eat strawberries. Usually in February or early March it is attended by people from all over the United States as well as many people from around the world. Despite many thinking it was named for flora grown at plant nurseries (especially vegetables and fruits, as well as tropical houseplants) in its tropical Gulf Coast climate, it was named after prominent railroad developer Henry B. Plant. 

The Plant City Municipal Airport was founded in 1948 to ship strawberries. Runway 09/27 was lengthened in 1999 and redesignated 10/28. In 2000, a new terminal was constructed, along with two new hangars (E and F) and a new Jet-A fuel tank. PCM is a public-use airport located two nautical miles (4 km) southwest of the central business district of Plant City in Hillsborough County, Florida, United States. The airport is publicly owned by the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority, which also operates Tampa International Airport. ~Wikipedia

Me and my shadow at KPCM RWY28.

The pickers are busy getting ready for the festival. As I drive the local roads, bands of workers with various colored team shirts work the early mornings and afternoons harvesting the winter crop of sweet strawberries. Hard work.

The cold fronts come pushing through like waves on the beach. The air gets churned and is often very gusty, but unlike northern cold fronts these do not bring snow. Florida temperatures vary greatly throughout the day making typical attire shorts and jackets (mid 30's) in the morning then peeling back to t-shirts (mid 70's) in the afternoon. It was calm early in the morning but the local TAFS said to expect gusts into high teens by mid-day. I got out to the airport early.

During my system checks on preflight the ADSB-out transponder failed with a 1090es fault. I found the coax from the GPS antenna was loose. I was able to reach under the panel to tighten it but will need to investigate just how it happened.

I taxied out with new databases and updated software (version 5.60). I had to unlatch the GPS unit from the plane and bring it home to my office and attach it to my computer with a cable. Garmin Express recognized it and installed all of the updates. This is a process change from my 696 when I could leave the unit in the plane and do this using an SD card.

The TAFS were right this time. The winds were getting "sporty" so after three landings at KPCM  I headed for home. 

Sally is running very well. It was a fun flight, but I need more landing practice.