On January 13th, 2024 I flew on a Cessna Citation XLS+ from Frederick Maryland (FDK), to St. Petersburg Florida (PIE), then back to Frederick the same day. It was an amazing experience.
The flight time down to St. Petersburg was 2 hours and 45 minutes. We had 115 knots of headwind blowing from the southwest. Our cruising altitude was 43,000 feet. Private jets such as the one I flew on is not as fast as an airliner so we got passed by a few airliners such as a Spirit A320 and a Southwest 737. The flight was smooth and the service was excellent.
The flight back to Frederick was way faster of a flight time of 1 hour and 51 minutes. We had some serious tail wind that got up to 150 knots. We cruised at 41,000 feet. A cool part of the flight was when this Turkish airlines 787 flew right above us when we were climbing. when we were descending into Frederick, the winds were blowing 20 mph with 40-50mph wind gusts. That’s the most the plane can take and if we could not land we would have diverted to Washington Dulles. With the skill of the pilots, we landed in Frederick safely with not much turbulence on final.
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