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En-Route
Last night I was watching “Ice Pilots” on Netflix. While watching it, it occurred to me that my flight yesterday would have fit nicely into the show if I had cameras and a narrator.
I was flying a 66 year airplane similar to the one in the photo. I was training a helicopter pilot that hasn’t flown helicopters since Vietnam, he only has about 4 recent hours in airplanes We are working on getting him rated to fly his tailwheel airplane.
As we taxied to runway 12 we could see that the runway had not been plowed recently and had 3 to 5 inch drifts of snow across it. Taking off using a soft field technique each time we would hit one of these drifts the plane would slow down a bit making it harder to get up to flying speed.
Due to the snow on the runway we decided to proceed to Nampa under a sunny blue sky to practice take offs and landings since the runway at Nampa had recently been plowed. As we are flying over to Nampa I notice the whole west side of the valley from about Greenleaf westward is fogged in.
On downwind at Nampa for our 2nd landing I notice that the fog is moving east and getting closer to Caldwell. We do one more landing at Nampa and head back to Caldwell, racing the fog to get there.
As we enter downwind for runway 12 the fog is starting the cross the Caldwell airport. We set up for landing on 12, thinking we may have to land long to avoid the fog. Turning base it occurs to me that we took off into the wind on 12, but the fog is moving east, so I tune in to the AWOS (weather) and sure enough it says the wind will be about a 6 kt tailwind. We are now lined up on the runway and the fog is still thin enough we can make a normal approach. But we do still have the snow drifts on the runway.
Here is where the Narrator says they are landing downwind as the fog continues to reduce visibility, onto a runway covered with snow drifts in a 66 year old VFR tailwheel airplane. If they don’t land now the visibility may drop to the point they won’t be able to land. Actually the Narrator would take much longer to say this and add a lot more drama to it.
We did a nice soft field landing, we did land long using most of the runway, even though we could have stopped sooner if we needed to. By the time we had put the airplane in the hanger the airport was completely fogged in. So I went home and watched “Ice Pilots”
I was flying a 66 year airplane similar to the one in the photo. I was training a helicopter pilot that hasn’t flown helicopters since Vietnam, he only has about 4 recent hours in airplanes We are working on getting him rated to fly his tailwheel airplane.
As we taxied to runway 12 we could see that the runway had not been plowed recently and had 3 to 5 inch drifts of snow across it. Taking off using a soft field technique each time we would hit one of these drifts the plane would slow down a bit making it harder to get up to flying speed.
Due to the snow on the runway we decided to proceed to Nampa under a sunny blue sky to practice take offs and landings since the runway at Nampa had recently been plowed. As we are flying over to Nampa I notice the whole west side of the valley from about Greenleaf westward is fogged in.
On downwind at Nampa for our 2nd landing I notice that the fog is moving east and getting closer to Caldwell. We do one more landing at Nampa and head back to Caldwell, racing the fog to get there.
As we enter downwind for runway 12 the fog is starting the cross the Caldwell airport. We set up for landing on 12, thinking we may have to land long to avoid the fog. Turning base it occurs to me that we took off into the wind on 12, but the fog is moving east, so I tune in to the AWOS (weather) and sure enough it says the wind will be about a 6 kt tailwind. We are now lined up on the runway and the fog is still thin enough we can make a normal approach. But we do still have the snow drifts on the runway.
Here is where the Narrator says they are landing downwind as the fog continues to reduce visibility, onto a runway covered with snow drifts in a 66 year old VFR tailwheel airplane. If they don’t land now the visibility may drop to the point they won’t be able to land. Actually the Narrator would take much longer to say this and add a lot more drama to it.
We did a nice soft field landing, we did land long using most of the runway, even though we could have stopped sooner if we needed to. By the time we had put the airplane in the hanger the airport was completely fogged in. So I went home and watched “Ice Pilots”
