Aviating

Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity, or neglect.

--Alfred Gilmer Lamplugh, CBE

I've written elsewhere about the manner in which I spent this past weekend. Time to set that aside and contemplate the getting there and getting back.

Sitting here in the sunroom at Wyldswood sipping a latte in solitude, except for the two geese who carry on whenever I walk past the kitchen window. I was supposed to be in Corning now, back with P and planning for our trip to Boston next week for Thanksgiving. But instead I'm here, which is how it goes sometimes in the world of general aviation.

An expletive escaped my lips in the darkness last Thursday morning at Tara, as I rolled over to check the radar on my phone. I planned to leave early for this trip to Texas to shop assisted living facilities, stopping in southern Illinois for fuel. Instead, an angry and well-developed line of storms arced from Canada out into the Gulf, without a break. If I was going to Texas today, I'd need to pick through that.

I planned for an alternate, figuring Lukens Field in Cincinnati would be an okay place to drop in and ride out the weather. They have good popcorn there. Before I stepped to the Columbia, I had a nice talk with the weather briefer at Leidos Flight Service, who was cheerful but generally full of bad news. I left anyway.

The other bad news that morning, besides the approaching weather, had to do with the winds. They were straight out of the west and howling. As I crossed Ohio, my groundspeed dropped below 140 knots, leaving me crawling across the sky. And I couldn't descend enough to get below the wall of wind.

Did I mention that the guys at Premier had helpfully failed to fill the plane with fuel, explaining that you should always leave a little space in the tank at the top because that's what you do with a Cirrus?

This is not a Cirrus, however. They'd shorted me about 15-20 gallons of precious fuel I'd need to get through the darkening skies ahead and reach my destination.

The combination of winds, weather, and less fuel than planned meant as I crossed Ohio in gathering gloom it was time to find a place to drop in for a while. I selected Columbus, Indiana on my onboard chart because it looked like the wall of stormy weather wouldn't quite arrive before I landed.

I got close. As I was bouncing down final the rain arrived, along with winds gusting north of 25 knots. And "gusting" meant that one second I was coming down the chute at 100 knots, a second later 80, then 120 if I tried to chase my airspeed.

After a surprisingly uneventful landing, I taxied to the ramp and asked the attendant to top her off while I went inside to check the weather and plan the next leg.

Inside I found the FBO full of Luftwaffe guys. Another fellow about my age was also wearing a USAF leather flight jacket, another old AF pilot as it happened. He explained they were in town to check out the latest counterinsurgency weapon dreamed up by one of our defense contractors, his current employer: the Air Tractor.

If you're thinking to yourself, "Hey, that looks like a cropduster with bombs hanging off it!", you win the gold star for today. That's exactly what it is. Never underestimate the creative genius of our defense contractors when it comes to taking the most benign technology and figuring out how to use it to kill people.

But soon I wasn't thinking about Air Tractors, as the smell of delicious fried things wafted through the building. I noticed across the lobby a 1950s style diner packed with folks taking an early lunch. I decided to join them. This weather wasn't going anywhere, after all.

I'm sure there was a salad on the menu somewhere, but all I could see was that country fried steak with mashed potatoes, all slathered in gravy and accompanied by green beans swimming in bacon fat. I ordered, and as I dug in I felt a moment of bliss tinged with guilt. P wouldn't approve. I sent her a photo anyway.

Bloated and sated, I waddled out to the Columbia in the rain as it began to lighten up a little, checked in the fuel tanks and saw . . . a space where there was no fuel. The nice young man explained that you should always leave a little space at the top. I shook my head and crawled in the cockpit, not looking forward to another exciting leg of watching the fuel gauge and hoping for the best.

But even before fuel became an issue, there was this weather. I flight planned a low departure again because of winds, only climbing to 4,000 feet. As I arced to the southwest, I found myself getting buffeted by some pretty strong turbulence, at one point bouncing off the ceiling and worrying a little about damaging the metal plate in my neck. The approach controllers didn't have much traffic out there because few were foolish enough to brave the line of storms, and they let me fly pretty much wherever I wanted as I picked my way between cells on my Nexrad.

Finally I popped out of the clouds after an hour of this, and found myself at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, barges piled up at the port there awaiting their turn at the terminal.

The barges were off the starboard side. Sorry.

As I crossed the endless plain of the Mississippi delta in Arkansas, the skies cleared, the winds died down, and the ride smoothed out. I landed in Conway, looking for fuel.

I watched a nice young man ride off in a golf cart, not realizing he was the only employee there and the only one who could refuel the Columbia. I fumed in the lobby for a few minutes awaiting his return. Once he came back a few minutes later, I have to admit he was pretty efficient topping me off, and he really did top me off this time. I was back in the air in about forty minutes total.

The ride across southwest Arkansas was lovely and uneventful, the mountains brown and red off the starboard side, farms spread out to port. Within an hour I was approaching the DFW Metroplex, and the radio was soon a steady stream of calls between an approach controller with the speed and verbal discipline of an auctioneer vectoring dozens of planes around the sprawl. I flew over my sister's house in Bonham, over Denton and the University of North Texas, and past the departure ends of the runways at DFW before turning south along the western edge of that huge airport to land at Arlington.

My arrival at KGKY was uneventful. I taxied to Van Bortel Aviation, where the Columbia would be getting a new battery ($725) and hopefully a fix to the annoying "door open" warning that had cropped up recently. Bobby was waiting there, and took me on the most death-defying hourlong drive of the day. Whenever an 85-year-old man is hurtling down the expressway and tells you to throw the car into reverse if there are brake lights ahead and he's not responding, be worried. Be very worried.

Sunday morning I rolled over and mumbled an expletive as I looked at the radar on my phone in the predawn darkness at Dad's house. Ice and mixed precip, lots of it in white and blue and pink like a bruise across the northeast and upper Midwest. Ice will kill you. I called the Leidos weather briefer, who was still talking my ear off as Bobby pulled up to take me to the airport.

"If I go a little later, is there a chance this stuff might clear?"

"If by 'later' you mean Tuesday, sure."

Very funny, these briefers.

I surveyed my options as Bobby drove us back to Arlington on the mostly empty tollway. I could go to Cincinnati and hope for the best, and maybe get stuck living in a hotel room for a couple days while the weather lingered, or I could go to Wyldswood and at least be home, albeit without Peg, if I got stuck. I opted for the latter.

The departure from Arlington was a little chaotic. The Cowboys were playing the Falcons at home, and Arlington is the closest airport to the stadium. A Learjet pulled up as I was leaving, rich couple piling out in their Cowboys jerseys as a limo SUV pulled up to take them to the game. Once I was taxiing and on the radios, it was obvious the skies were filling with luxury jets making their way into town for the game.

It only got worse once I was in the air. I couldn't believe the radios would be even busier at nine on a Sunday morning than they'd been late Thursday afternoon, but they were. Mercifully, the approach controllers sent me east along the southern edge of the chaos, then climbed me up to altitude and handed me off the Fort Worth Center out past Mesquite.

Those same winds that were in my face on Thursday would be my friend on this eastbound leg, so instead of going low I flight planned for 15,000 feet to take advantage of the tailwinds. That meant donning a cannula that would drip oxygen up my nose and make my radio calls sound like a kid with a head cold.

There are no interesting stories from this trip. I not only didn't fly through a single cloud; I didn't see any. At 235 knots groundspeed the world was sort of whizzing by.

Hey, there goes Mobile Bay!

And a few minutes later I watched ECP and the St. Andrew Bay float past.

Not long after that I was on the deck at KFPY, three hours and fifteen minutes after leaving Dallas. Simply remarkable.

And I got to Wyldswood in plenty of time to call P, pour a toddy, go hit golf balls at the Perry Country Club and greet a whole posse of old friends out on the deck, then get home in time to feed the fish and enjoy a beautiful, if lonely, sunset.

This morning I rolled over and smiled a little. The radar looks pretty good, and the FAA weather brief isn't calling for any ice between here and KELM tonight. It'll be a long day getting there, and I'll need to do a little night flying in some clouds, but insh' allah I'll finally be home to my P after a hard few days away. Wish me luck.