Let'sgoflying!
Touchdown! Greaser!
I was looking at my old pilot logbook and found an entry from a few years ago. 8 25 1987, Atikokan Ont. C172 C-FZYR
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sou...640224&spn=0.003154,0.008594&t=h&z=17&iwloc=C
I was returning to the Toronto area from a sightseeing trip to the Rockies. The weather had come down as I pushed east, and I'd only made as far as N Lake Superior before low ceilings and rainshowers forced me, a vfr private pilot at the time, to find a safe haven. I was pretty jumpy flying in this area as it was only bush and lakes; you followed the highway for the most part, and hoped the worst didn't happen. Most Ontario pilots referred to the area as the Lk Superior Triangle because so many aircraft had disappeared, swallowed up by either the bush or the lakes over the years.
The rain was hitting the window pretty heavy now and starting to obscure my view of the single runway surrounded by trees. I remember trying to recall if the optical illusion made you drag it in too low or end up too high - must have worked out as I landed ok! Found a hotel in town (absolute dive, complete with crawling bugs) and some food (it didn't quite kill us). Ended up staying 2 nights waiting for weather to clear up.
The reason I recall this trip was because during it the moment occurred in which I knew I really, really, really had to get an instrument rating sometime. Not so much because I was weather-stayed but because that first morning while hanging around the airport, I was standing outside in the swirling fog and rain - and heard, but did not see, a light twin blow right over the field at a couple hundred feet, then disappear again. About 45 mins later, an Apache emerged from the goo and landed, and I got to talk to the pilot in the fbo. He was an attorney from Thunder Bay and had a court case to go to in Atikokan. I remember him saying "I knew I would eventually get in". The feeling I got was that he knew the local weather, and had been following the situation, figured it would clear up at about that time, that he should plan his arrival just then. He only had to go missed once, then hold for a while before his prediction came true. I thought it was all pretty cool and realized right then how much it improved an airplane's utility. I had another long 24 hours to think about it I guess, as my log says I did a short hop to check the conditions the next day, but did not actually clear out til later in the afternoon. The right combination of $ and airplane, to get my ir, did not arise til many years later but that memory kept burning until I got it.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sou...640224&spn=0.003154,0.008594&t=h&z=17&iwloc=C
I was returning to the Toronto area from a sightseeing trip to the Rockies. The weather had come down as I pushed east, and I'd only made as far as N Lake Superior before low ceilings and rainshowers forced me, a vfr private pilot at the time, to find a safe haven. I was pretty jumpy flying in this area as it was only bush and lakes; you followed the highway for the most part, and hoped the worst didn't happen. Most Ontario pilots referred to the area as the Lk Superior Triangle because so many aircraft had disappeared, swallowed up by either the bush or the lakes over the years.
The rain was hitting the window pretty heavy now and starting to obscure my view of the single runway surrounded by trees. I remember trying to recall if the optical illusion made you drag it in too low or end up too high - must have worked out as I landed ok! Found a hotel in town (absolute dive, complete with crawling bugs) and some food (it didn't quite kill us). Ended up staying 2 nights waiting for weather to clear up.
The reason I recall this trip was because during it the moment occurred in which I knew I really, really, really had to get an instrument rating sometime. Not so much because I was weather-stayed but because that first morning while hanging around the airport, I was standing outside in the swirling fog and rain - and heard, but did not see, a light twin blow right over the field at a couple hundred feet, then disappear again. About 45 mins later, an Apache emerged from the goo and landed, and I got to talk to the pilot in the fbo. He was an attorney from Thunder Bay and had a court case to go to in Atikokan. I remember him saying "I knew I would eventually get in". The feeling I got was that he knew the local weather, and had been following the situation, figured it would clear up at about that time, that he should plan his arrival just then. He only had to go missed once, then hold for a while before his prediction came true. I thought it was all pretty cool and realized right then how much it improved an airplane's utility. I had another long 24 hours to think about it I guess, as my log says I did a short hop to check the conditions the next day, but did not actually clear out til later in the afternoon. The right combination of $ and airplane, to get my ir, did not arise til many years later but that memory kept burning until I got it.
