No pictures on this entry. Only words.
We started early in anticipation of of hunting for clear spots in shifting weather. I thought the hole would be north, but dad thought NW. I think he was wishful thinking. If we could get through there it would be an easy trip. My way would put us well north through Nebraska, and if open we would go through North Platte and into northern Wyoming. Out of the way. As it turns out neither would have worked.
Things started well enough. We took off into a south wind that helped a bit on our northwest track. Super smooth that early. Nice high ceiling. I thought this would be easy and I made the mistake of saying so out loud. 100 miles up our path the ground rose around a town named "Colby". About 20 miles short of there i noticed a slightly gray line of clouds right at our level, 1000 feet above the ground. "I don't like the looks of that." Can't go over it, can't go around it, gotta go under. Well, this isn't so bad. We're down to 500 ft doing 120. Things are going by kinda fast, but we're plenty high. Oh, did I mention the towers?
Starting around the Mississippi there are some very tall radio towers. We saw one there that was 2400ft. Now, we usually fly around at 1000 to 2000 ft, so we went beside that one, but the guy wires come off the thing at an angle of 40 degrees, so you'd best treat them like a cone. Those guy wires cannot be seen and will go through you like your're made of cheese.
The ones in Kansas are more modest. Mostly 400ft with a a couple 1000 footers. So here we are speeding along under 500 ft, watching the map for towers, straining our eyes through the mist to see the ones the map says should be there (In all our flying his week, I found only one tower that wasn't marked on the map).
Anyhow, we get scrunched down to 200'ft 'cause the terrain is rising and the clouds aren't. I'm looking down at the iPad, dad's flying. I look up and all I see is white. We couldn't see the cloud before we flew into it.
SHIIIIIIIIIT!!!!
We skid a diving 180 faster than I could crap my pants (nearly). We dive for the ground and head the opposite direction, hoping it hasn't closed in all around us. It hasn't, but now we're flying along at treetops in the wrong direction. What to do. Looks like the badness extends both ways. No holes. Well. We've been out here for an hour fifteen, and we like to get gas at 2 hrs and start to get scared at 2:15. So we start looking for gas.
Hmmm. How did we get into a part of Kansas with no gas? Here's a place 15 minutes in the wrong direction. Ok, head there. Wait. Look at the map. No nibs. A bare circle is a runway. One with nibs on the corners has gas. No nibs. Ok, here's another one just 10 minutes past that. Ok, let's go there.
The ceiling is getting a little higher so by the time we get to "Phillipsburg" I'm making a curling right-hand base into final when we see a giant yellow X in the end of the runway (which means "this is not a runway). No. Couldn't be. Shit. Closed! The runway is all torn up and there are graders on it. Damn. We're up to 2 hours and now the closest gas is either a half hour north or south. We haven't yet seen the north, so might not be able to get through. South we've been. Flew over Hayes an our ago. Problem is, the wind is out of the south so it's more like 35 minutes. Crap. No choice. Lean the fuel mixture, slow down a bit and head south. We're gonna find out just how much gas this thing has.
The gas gauges are up in the wing roots and work by a cork on the end of a metal rod attached to a pivoting metal cylinder with the numbers "F, 3/4, 1/2, 1/4 and 0" on it. The cylinder indicator is in a little window. When the fuel sloshes around, the numbers float up and down. When the cork hits the bottom of the tank, the number floats to 1/4 and bounces on 0. When the cork rests on the bottom of the tank, the number quits bouncing and the zero sits there, rock solid. The tanks are tied together and the plane is slightly mis-rigged, so it flies left wing low, and so the left tank always reads slightly higher than the right.
On this last leg back to Hayes into a headwind, first the right tank indicator started to bounce on zero. Then the left tank started to. Then the right tank stuck on zero. The left wasn't bouncing much when we finally reach Hayes. 23.3 gallons useable. Remember that.
Ok. Crisis averted. But we're still on the wrong side of the front! We didn't get through and we have to try again, or at least get a little more west so when the front moves east we'll get out from under it sooner. So after filling up we head to the pilots lounge to search the Internet for a hint at a possible route through this soup. Here we meet Mark, who owns the 185 parked next to us and is trying to get from Dallas to Alaska. It looks socked so we all agree to go to lunch in the courtesy car to wait for the weather to move.
After a lovely half sand and soup at a brewpub with awesome beer we couldn't drink, we thought the same route would open up to 1000 ft ceilings. So we tried again. Those forecasts were a lie! We found better, but still low cloud, 25kt winds, and pockets of middling to heavy rain. But the ceilings were high enough if we followed the interstate to see through the oncoming clouds and rain better. We also found out how much a 1937 rag and tube plane leaks in a rainstorm. LOTS! Dad got the worst of it. The flap handle is above his neck and lots of water got in there.
So there we are, flying 500 ft over I-70 dodging cel towers, which is most easily done by flying directly over the freeway. We go on 15-minute legs from town to town. We only go on if it looks decent. We make it to Goodland whose airport is shockingly in a small pocket of light and 1000ft ceiling. Awe come on. It's just another 15 minutes to Kit Carson and out of the state of Kansas. So we give up on an easy landing and head straight into a huge, dark deluge halfway to Kit Carson. I can barely see the highway below us and am just about to turn around and risk flying right into one of four towers we just passed but dad talks me into staying on heading. We do, and the deluge doesn't last. At the rate it was coming down, it couldn't.
It's still dark on the other side, but not impossible, and I don't want to go back through that deluge so onward. Well, it deluges it again as we near the runway. We're down to 500 ft due to rising terrain ands he rain is so heavy and the clouds above so dark that I'm locating the runway by the iPad alone. I'm so sure that it's gonna be where it's supposed to be that I throttle back and start to slow down for landing before I see the runway. Thank god it's there. But I still gotta land.
I wish you could have seen that landing. 500 ft diagonal approach to a sight unseen runway in scud, driving rain and 25kt quartering crosswind in a 1937 tail dragger in which I only have 5 landings. Fucking nailed it.
I was too busy and too scared to take a video of that landing (I should get a GoPro on this plane) but here is a video of the flag pole at the airport:
As we taxi off through 2" deep puddles a Cessna calls in final behind us. What other nut would be flying in this soup? Turns out he knows Monocoupes and spent some time with Bud Dake and the other Monocoupe legends and wants to talk to me. He knows all the Blakesburg antique airplane gang and The Creve Coeur guys and he knows people that are putting together a flying antique circus down the west coast on only grass strips this summer. I think this is going to be fun.
I only exaggerated a little in that story, or a lot. Who can tell.
Oh, we finally ended up in the exact center of the revolving low at the NW corner of Kansas:
Couldn't have planned that better.
Clear skies,
BZ
No comments:
Post a Comment