gismo
Touchdown! Greaser!
I had a rather unpleasant experience yesterday returning home from Salt Lake City where we went for a little skiing. The wx was MVFR to IFR so I called the TRACON to see what kind of departure routing would be best and was told they weren't accepting any departures from U42 (Muni 2, the reliever I had landed at) because the main airport was IMC. I said something profound like "huh", and was told that since allowing any departures from U42 requires them to stop all arrivals into KSLC, I should expect at least a 2 hr delay. So we waited an hour and a half, then headed to the field which was now quite VMC. Cleaned the two inches of snow off, loaded and preflighted the plane, got some fuel, and taxied out to the runway. Called clearance delivery and was told that there would be at least a two hour, possibly indefinite delay. Suggested that I could depart VFR to the south (away from the main airport) if I could get a clearance once in the air and was told that wouldn't work either. Then the controller said to call on the approach frequency (I was on a local clearance freq) and "maybe they can work something out". Tried that but couldn't get a reply (I could hear them but they couldn't hear me) so I went back to clearance and was given the phone # for the TRACON (the same number I had called about 3 hours prior). I taxied back in and call the TRACON. The controller that answered was apologetic but basically repeated what I was told before, that they would have to close KSLC to arrivals to let me out. He also said that the MVA in the vallley was 9000 MSL (about 5500 AGL) and the only way I could leave would be if I could get to 9000 in VMC without enterring the Class B (which bottoms out at 7000 MSL or lower across most of the valley/basin). So here I am with clear skies above me, unable to depart. We went to lunch and came back an hour later and called back to see if things had improved at KSLC. They were VFR now but still couldn't allow me to depart without stopping arrivals. Then he said "I guess you've been waiting a long time, go ahead and call clearance from the runway and we'll try to get you out. I did and they gave me the one and only SID (that takes you right into KSLC area) and let me go after only a 5 minute wait once I was able to report sighting an incoming RJ on approach to KSLC.
I was originally planning to leave at 10 AM and finally got airborne around 3:30 PM which of course meant arriving after dark (and after tower closure) back at Minneapolis reliever KFCM in the middle of a major snowstorm. Had we departed within two hours of the proposed time, it would have been ahead of the wx and before sunset.
The darkness also added to the difficulties enroute when we encountered ice near the eastern end of SD. I was able to find ice free air but not before accumulating a bunch of rough ice on the unprotected surfaces. That plus the strong headwinds down below the clouds reduced my GS to something like 110 Kt for most of the last 80 nm. The only bright spot on the trip was the call from the airport maintenance crew saying they had cleared the runway to black pavement just before I started down the glideslope (wx was 300-1/2).
I was originally planning to leave at 10 AM and finally got airborne around 3:30 PM which of course meant arriving after dark (and after tower closure) back at Minneapolis reliever KFCM in the middle of a major snowstorm. Had we departed within two hours of the proposed time, it would have been ahead of the wx and before sunset.
The darkness also added to the difficulties enroute when we encountered ice near the eastern end of SD. I was able to find ice free air but not before accumulating a bunch of rough ice on the unprotected surfaces. That plus the strong headwinds down below the clouds reduced my GS to something like 110 Kt for most of the last 80 nm. The only bright spot on the trip was the call from the airport maintenance crew saying they had cleared the runway to black pavement just before I started down the glideslope (wx was 300-1/2).
