Monocoupe Entry 9

Just when I thought this whole trip could not get any better -- just when I thought it was over, I had the best day ever. 

It started off gently. In our last episode, remember, I had just dropped of my dad at his home and today I had only 250 miles to fly home myself, a measly 2 hours and 20 minutes in this plane if I chose the most straight line. That would be back through White Pass, which we traversed yesterday at 10am, 7500ft and 32 degrees F. Today it would be at about 7am and screw that. I opted for the Gorge, which can be done at 4500 ft. I started with a half tank of gas, so I would have to stop at either Hood River or The Dalles. It was a gorgeous, glass-smooth morning, the sun not yet having enough time to work thermal burbles into the air, and as usual, we started off our cruise by climbing to 200 ft above cruising altitude, reducing throttle, and letting her settle nose-down on the step for 5 kts extra speed. Then we just puttered around the corner from the I-5 corridor, north of Portland International's airspace, and into the Gorge. 

Here is the Columbia just upriver from Kelso. 

Mt Adams and misty foothills from near the Bonneville Dam. 

Here's a vid of passing a high promontory on the north side of the river (WARNING: turn you volume down first):

http://youtu.be/ARBtqXUpWpQ

I'd never landed at Hood River before, but have wanted to since I learned about the relatively new aviation museum there: the Western Antique Airplane and Automobile Museum, also known as WAAAM: http://www.waaamuseum.org/  Here I am gassing up the plane in one of the most impressive venues I've ever seen. I knew that Hood River lay in the folds of Mt Hood, but I did not know that it had such an impressive view of Mt Adams. Wow. 

Then this stop really got great. While I was parking the plane in the tie down area before heading over for a look at the museum, the museum founder and its head pilot rolled over in an electric golf cart and asked if I would park my plane over by the museum. At the moment I had no idea of the honor that was being offered. 

It turns out that after a week of starts and stops, fighting weather flying coast to coast, I had somehow luckily blundered into the WAAAM's "Second Saturday" party. I didn't even know it was Saturday. 

They parked me in a row next to all of the day's flying exhibits, including a Stnson Gull Wing, three WWII era Grasshoppers, and a Huey helicopter. Then Scott Gifford, the museum's chief pilot proceeded to give me a personal guided tour of the exhibits and restoration area. Later we took a short flight in the 'coupe because he'd never flown one. He was a master. I merely gave a brief description of the takeoff and landing procedure for this craft (due to its age and provenance it has unique characteristics, even among taildraggers) and he instantly mastered the plane better than I had in a week of coast to coast flying. 

The description went something like this:

"On takeoff you let the stick float in neutral which keeps the tail wheel on the ground as long as possible. When she's ready to fly, the tail will rise. Pull back gently and lift off at 60 mph. Climb out at 80."

And:

"She likes 80 mph in the pattern. Final at 70. Round out at 65. Flair at 60. Slip nose-high or the airspeed will rise. Make sure the tail wheel touches first and you will have no problems."

Lovely. 

Here are some pictures of the museum's grounds and exhibits. I strongly urge you to visit. 

Grasshoppers on the left, and my 'Coupe. 

The Stinson Gullwing and the 'Coupe surrounded by onlookers. 

This is the sole remaining Boeing model 40. It is here on loan from the collection of Addison Pemberton of Spokane -- he who hosts the Felts Field Biplane Fly In yearly in July. The story of the finding and re-creation of this machine is incredible. It would take at least 5 paragraphs, so I may come back and attempt it later, but probably not. 

The Boeing model 40. 

A Ryan PT-22, almost exactly like the one Harrison Ford recently crash landed on a golf course in Santa Monica. 

The museum doesn't only have airplanes. It also has a fine collection of vintage automobiles. Here is a fine example of a Studebaker Golden Hawk. My fathers favorite. 

A Curtis Junior, sometimes used as a platform for hunting coyotes for bounty in the 1930's. 

And Aeronca C-3, otherwise known as "the flying bathtub". This one is on floats. I can't imagine how it could lift them. 

And Aeronca LC. I'd never seen one before. 

A Buhl Pup. 

One of the most impressive planes of the collection: a Taperwing WACO., beautifully preserved. 

Rows of WACO and other makes of biplanes. 

And more rows. 

WACO. 

WACO. 

Gorgeous special order WACO. 

A Stinson Detroiter. Eddie Stinson is one of my favorite designers, and the story of his death is somehow fascinating among some pretty spectacular aviation deaths. 

A Fairchild 22. 

A monster Stearman Mail plane. 

And I was shocked to find at this museum a Velie Monocoupe. This is the earliest version of the plane I purchased just 6 days ago and flew across the country. Only about a decade separate the two craft, yet mine is simply an evolution of this one. 

A Rearwin Speedster -- so narrow and fishlike that the passenger's foot pedals are beneath the seat of the pilot in front of him. 

The Stinson Gullwing. 

I spent a lovely morning strolling through the grounds and exhibits (I had to call Nancy and tell her that I would be delayed a couple hours in my homecoming), but I finally had to leave. 

Here is a view out the back of the plane as I left Hood River. What an awesome day it had been. 

Nancy has a video of my arrival at Palouse and a triumphant picture of me with my intact Monocoupe. But I will have to post it later, as she has trotted off to a party of some sort. 

Thus comes an end to an adventure greater than I could have imagined when I half-heartedly boarded a commercial flight to Richmond just a week ago. I strongly urge you to try some adventure similarly near to your heart. You and everyone you meet will be the better for it. 

Blue Skies,

BZ

Monocoupe Entry 8

I'm Here, finally near the end of our journey, we got a CAVU day (ceiling and visibility unlimited). But better yet, it was one of those windless, cool-aired late spring days where the flying is smooth as a magic carpet ride well into the late morning. But I'm getting ahead. 

The 'coupe was tied down out on the pavement at the Greater Downtown Parma International Airport, and during the night a muddy-footed cat inspected the aircraft from tail to top of wing. Well, nothing we can do about that. I'll wash it off later. On with the trip. 

The brown grass hills northwest of the Boise Valley. 

On the descent into Baker OR I took this shot of the airplane halo, the bright spot in the middle of the image. It's due to the pilot not being able to see the shadow of things on the ground directly on the other side of the sun from the plane. But we pilots take it as a sign from God that blessed are the flying. After all, He gave us a halo. 

A random, sparsely populated beauty spot in the hills of Eastern Oregon

And here is a short video to give you an idea of how fast the scenery passes by under the wing (WARNING: turn your volume down first, it has loud engine noise):

http://youtu.be/dPGoZ81rDEI

The broad sweep of the Columbia near Patterson. 

Mt Adams. 

Mt Rainier, up close. 

That was the last photo I took before we landed at Curtis, my dad's home airport.  It was only 3 hours and 20 minutes flight from Parma, but I was kind of punchy and tired after 5 days and more than 2000 miles of flying, so before heading back over White Pass to my own home in north idaho, I hit the couch and fell hard asleep for an hour. After that I could have easily taken off for Idaho safely by 3pm, so I didn't hurry. I eventually just wandered around the plane to see what damage this 25 hour US tour had done. It turns out, a bunch, some of it serious. 

On the last few legs of the flight I noticed that the forward end of the left cowl door hinge was sticking up a half inch, and I was pretty sure that it had started the trip sticking up and about a quarter inch. So I took off the top cowl (only 6 DZUZ fasteners and four large machine screws held it on) and found this:

Eight inches of the left cowl door was separating from the cowl top. And four inches of the right cowl door was doing the same, though it was not showing. We gotta fix this before tomorrow's flight. I would hate to have the cowl depart during flight. 

Here's the cowl laid out upside down on a table. The skinny center section is fixed and the two ends are the hinged cowl doors. 

Here I am fabricating a suitable aluminum reinforcement with a ball peen hammer. It needed a right angle fold lengthwise down the middle. 

We drilled out the necessary rivets and then attached the reinforcement piece to the hinge with aircraft grade pop rivets. 

Then we attached the reinforement piece to the cowl center. This is legal owner maintenance work on non-structural parts. And I expect to replace the entire center section very soon. Now I just have to figure out why the plane sits right wing very low. I'll have a look under the belly cowling tomorrow before I go, just to make sure it's not dangerous. (BTW the bungees are giant rubber bands wrapped around the upper end of the landing gear legs to absorb shocks)

Anyhow, I may get out of here and back home tomorrow. I'll let you know. 

Tailwinds,

BZ

Monocoupe Entry 7

Compared to yesterday, today was pretty good. We woke to 300 ft broken clouds -- the previously described "scud". We knew it would be so, because the temperature had been hovering near the dew point since dusk last night, and nothing would change until the air warmed up two or three degrees with the sun, probably around 9 or 10 am. So we went up to the airport at 8 and waited. 

While we waited, a local rancher started up his Cessna 210, took off and headed south to check out where his cattle had roamed to. He returned in less than five minutes and as he was tucking his plane back into its hangar, I wandered over for a pilot report. He said he barely got up to 400 feet and had his tail in the scud at that. He said the valleys to the south looked socked in, but it was better to the west. Then he pulled out his phone and showed me his flight planning software. I laughed when I saw it was the interstate highway webcams. That's how you fly VFR in Wyoming. 

So we thought we might get out. And we really wanted to because the forecast called for snow in two days. So we got in the plane and went up for a look see. The rancher was right, it wasn't too bad to the west. We seldom had to go so low as 400 feet and there were spots where the sun was beginning to break through the upper layers and spill through the scud layer just above us in beautiful, hopeful rayed patterns. 

You know, when you're not flying for your life, it's much easier to appreciate the beauty that is the Wyoming landscape. There is little vegetation in spots, we are flying near 8000 ft here after all, but the land is beautiful not in spite of that, but sometimes because of it. Here are a few shots of the terrain near the continental divide between Rawlins and Rock Springs. 

The terrain rises in spots, a particular ridge just west of Rock Springs comes to mind. Normally we would fly right by the hat box shaped butte that rises from the top of this 8000 plateau, but the scud was right at that level. I probably could have scraped by in the 100 ft left open, especially since the scud was getting thin here. But yesterday's experience soured me on risk taking, so I turned left and followed the falling ridge until there was more room to maneuver. And so we were back on course toward Kemmerere again. 

This is the green river just west of Rock Springs. 

The last high altitude runway on this route fits perfectly on a butte above the town of Kemmerer. We had our last brush with scud right there and passed a little lower over the town than we would normally like to. We bypassed the airport for a gas stop at Bear Lake 20 minutes hence, 1000 ft lower at 6000 ft. Rumor has it that the wind sock at Kemmerer is a chain on a stick due to the often howling winds, but this day had relatively calm winds. 

My selfie of the trip. The pilots lounge at Bear Lake was the best kept I have ever seen. Look. They have cloth towelettes in the bathroom, and Hank the airport attendant was extremely dutiful. The man was thoughtful and thorough and Bear Lake and traveling pilots are very luck to have him. 

Here's the 'coupe at the gas pump in Bear Lake. How much does it cost? 100 Low Lead aviation fuel is anywhere from $3.80 to $6+ per gallon. The plane burns about 9 gallons per hour to fly at about 112 nautical miles per hour (knots). So an hour is about $42 and 125 miles as the crow flies. Guessing a 30% decrease in total mileage because I don't have to follow the curves in the roads, that's about 25 cents a mile. It's probably higher than that, but that's ballpark. That's slightly higher than your average car, and I can't go all the places a car can go or carry, well, anything larger than a toothbrush, but, weather permitting, I get there a lot faster, and I like the trade-offs and will gladly pay the excess. 

After the weather in Wyoming, the Snake River Valley seemed like heaven. We turned the corner at Pocatello, which has an actual restaurant on the airport, skipping yet another chance at lunch in favor of westward progress. So we headed out across the great idaho desert. We almost immediately cross from fertile volcanic farmland to volcanic lava flows. It's amazing to fly over this stuff. It's so primeval. Just north of here is Craters of the Moon state park. 

Well, we have spent the last three days trying to escape the swirling arms of the giant low pressure system spinning slowly NE from the Colorado/Kansas border and we finally got past the last tentacle. We had about an hour respite and then flew right into a small front moving north out of Nevada, which all the locals tell me almost never happens. It was a result of a crazy jet stream the was flowing in a giant V shape down the California coast and up diagonally through Nevada into southern Idaho, and it was now blocking our path. We got to Gooding and had to sit on the freshly rain-wetted runway with a dark wall to our west. It seemed we would have to stop for the night around Boise or Pendleton. 

As luck would have it, my new best flying friend, and grand old college classmate had been reading this very blog and he and his lovely wife offered their hospitality for the evening. Funny thing. He was hoping the weather would hold us up long enough to stay and I didn't want to fly 4 more hours to the coast today. And the weather held us up long enough to ensure a stay in the metropolis of PARMA. 

I am terribly remiss in not taking a single photo of my hosts, but I did at least take Mike for a short flight in the 'coupe. In any event, it was a warm evening with good friends and great food and a welcome change from the string of hotels. Thanks very much Mike and Shelley. I hope to see you both again soon. 

It turns out that we have been very lucky to escape that horrendous storm. This is what it is forecast to look like on Friday (this was the post for Thursday's flight). Light green is rain, dark green heavy rain, light blue light snow, dark blue heavy, red is thunderstorms (and twisters). 

Thank you God for watching over us. 

Monocoupe Entry 6

Last I left you, we succeeded in planting ourselves firmly in the center of a rotating low pressure system. 

Well, there's not much to do if you're flying a VFR (visual flight rules) plane in IFR (instrument flight rules) conditions except sit and wait for the clouds and rain to clear. This can take days. 

You can take walks and look at the wild life. 

Or you can argue with your dad about which way to fly. Dad's argument is "The wrong direction is better than no direction."  Dad wanted to go south, maybe as far as Vegas and then up the left coast. I thought it would be better to wait for the northwest passage to open up. So we argued all morning until even the south passage was closed off by an arm of the storm. Then the weirdest thing happened. 

At 11 I was standing on the runway at Burlington in the center of a 10 mile wide beak in the clouds, and all the clouds were being blown from right to left from my perspective. I was at the center of the spinning low. It was like standing in the eye of a hurricane, only with lots less wind. 

By now a c-shaped storm system had surrounded us on 3 sides. Our clouds had started the day at a 200ft ceiling (illegal to take off under VFR with less than 1000ft) but had cleared to 3000 scattered by 11, but we had nowhere to go so we sat and argued and waited. Dad threatened to put me in his will (he has debts) I threatened to send him home on a bus. But there wasn't one. Seriously. You can't get a bus from Burlington to Denver on I-70. They don't stop there. At 1 the nw side of the c broke down inexplicably so we jumped into the plane and headed northwest to Greeley hoping to get Cheyenne and Laramie after that. 

Here is a thunder bumper building to our south when we took off for the north. The north route was great all the way to Greeley. Easy. We landed at Greeley under a light rain and quickly gassed. We thought we might be able to sneak behind the rain of this squall line to the west and duck into Laramie, which we knew was being inundated when we left Burlington, but we hoped that it had moved off toward Cheyenne by the time we got there. 

Side note-- sometimes you see the oddest things in building lobbies. The airport at Greeley had a Luscombe 8F "Observer". This is an example of how much of an OCD plane geek I am. I not only know the model, but I also know who the designer is and every othe plane he has had a hand in. In fact, he is the same schiester that had a hand in the design of the very aircraft I was flying. (See Monocoupe Entry 1). 

Anyway, it looked gorgeous nw out of Greeley so we gassed up and jumped in. And It did look good until Laramie, which was still being inundated by a deluge that hadn't moved in an hour.

Just before this leg went to hell, I took this shot of the unusual terrain on the muddled rocky slope that leads up from Greeley to Laramie. It was gorgeous, but only because we were so close. The rising terrain and unmoving ceiling was forcing us closer to the ground. 

The crud over Laramie wasn't moving, and we didn't want to backtrack to Cheyenne or Greeley, so we took a chance and cut the corner over a ridge and headed to Rawlins. Now, we experienced pilots know the rules of such engagements. 1) you must be higher or at least level with the ridge, 2) you must be able to see the valley floor beyond -- no trees, just valley floor, 3) you must be sure that the valley floor you see leads DOWNWARD toward you destination, and you better be ready for some seriously crazy winds coming through there. Check, check, check, and 85% check. 

But this was unlike anything I had ever seen. It was unbelievable. We could clearly see a good piece of light over that ridge from five miles, but as we approached it, a dark arm of the cloud dove for the ridge. Seriously. We fucking raced it. It was a temperature/dew point thing where cloud suddenly formed. Cold air pouring over the ridge was meeting moist air from below and turning to cloud before our eyes.  It was fucking alive and we were like a mouse to the cloud's cat's paw. And just like a mouse we squirted through there into the most beautiful green/yellow hillock plain beyond. Just a hair quicker than the cat's paw. 

This was our (temporary) reward. A chance to glide across this pristine, untouched, almost-spring meadow that we would never have seen without being forced out of our way by the hand of God. 

Speaking of God... You will notice in the above photo that there is a ridge in the distance. To the right of that ridge the clouds lower. Further to the right they reach the ground. That is the lower skirts of Elk Mountain, an 11000 ft monument on the route from Laramie to Rawlins that every VFR pilot that has crossed the continental divide has witnessed. It's like Independence Rock for pilots. And on the left side of that ridge is a passage and light. Pilots always go for the light. The map (and pilot lore) says there is a valley on the other side of Elk Mountain. The mountain is like an island that most planes traverse on the north side. But there is a little used south passage. 

This is how pilots die. They start on a path through the mountains and then get pushed a little farther, and then a little farther out into the wild passes by weather. Pilots that survive turn back rather than let the weather dictate a bad course. Unfortunately, we had sealed our fate when we raced the devil over that clouded ridge. We won the race but the devil closed the door behind us. (Yes, I realize I just compared an act of nature to both God and the devil). We could not turn back. 

That lovely, light gap in the ridge in the previous picture turned into this: a 9000 ft pass with snow and trees. But things are still light, obviously, because I'm still talking pictures. You know that when I stop taking pictures things are getting tense. This is the last picture I took on this leg. 

Down the other side of Elk Mountain flows the North Platt River (that can't be right. Look that up). Whatever. This river, in the space of 50 miles, goes from meandering mountain meadow stream, to twisting, deepening mountain river chasm, to larger stream in wider valley. We know this because cooling afternoon temperatures and a cold air mass pushing up the canyons from the north caused scud to form (when the air temperature meets the dew point, (the temp at which the air is saturated with moisture), water vapor precipitates in the form of clouds). Scud is just cloud forming at a very low altitude, say 50 to 200 ft. It first forms in patches with ragged edges due to the air currents around it. Once it becomes a solid mass it is called overcast, assuming you are underneath it. 

We know that River so well because the scud formed so low that we were forced to hug the river for dear life. We know the river goes to Rawlins. Rawlins is our only hope for a safe landing. That river is our life.

I think I mentioned that this valley held two airports, so says the map. Our little airplane on the iPad map is quickly approaching the first airport. We should be over it, and yet we can't see it. We are about to float over a small, rounded saddle ridge, and it seems that the airport must be on it somewhere. It can be nowhere else. I look to the side and there it is. It is he cutest little high mountain ridge airstrip in the middle of nowhere with not a spec of shelter within 20 miles. Couldn't land there even if I could turn around. But it was just such an amazing image. This barren strip on a wind, scud and rainswept saddle. 

Nothing to do but persevere. We continue to follow every surprising, beautiful revelation this river has to offer at 120 mph. Every scene is beautiful, majestic, shocking, and gone in seconds. Cute cabin! cows! Palatial A-frame! Rain-flooded treed meadow!  And we're actually flying for our lives verbalizimg this stuff. I'm flying, dad's calling out turns in the river from the iPad map and we're saying "Wow, that's a big spread, like the Blues Brothers evading police in the mall chase scene: "The new Oldsmobiles are in early this year."  15 minutes downriver from the first surprise airport we come upon the second one. It's actually a town called Saratoga. The river splits the town with the runway off to the left. Screw the runway, we're not getting stuck here with no gas. So we hug the river right through the center of town. We actually make a banking left turn over a country hotel with a backyard swimming pool with two people swimming in it. At the same moment those people were thinking "what the hell is an airplane doing 50 ft above me in this crappy weather?", we were thinking "what fools would be swimming in this weather?"

Not much after that the river jumped a few terrain features that under better circumstances would be quite interesting, but we were just ready for this ride to be over. The rain lessened as we popped out of the valley onto I-80(?). Just a couple miles to the west is Rawlins and its airport. IFR normally means "instrument flight rules", but every VFR pilot, when press by lowering clouds, also knows it as "I follow roads". We easily followed the highway to a safe landing at Rawlins. 

Here is a picture of the clouds without rain just after landing. See, I was exaggerating. It wasn't that bad. 

Here is the brave little Monocoupe in front of the opulent main hangar at the Rawlins Flight Center the following morning. 

And here is Bob, a man who admits to owning 128 RC airplanes. See Nan? I only have three airplanes. I'm not so bad. Actually, this is just one of the many airport attendants that work tirelessly to help wayward pilots get a room, a meal and fuel for the next leg of the adventure. Without people like Bob this couldn't happen. Thank you Bob.