And for the record, I stood next to my plane, called 800-WX-BRIEF to file my flight plan, was on hold for 3 (that's right, THREE) seconds. Filed without major incident although the briefer was an idiot, and off we went.
Sounds exactly like mine on Monday. THREE TIMES the briefer said that the airmet for IFR had expired, so he just couldn't understand why the METAR at BPK still indicated IFR. (Might be those clouds at 700 feet, ya putz.)
I s'pose I should put the rest of the story in here...
We had a relatively uneventful trip down on Friday, with one long leg MSN->H21 (3.6 hours) and one short one H21->3M0 (1.0). The stop at H21 was to look at some Ercoupes that Kate's FBO is buying. Neither is currently airworthy, but one looked like it'd be fairly easy to get going.
We talked with Matt and Tony on 122.75 for a good chunk of the last leg, and landed fairly late but with some light left in the sky to illuminate the numerous obstacles. After landing, the welcoming committee helped push the plane back into a parking spot and we checked in and got stuff dumped in the room before hurrying back to eat some grilled meat. Mmmmm.
If you haven't been to Gaston's, it's hard to describe the experience. This was my third trip and so I've had the pleasure of meeting most of our stars in the past here and at other events. This weekend, I got to meet Eric Borchers, ApacheBob, Dr. Bill, and several others. (BTW, kudos to Bob for flying the mighty PA-23 all the way down just for brunch on Sunday! Hope you can stay longer next time.
)
For some silly reason, I didn't fly anyone else's plane this year. I'm too much meat for Diana to haul except in the front seat, which she wisely avoided. I got to fly Steve's IAR a few months ago, so I let others go first. I kinda did the same with Greg and the 195 even though I haven't yet ridden aloft in that magnificent bird... I guess I just wanted to let the newbies get the most out of their first Gaston's experience. Maybe next year... I did fly the trusty Archer a couple of times, though, first to pick up Dave on Saturday and also for about an hour with Tony working on commercial maneuvers, which I hadn't had a chance to fly at all in 5 weeks.
I did manage to get Kate a ride in the beautiful J-3. For those of you who were speculating that it was a brand-new Legend Cub, we were wrong: It was an honest-to-goodness 1946 Piper Cub. Best looking one I've ever seen by far.
As for that flight with Tony, I managed to show how bad you can get in 5 weeks, and I realized (both from threads here, and from Tony) that everyone teaches them differently and they are somewhat open to interpretation. I got some great suggestions, though. Thanks Tony!
I also managed to demonstrate how NOT to land an Archer. Somehow I climbed slowly through the flare and then plopped it down. Blech.
Sunday came, and I wasn't ready for it to end. Neither was the weather, or the airplane. I was going to go over to Mountain Home to fuel up, but the plane wouldn't start. I borrowed a battery charger from Gaston's and hooked it up, but then it began to rain and most of Missouri looked like a big blob of crap on the radar. By the time the rain ended, Gaston's normally-rock-hard runway had some very large areas of standing water and a lot of soft spots.
We'd all been walking the runway and it looked at first like the right side was the way to go, but the Bonanza driver showed us otherwise, spraying water and mud all over the place and making his plane very dirty. (The pic Diana posted doesn't even start to show all the grass and mud that was on it afterwards!) So, we waited, walked the runway more, etc etc.
Matt and Jesse left, Sheri was thinking about it. I think I walked the runway for about 45 minutes in bare feet trying to find the best way from one end of the bog (the tiedowns) to the relatively-solid center portion of the runway. I actually found a path that seemed decent: Hard right out of the tie-down next to the fuel pump, line up the close bird feeder with the fish painting on the building, then line up with the first runway marker and follow that line until the end of the trees/bushes near the wind sock, 90 degrees left, cross the center of the runway, turn left abeam the 2nd-largest puddle, backtaxi until the trees at the east corner of the tiedowns, and a left 180 onto the small dry-ish center portion of the runway. Thanks to Nick for walking my wing near the picnic tables so I could stay out of the mud as much as possible! All the work paid off - When I examined my path later, I found that I'd only left about a 3-foot long set of ruts way over in the corner, so hopefully the wheel pants won't be full of mud when they come off this fall.
Of course, after all that, I was talking with one of the maintenance guys from Gaston's on Monday morning and he said "Oh, don't worry about ruts. We'll flatten them back out. Do whatever you need to stay safe." I think we should make him an honorary pilot.
Unfortunately, after fueling the plane at the self-serve pumps (Sunday upon arrival at BPK) I couldn't get it to start again.
Since it was 8 PM already, I made the final no-go call for the day and called work to let them know. Wal-Mart provided (OK, we bought, but I think it was my cheapest bill of the weekend) dry socks and shoes and we went and had dinner at the local mexican joint. I drank a giant margarita, and decided that bad weather isn't all bad.
Monday, we had breakfast with Diana, Tom, Greg, and Sharon. After checking out and spending more time in cabin 8 watching the weather, we finally headed over to BPK. After scouting Airnav for cheap fuel, I chose to stop at K89 Macon, MO, the same place Jesse and Tristan stopped at earlier. Cheap fuel plus a PIREP of a crew car from them, plus lots of positive comments on airnav. I called FSS to file a flight plan and get a briefing - What a waste! Three times the briefer said how the airmet for IFR had expired and how he didn't understand how BPK could still be showing IFR on the METARs. Ugh. At least the flight plan stuck, though when I called back for my clearance I think it took him at least 10 minutes to get it. Cleared as filed, GOBEY V289 VIH V175 MCM K89. (All of that despite the /G mostly to keep us out of all the SUA north of Gaston's.)
The guys from the shop used one of their pickups as a start cart and got us going for "no charge" but I gave 'em 10 bucks anyway. (I bought an A/FD from the FBO, hopefully that makes up in a very small way for buying self-serve fuel.
) I did a quick runup on the roll, paused for a short bit before takeoff to be sure I had everything truly ready, and launched towards the clouds. We first got into the wetness at about 1600 MSL as expected, but we could still see the ground and there were also significant holes in the clag. I called Greg on CTAF to report that, and then flipped over to Memphis Center to check in.
There were some humorous moments as we were on our way out, we weren't yet in radar contact but there was a Bonanza headed to Flippin that was on the same frequency. We were told to report 5,000. We actually were in radar contact for a few moments after turning northbound from the VOR. Then, Center told the Bo to "Report the Flippin' VOR!" and later "Report the Flippin' airport in sight!"
We reported 5,000 and heard "Radar contact" again.
After about 0.3 of actual, we broke out into clear skies above and below. Most of the remainder of the leg to K89 was smooth and uneventful, and I cancelled IFR upon spotting the field. The courtesy car is a bit old and worn but it beats the hell out of walking, and the FBO owner was friendly as could be. Great small-town airport. (Watch the ConUS Challenge site for more detail.)
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N8483F/history/20070611/2015Z/KBPK/K89
We got a load of cheap fuel with great service included and took off. It was clear the whole way home, and while it looked hazy, visibility was a good solid 30 miles. We threaded our way between a pair of isolated towering cumulus clouds just for fun (and to take some pictures) and just generally played around a bit with detours here and there to look at stuff - Just plain old fun VFR flying.
The sun set around the time we crossed the Mississippi, and we touched down on runway 3 at MSN just about 9:30 PM.
