After breakfast, the Mile's flew off to Victoria for lunch with some family, hubby and I decided we weren't ready to head home yet. We had never flown into Paine Field before, and hubby wanted to check it out.
Paine Field is home to Boeing, The Future of Flight Aviation Centre, The Flying Heritage Collection, Historic Flight Foundation Restoration Centre, Museum of Flight Restoration Centre, Legend Flyers - ME 262 Project, and the Harbeck Wetland Sanctuary. It's an aviation enthusiasts dream. But they will have to wait for another time.
We landed and asked the tower for directions to transient parking, they directed us to Regal Air. Regal Air is the FBO (fixed base operator) for Paine Field. FBO's provide services for general aviation. It varies from FBO to FBO must offer fuel, aircraft parking and tie downs, bathrooms and phones for flight planning. Some FBO's also have courtesy cars or rental cars, maintenance, passenger and baggage handling etc.
At Regal Air it costs $3.00 to tie down each night, however if you buy fuel from them there is no charge for the tie down. We arrived late Sunday afternoon and all the local rental car companies had closed. Lucky for us, the Hampton Inn and Suites in Lynnwood has a free shuttle bus - and free wireless internet, free breakfast, and free wine, beer and snacks in the evening - there's a reason we always stay here:)
image courtesy Hampton Inn and Suites
We spent the remainder of the evening shopping at Alderwood Mall, good thing it's open until 7pm. Hubby has been looking for a camera to tie to the wing of the airplane, we found it at REI. Monday morning it was back home. It was a successful weekend for us - three new airports, lots of good food, camping under the wing and a new camera.
Barb, are you reading this? If so we thought this might be a good idea for Stew's birthday. Fly to Paine Field, visit one or two of the flying collections, stay at the Hampton Inn, dinner at Beppos, shopping at Lynnwood and fly home again. Let me know if have any free weekends in August.