Jay Honeck
Touchdown! Greaser!
We'd been through ten days of crappy weather which, when combined with a tough work schedule, meant we were grounded despite having two airplanes parked just 30 seconds away.
Worse, the next five days were predicted to be even worse. This is Iowa in November, with temperatures swinging from the upper 70s to the low 20s in just a few days.
Today, however, looked good. A bit of ground fog in the morning, temperatures in the upper 20s, and some peeks at the sun hinted at a pretty good flying day ahead...but we had to work. The progs for our days off (we take Wed/Thu off in the hotel biz, since real weekends are just too busy) looked absolutely terrible, with rain, freezing rain, sleet, and snow all in the forecast. What to do?
There are some perks that come with owning the place. First I called my son to see if he could pick up his sister at school. Check. Then I called one of my staff to see if she could come in a few hours early. Check. From that point on, it was a simple matter of driving over to the hangar, plugging Atlas (our '74 Cherokee Pathfinder, so-named because he can lift ANYTHING that will fit inside) in for a several-hour pre-heat, and waiting...
At last 2:30 arrived, and we were off on the long, 400-yard drive to our hangar. Mary opted to fly out, so she did the preflight. By now the sun was shining in a cloudless sky, the wind was light, and you could tell that this was *the* day to fly.
Back-taxiing on Iowa City's brand new Rwy 25, headed for Rwy 12, she carefully went over the checklist. One problem with flying two planes is that its easy to forget some of the type-unique stuff, so she always uses her written checklist, and she was ticking them off, one-by-one. Everything looked good...
Turning into the wind, she made our final checks. "Door latched?" Check. "Seat belts on?" Check. We're good to go!
Throttle smoothly forward, prop and mixture all the way to the stops, the sounds of the big ol' Lycosaur O-540 rose into a solid thrumming that inspired confidence. Nevertheless, my eyes played over the JPI engine analyzer as I called out our usual take-off checks: "Six good bars" (meaning the engine analyzer's graphic equalizer-like display had six even bars, denoting that all six cyclinders were firing together)..."Manifold pressure good"..."RPMs good"...."Oil pressure good"...."airspeed alive"...
Knowing that she was good to go, Mary rotated, pulling Atlas smoothly into the crystal-clear sky. Climbing out at 1500 feet per minute, we were soon at 3500 feet headed toward our favorite dinner destination, the Good Earth restaurant in nearby Muscatine, IA.
After an uneventful 15 minutes, she opted to enter the pattern from an overhead entry, crossing over Rwy 24 North to South to enter a left downwind. With the Mississippi River off our right wing, Mary demonstrated what she had learned in her recent BFR by keeping us in very tight. Over time we tend to make shallower turns in the pattern for the sake of comfort, at the expense of glide-distance safety -- so she was really racking ol' Atlas around, compared to usual. In the smooth, calm air, it was great fun!
After a great dinner it was my turn to fly. Despite the cool temperatures there was still no wind, so preflighting was pleasantly comfortable. (Not always the case in November!) Stowing the insulated nose cover that Mary made years ago, I climbed in and fired up the 496 and 2000c GPSs. As VFR pilots by choice we have been spoiled by having redundant and powerful navigational and weather tools on board, and within seconds we knew that (a) the nasty weather was still far to our West, and (b) Steely Dan was playing on the "Deep Tracks" XM station!
With Mary repeating our "on-the-roll" departure checklist, I arced smoothly into a now-overcast sky, banking left out over the Mississippi River. The cool air was thick as molasses, and the only discernible evidence of flight was the smoothly unrolling landscape beneath our wings. I could easily have been sitting in our Kiwi flight simulator back at the hotel...
Not wanting the flight to end too quickly, I did some easy maneuvers over the now-darkening, just-harvested fields of Iowa. Any idiot can fly in these conditions, and I was happy to be any idiot. To say we felt blessed would be an understatement, and all the stresses of work and life just melted away.
Coming into Iowa City, I called our position when I was 10 miles out. At five miles out a CAP flight inquired as to my position, and I told him. He said he'd wait for us to land, but I deferred to him instead, noting that if I landed this wondrous experience would be over too soon. Chuckling, he acknowledged that dawdling seemed like a good plan, and I started making big, easy S-turns over our home on the East side of town, waiting for him to depart, the first lights twinkling on below.
At last he was off, and I had to land. I set up for a straight-in approach, which fit our CAP friend's position in the pattern best, aiming for that long, beautiful stretch of new, smooth concrete, Runway 25. Whether it was the calm winds, the new cement, or the improved runway lighting, I'll never know -- but I was rewarded with the nicest touchdown I've done in months, the oleos oozing onto the runway.
Lit up like a Christmas tree, we rolled to a stop and shut down in front of our hangar. The busy highway was just a few feet away, and for a moment a felt sorry for all those folks staring at us as they drove past, knowing that most of them would never experience the joy of flight on a calm November afternoon.
Then I glanced at my watch, saw that normally I would just be getting off work -- and smiled...
:wink2:
Worse, the next five days were predicted to be even worse. This is Iowa in November, with temperatures swinging from the upper 70s to the low 20s in just a few days.
Today, however, looked good. A bit of ground fog in the morning, temperatures in the upper 20s, and some peeks at the sun hinted at a pretty good flying day ahead...but we had to work. The progs for our days off (we take Wed/Thu off in the hotel biz, since real weekends are just too busy) looked absolutely terrible, with rain, freezing rain, sleet, and snow all in the forecast. What to do?
There are some perks that come with owning the place. First I called my son to see if he could pick up his sister at school. Check. Then I called one of my staff to see if she could come in a few hours early. Check. From that point on, it was a simple matter of driving over to the hangar, plugging Atlas (our '74 Cherokee Pathfinder, so-named because he can lift ANYTHING that will fit inside) in for a several-hour pre-heat, and waiting...
At last 2:30 arrived, and we were off on the long, 400-yard drive to our hangar. Mary opted to fly out, so she did the preflight. By now the sun was shining in a cloudless sky, the wind was light, and you could tell that this was *the* day to fly.
Back-taxiing on Iowa City's brand new Rwy 25, headed for Rwy 12, she carefully went over the checklist. One problem with flying two planes is that its easy to forget some of the type-unique stuff, so she always uses her written checklist, and she was ticking them off, one-by-one. Everything looked good...
Turning into the wind, she made our final checks. "Door latched?" Check. "Seat belts on?" Check. We're good to go!
Throttle smoothly forward, prop and mixture all the way to the stops, the sounds of the big ol' Lycosaur O-540 rose into a solid thrumming that inspired confidence. Nevertheless, my eyes played over the JPI engine analyzer as I called out our usual take-off checks: "Six good bars" (meaning the engine analyzer's graphic equalizer-like display had six even bars, denoting that all six cyclinders were firing together)..."Manifold pressure good"..."RPMs good"...."Oil pressure good"...."airspeed alive"...
Knowing that she was good to go, Mary rotated, pulling Atlas smoothly into the crystal-clear sky. Climbing out at 1500 feet per minute, we were soon at 3500 feet headed toward our favorite dinner destination, the Good Earth restaurant in nearby Muscatine, IA.
After an uneventful 15 minutes, she opted to enter the pattern from an overhead entry, crossing over Rwy 24 North to South to enter a left downwind. With the Mississippi River off our right wing, Mary demonstrated what she had learned in her recent BFR by keeping us in very tight. Over time we tend to make shallower turns in the pattern for the sake of comfort, at the expense of glide-distance safety -- so she was really racking ol' Atlas around, compared to usual. In the smooth, calm air, it was great fun!
After a great dinner it was my turn to fly. Despite the cool temperatures there was still no wind, so preflighting was pleasantly comfortable. (Not always the case in November!) Stowing the insulated nose cover that Mary made years ago, I climbed in and fired up the 496 and 2000c GPSs. As VFR pilots by choice we have been spoiled by having redundant and powerful navigational and weather tools on board, and within seconds we knew that (a) the nasty weather was still far to our West, and (b) Steely Dan was playing on the "Deep Tracks" XM station!
With Mary repeating our "on-the-roll" departure checklist, I arced smoothly into a now-overcast sky, banking left out over the Mississippi River. The cool air was thick as molasses, and the only discernible evidence of flight was the smoothly unrolling landscape beneath our wings. I could easily have been sitting in our Kiwi flight simulator back at the hotel...
Not wanting the flight to end too quickly, I did some easy maneuvers over the now-darkening, just-harvested fields of Iowa. Any idiot can fly in these conditions, and I was happy to be any idiot. To say we felt blessed would be an understatement, and all the stresses of work and life just melted away.
Coming into Iowa City, I called our position when I was 10 miles out. At five miles out a CAP flight inquired as to my position, and I told him. He said he'd wait for us to land, but I deferred to him instead, noting that if I landed this wondrous experience would be over too soon. Chuckling, he acknowledged that dawdling seemed like a good plan, and I started making big, easy S-turns over our home on the East side of town, waiting for him to depart, the first lights twinkling on below.
At last he was off, and I had to land. I set up for a straight-in approach, which fit our CAP friend's position in the pattern best, aiming for that long, beautiful stretch of new, smooth concrete, Runway 25. Whether it was the calm winds, the new cement, or the improved runway lighting, I'll never know -- but I was rewarded with the nicest touchdown I've done in months, the oleos oozing onto the runway.
Lit up like a Christmas tree, we rolled to a stop and shut down in front of our hangar. The busy highway was just a few feet away, and for a moment a felt sorry for all those folks staring at us as they drove past, knowing that most of them would never experience the joy of flight on a calm November afternoon.
Then I glanced at my watch, saw that normally I would just be getting off work -- and smiled...
:wink2:
