The airport at Palatka (28J), a sleepy farming community in Northeast Florida, lies a scant 26 nm from historic St. Augustine's KSGJ. So the consternation in the briefer's voice, audible over the speaker phone as he read back our flight plan to 28J, was understandable: "TBM 900 Alpha Zulu-requesting flight levelTwo Eight Zero?" With a range of more than 1,700 nm and a top speed of 330 knots-putting Aspen, the Hudson Bay and Bogota all within our reach from SGJ-a flight to Palatka in the TBM 900, the new, improved member of Daher-Socata's TBM single-engine turboprop family, might seem a wasted opportunity.
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