Stormy Flights

If you have been reading my blog you will have noticed that my experiences of flight are in a random order. This blog experience took place during my flight training.

I tried to fly at least once a week for an hour and booked my flight time a week ahead. The day for my lesson was, well lets just say not ideal weather wise. The wind was gusting briskly. Now I've already discussed my views on restrictions. Being restricted by weather is also annoying to me. Even though the thought of turbulence is enough to make me noxious. I still wanted to go flying. Perhaps most people wouldn't consider taking a lesson on a day like that, but I look at it this way: The first time you fly in adverse conditions would you want an instructor sitting beside you or would you rather be alone, or worse with passengers, and find yourself in a situation you have never been in before? I wanted to experience all flight conditions with an instructor by my side. So I took 3 gravel and headed for the airport.

My instructors may have been a bit surprised that I showed up, and I was surprised that they were still there. The head instructor shook his head and said, " don't go". But my instructor was willing to go and we set off in the wind to fuel the plane. As my instructor was fueling up the plane the wind was rocking the plane and yanking the controls back and forth. When my instructor asked me to put in the control locks I told her I already had. We set off and were careful to taxi slowly with the controls placed correctly in the wind so as not to be flipped by the wind. I took off and was informed that it was time to be introduced to instrument flying. What great conditions to start instrumentation. I was very glad I took the gravel.

The first lesson my instructor taught me about instrument flying is why it is taught. A pilot flying into cloud without instruments has a life expectancy of 90 seconds. That's how long it takes to find something to hit. Usually, ( 100% of the time), it's the earth. To drive this point home one lesson was for me to establish straight and level flight. Once I was comfortable with the established flight I was to close my eyes and continue with straight and level flight. Then I was told I could open them when I was sure that I was straight and level. I didn't believe I was. I knew I was ok directional but felt that I was descending. Then I heard the stall buzzer indicating I was about to stall from climbing beyond my ability to maintain flight. So I dropped the nose of the plane. The instructor then asked me how I thought I was doing. I stated that I was still ok directional but once again descending. She told me to open my eyes. I was about to stall in a climb and was 90 degrees off course. This all happened in about 15 seconds.

Another lesson we often did was where I closed my eyes with my head down. My instructor would put the plane through several maneuvers so I no longer knew whether we were going up, down, left, right, or any combination thereof. Then my instructor would state, " you have control!" at which point I had moments to assess the "unusual attitude" and react accordingly with the appropriate control.

Once my lesson was up we headed back for the runway. Needless to say my approach to land was less than satisfactory. My instructor took control and circled around in order to "show" me how to land when weather conditions were less than ideal. Now I might add in here that this instructor trained in Ontario where the wind always blew so she was in her element. When we were on final, about 800' above the ground, we hit a gust of shear wind that turned our plane 90 degrees in a fraction of a second. My in stinks took over before I even thought and I grabbed the controls to level the aircraft. I looked at my instructor and she just smiled at me. Moments later we dropped as though there was no air below us. Now I'm thinking, " How in the world can you land when you can't control the aircraft better than this??" It is called "ground effect". Once an aircraft is within half the distance to the ground as the length of the wingspan the air pushing off the ground helps to stabilize your flight. Now if the first time I had ever encountered such conditions, and if you do any serious flying at all you will, for the first time when I was alone I don't know if I would ever have the courage to get the plane anywhere close to being within ground effect. Though the flight left me rather noxtious the rest of the day, I went home straight to bed, I have never regretted going out that day. I have been in worse situations since.

Last December my son was flying into Grand Prairie to be with us for Christmas. The wind was quite strong but I was determined to pick up my son by plane. It is about a 1 hr. 10 min drive to Grand Prairie from Dawson Creed. Why drive if you can fly?? I left in time so, should I abort the idea of flight, I still had time to drive. I fueled up the plane and fired it up. Sitting warming up the engine the controls would snap with the wind causing me to hold the controls very tightly. I taxied to the runway and took off. No sooner had I lifted off I burst out laughing thinking about my son flying back with me. It would for sure be the last time my son would EVER step into a small aircraft. I radioed control and notified them that I would be remaining in the circuit and landing as turbulence was too great for flight. On my approach for landing I had full rudder and turned way into the wind to keep from drifting off track. I was actully quite impressed with my landing. In the dark no less. A vehicle approached within the runway taxiway and waited for me. I stopped in the parking area and walked over to the vehicle.

"Oh it's you!" stated the airport maintenance manager. " You've got balls!" He then told me about the last guy who flew in similar conditions and he took out the papi lights. That landing cost him several thousand dollars. My total flight time: 5 min. I later learned wind gusts were up to 80 km. per hr.

Night Flying

As soon as I achieved my private pilots license I began working on my night endorsement. I'm not one to enjoy any restrictions on me. To have a pilots license without a night rating would drive me nuts. I'm not a time watcher at the best of times and to have to be watching the time as to when you can fly and when you can't would be far too restrictive.

One time that nightfall would have become restrictive is a trip I made with my wife, Doris, from Dawson Creek to Abbotsford. Now this should be a 4 1/2 hr. trip at best. Unknown to me my motor was very tired and was insidiously loosing power. Trips were taking me longer and longer. I just thought that I was the unluckiest pilot in the world as the wind was against me no mater which direction I flew. After all the engine only had 1/2 the hrs of life expectancy.

We left Dawson Creek after Doris finished work. Plenty of time to make it in daylight. Once again I was determined to fly direct. After all this is the most economical means of transportation. And once again there was a cloud cover just above the rocky mountains. The clouds were heavily scattered and I began flying under, over, and around in an attempt to get over the top. At one point I reached 13,300' above sea level before the clouds began to lower and break up. I was able to drop back down to 10,000' above sea level.

After almost 4 hrs. of flight, and not being close to our destination, I began to calculate how much fuel i had on board. I have a tendency to error on the side of too much fuel. I don't like the anxious feeling one gets as a pilot without enough fuel. I once asked my instructor which was better: to be overweight and have extra fuel, or be under maximum weight and barely enough fuel. I knew he couldn't give me an illegal answer, such as to fly overweight, but i did like his answer. He said, " The only time you have too much fuel is if you are on fire!"

The sun was setting quickly and my gps told me were were approaching 108 mile house. Feeling the need for a leg stretch, (and pee break), I decided to drop down and pick up a bit of fuel just to make sure we would have enough. 108 mile house has pilot activated runway lighting so I activated the lighting, entered the traffic pattern and landed. After all there were few airports between 108 mile house and Abbotsford with lighting. Something to consider should the flight not go as planned. Most small airports have self serve fuel stations so I pulled up along side the pumps. A gentleman approached us and by now the idea of a pee break was a little more urgent. He instructed us where there was a washroom we could use and we were off. Upon return we found that he had filled us to the rim with fuel. So now we set off once again getting close to maximum weight with fuel for another 6 +hrs. of flight.

By now dusk was well underway as we left 108 mile house and headed directly for Abbotsford. Darkness quickly developed and all indications of any horizon soon faded away. Flying direct left no highway or civilization below us causing any visual below to be black. This darkness blended with the dark horizon which blended with the darkness of the night sky. Even the stars gave little light. The eye strain of trying to establish a horizon while maintaining our course became very tiresome. The lighting required to read the instruments just made looking out that much darker. Finally I just quit looking out and began to fly strictly by instruments. I may as well have been flying in the clouds for all one could see.

After approximately an hour of flying by instruments I could see horizon ahead of us. This horizon was created by all the city lights of Vancouver and the valley. We were about an hour from our destination. I could once again fly by visual. We arrived in Abbotsford just after control said "good night". We parked our plane and called our son to let him know we had arrived and he could pick us up. Total flight time almost 6 1/2 hrs.

The engine made that trip two more times before I brought it in for an annual check-up and the mechanics found iron filings in the oil filter and iron slivers in the screen. I am now waiting patiently while the entire motor is rebuilt to factory specs. 0 time as it is called. Some day soon we will once again sore with the eagles.