, so thats why it flew a with a hard lean to the left?
Naaaawwwww.... you're supposed to LEAN FORWARD!!!
(from the Red Board Archives)
"I'll Tell you why not Minot" by SteveThePilot, 06/25/08
As some of you may know, a short time ago I decided to buy my first airplane – my beautiful, seasoned but prominent, Piper Arrow.
The day I closed was probably the most stressful and yet most happy day of my life. Several undisclosed tens of thousands of dollars, half a heart attack, and at least fourteen wicked arguments with my buyer later, my new Arrow sat in my home base at KPIE. It was bright, shining, and carried its age with such dignity that it made me wish I looked the same. I’ve never had the fortune of having children, but I think if I ever do, they’ll be hard pressed to match the sense of pride and accomplishment I felt the first day I took out my arrow.
The only downside was I had to start with an instructor. I was only a low time IFR student, but I wanted something that I could grow into, build some complex time in, and enjoy trips as a single guy to and from Places like Georgia and Houston. With the Arrow’s comfortable 140 KTAS, 72 gallons of fuel, and 10gph burn, I just knew it would due the job. Only trouble was that the insurance required me to get 10 hours of dual and 10 hours of single before I could carry passengers. And that was fine by me. I had practice to do on my IFR work anyway.
The 10 hours of dual went by like nothing. My instructor and I spent some time going over the landing gear system, flipping through the thirty year old POH, and talking about emergency procedures on the ground. In the air, we went over more emergency procedures, GUMPS, and several dozen landings. He’s a darn good instructor, so within about 3-5 hours we were through with the safety components and we just started working on some IFR work after that.
But the moment that was finished and our time together to certify my plane for the insurance was up, a sudden thought occurred to me. An epiphany. The sort of thing that you pray for once in a lifetime:
“Hey, Steve, your best friend from college is getting married in North Dakota next week. You’re the best man. Why don’t you show up in style?”
I think it’s the sort of idea you can only get when you’re young. But I’ll admit, it was a good one. But there were a few problems in the way. First, let me show you something visually.
[See thumbnail picture]
This was my planned route of departure. The legs were to go as follows:
1) KPIE St. Petersburg, FL to KCSG (Columbus, GA)
I have family in Columubus, and it seemed like a nice place to stop. This way, I could cut across to my next destination, Houston, and not have to deal with New Orleans airspace – which looked messy.
2) KCSG to KDWH (Houston, TX)
In Houston, another college buddy of mine was a groomsman and he wanted to join in on my glorious trek. I was to pick him up, then we could stop in our next destination – Lubbock, where we both went to school at Texas Tech University.
3) KDWH to KLBB (Lubbock, TX)
Here in Lubbock, we wanted to stop and see our old campus, tootle around the town for a while, then head to our final destination- Minot, ND.
4) KLBB to KMOT (Minot, North Dakota)
At Minot, we were going to participate in the wedding and hopefully go camping before that in Canada. According to my buddy, it’s the most beautiful place on earth to see the starts – but I have a hard time believing it could top the grand canyon. No foreshadowing here, I promise.
5) Reverse for the way back
So, as you can see, it was going to be one hell of a trip! And the best part? It was going to be all, 100%, VFR. Yep. That’s right. ALL VFR. I didn’t have my IFR yet, but I sure wanted a flying vacation and I was going to get it even if I had to do it all the hard way. Hell, in a way, I felt like a pioneer of flight. I had very few hours, only the minimum requirements, but I had two weeks of vacation to burn and I was going to use every scrap of it! So, without another word, off we went!
Or off I went, rather.
My initial plan for departure was from PIE at 5PM after work. I figured it would take 3 hours to get to KCSG where I could rest overnight and head to Houston the next day. The only thing that concerned me about this flight was the restricted area around Fort Benning. I’d never flown through one. Plus, I had to deal with Atlanta approach, which I heard could turn into a flaming dragon in a heartbeat if you messed up.
But I didn’t realize until I called the flight briefer that Mother Nature had other plans.
“Lockheed Martin Flight Services.”
“This is Steve,” I said. “I’m looking for a VFR flight from PIE to CSG. Could I get a standard briefing?”
He then went on to tell me that a storm from hell had risen just north of Tampa bay and I was totally stuck for the night. Damn! First day and my plans are already foiled.
But no matter, I’d allocated for TONS of extra time. So, I took off the next morning, after I got my flight plan.
This next leg was one of those moments that you look back on and say “boy, was I a dumb pilot.” You see, during this briefing, the briefer told me that there would be a few clouds at 4000 feet. Well, no big deal. I mean, most of my flight training was at 2000 feet and below, right?
The only problem was it was June…and 100 degrees. When I took off and cruised out at 2500 feet, I felt like I was on a roller coaster. When the thermals hit me from the hot, angry Florida swamp, I could swear that with each impact on my little piper’s wings that they were saying “Boy did you ever F up when you made this decision.”
What was stupid about it, is that at the time – it just never really occurred to me that I could have flown ABOVE the clouds! The reason? Well, I knew the standard 500, 2000, 1000 rule. But it didn’t really occur to me that as long as you can navigate by the ground, you’re legal. What I always did was say “Ok, there are clouds? I’ll stay below them and no one will get mad at me.”
So, sure enough, the whole flight I could have avoided the bumpy ride. But instead, I got tossed around for three hours. And I tell you – I’m a pilot with an iron stomach. But at the end of that, I felt like I was going to hurl. The good news, at least, is that Atlanta approach was very accommodating.
So! I’m in Columbus.
And Next thing you know, I was in Houston. And boy, what a relief. The only thing scary about that leg is that, little to my knowledge, DWH has a line of trees east and west of the airport that totally block airflow. It creates a really weird effect when you’re landing crosswind, because you’re used to fighting against this wind and then, suddenly, it’s gone! So on final, you can get really surprised by a sudden burst to one direction. But no big deal – I recovered.
And at Houston, I was able to really relax. My parents live there and I got to sit down for my first home cooked meal in about six months. Plus, I got to pick up my buddy and head to our next leg, Lubbock, TX. Things were starting to look up. And I mean it, they really, really were. I had already arrived in Houston, the weather was a little stormy around DWH, but 10 miles north and it was fine all the way to Lubbock.
Without hesitation, I climbed to 8500 feet and cruised for two hours in the most comfortable flight of my life. I mean it. The air was so smooth you could lace your wings with butter. It was paradise. My friend next to me was relaxed, and we luxuriously cruised while listening to Johnny Cash through our headsets on the music jack I have installed. That is, until, my alt. amp. meter suddenly crashed to zero.
This was the first time this had ever happened to me. I’d never had one of the “almost always working” instruments, like oil, fuel pressure, or alt. amp suddenly stop.
I tapped the gauge. No dice.
I turned the alt on and off.
When I did this, it spat up all the way to past “overcharging” to the point the needle was off the screen. At this point, this young pilot is completely freaking out on the inside, but on the surface I think I was pretty calm.
Immediately, I call the approach controller.
“Approach, I have a low volt indication and I need to land immediately. Can you advise?”
I know, I know – I don’t need to call them. But I did anyway. The reason was I happened to be flying over a place that looks like this:
[See second thumbnail]
And I’ll be damned if I’m going to fly through a prohibited area unannounced.
The control gets on immediately and says “Piper, you can land at KMNZ – it’s about 3 miles to your east, do you want me to alert the authorities?”
OH HELL NO. I thought
“Nah, thanks approach, it’s not an emergency yet. Although if you lose contact with me, go ahead and declare it one. I can deal with the paperwork and call myself and be more safe than sorry later.”
Approach: “Roger, Piper. I have you on Radar and will keep in contact with you as you go down.”
ZOOM!!
I launch down like a bat out of hell toward MNZ. My passenger actually looks a bit concerned at this point.
“What’s going on?”
“Quiet! I’m landing!”
VROOM!! I keep descending.
At first, I don’t see the airport. All I see is endless, dusty, Texas mass. But then, right in front of me, I see MNZ. It’s a little 2000’ (or so) runway. I line up straight to final, tell the approach guy I’ve made it, switch to Unicom and tell anybody to get the hell out of the way. Unsurprisingly, no one answers.
I was so scared at the time (keep in mind, I’d NEVER had an emergency or anything close to one before) that I didn’t really take into account when I got the ATIS that the winds were blowing direct crosswind at 15 knts. So, when I finally lined up toward final, I got such a strong gust that it nearly knocked me off course. But regardless, I landed.
…and there was nothing.
I was in a place called Hamilton, TX. And it was like a scene from the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Look to one side, and all you see is yellowish-dust. Look to the other, and more yellowish dust. Then, hanging on a post outside of what passes for a shack (not a building) there is a sign with an obscure phone number on it. I call, and the owner of the FBO shows up.
Turns out, he’s a really nice guy that used to fly for Continental in the days of yore. He tells me that if I head east (even closer to Bush’s Ranch) that I can land at Crawford, TX, where there’s a really good mechanic.
I call up said really good mechanic, and he gives me some advice:
“Turn off everything, even your transponder. Crawford is only 15 miles away, just make sure ATC knows what you’re doing and that you’re going dark. Happens here a lot. You’ll find us, we’re a small paved runway.”
So, I listen, comply, and off I go.
Hamilton aside, Crawford is a nice small town with an even nicer owner. He and his boys take a look at the battery and gauges and say that it’s probably just some corrosion. So, after a little comfort food barbeque and some homemade root beer (delicious, btw – called XXX root beer!) I take off again for KLBB, our final destination for the evening…and 20 miles later, my alt amp meter drops to zero. Again.
Ugh.
Long story short (or not so short), we land in Lubbock after stopping at Abilene to pick up a battery and alternator monitor that we can plug in the cigarette lighter. Once we get that, we somehow find out that we can jerry-rig the alternator to turn off for five minutes, then turn on for two minutes and get some charge in the battery. Plus, we can see if it’s going dead and know if we need to land. Two hours later, and at 10 o’clock at night, we land in Lubbock, TX.
Little did I know we’d get stuck there for two days. In Lubbock, they tried everything. $2000 later, we’d replaced the entire electrical system. Turned out, it was just the alternator. What was happening is that the alternator would get hot in the air and freeze up. On the ground, however, it would work just fine because it was cold. Talk about an annoying problem.
But anyway, two days later we took off from Lubbock and headed for our final destination – Minot. Hooray!
Along the way, we decided to stop in Cheyenne county municipal airport in Nebraska. They had fuel, a decent size runway, and it was a good halfway point. We arrived without incident and fueled up.
Takeoff, however, was another matter. The runway was only 3000’, so thank God I remembered my training and did a short field procedure. Flaps 10 degrees, throttle full, release brakes, go.
But something weird was happening. The plane was going SLOW. Not just slow, REALLY slow.
As we were going down the runway, I started checking the basics. The fuel pump was on. The prop was max, throttle was max, everything was as it should be. But there was one problem – it was just so darn hot, the density altitude was holding us back. I realized this just about the time I was at the end of the runway and at absolute minimum takeoff speed.
I also realized this about the time I saw a barn about 200 feet from the end of the runway.
And that’s when I prayed.
“Oh God, please let my little T-tail climb. Please let it climb. Please let it climb!”
“LEAN FORWARD!!” I screamed to my passenger.
As I yanked the gear up, I think I could hear the wake of air buffeting off the barn as we barely cleared it with my stall warning horn blazing. That was the first time in my life I’ve ever been scared in an airplane. But my passenger, surprisingly, is ice cool – no problems. No sweat, even. Calm as a gentle pond.
Once you’re in the air after something like that, something weird happens. You don’t really want to go back down. You’re in the air. You’re safe here. You have altitude. I’ve never really had that feeling before. Normally, when I’m uncomfortable, I feel the urge to land. But this time, all I wanted to do was stay in the sky.
Anyway, the weather disagreed. Storms over ND. So, we decided to land in Rapid City, SD – with a 27 knot crosswind.
Thank God I trained in Florida, because the crosswind was something I could handle. I landed without incident, just as dusk had begun to fall. And this, my friends, is when the story gets really crazy.
I’ve read about this in books. And seen it in movies. But I didn’t realize that in the frozen north it gets dark LATE. I didn’t even know it, but I landed at 10PM! I thought it was something like 6. And furthermore, more than just being late. Dark in the frozen north is…
DARK.
For you VFR pilots thinking of heading to ND at night. Two words:
DO NOT.
When I took off with the setting sun and headed north, I checked the weather and there was an opening up to Bismarck, ND. We figured we’d stop there and just rent a car from BIS to MOT, only an hour drive.
So, at least it was a short trip and I didn’t have the weather to worry about, right?
WRONG.
As night falls, you might as well have taken a black piece of cardboard and set it in front of my windshield. There was nothing. Blackness. I was VFR legal, because occasionally I would see a glimpse of light on the ground and I knew I was at a safe altitude (5500 feet and the highest obstacle was at 1200). But damn, it was scary. And then it got terrifying.
As I looked out to my side to see my strobes flashing, I began to see precipitation.
“No big deal,” I thought. “I’m from Florida. The capital of precipitation. I’ve done this a thousand times before.”
And then, my airspeed indicator dropped to zero.
ICE.
I tell you, I have never been so scared in my entire life. I looked out to one side of the plane and I saw a crystalline substance. I looked to the other and I saw the same crystalline substance. And then I looked in front, and saw a flashing white and green beacon. It was Bismarck.
BAM! I start going through my emergency ice checklist.
I tell approach immediately. “Approach, I am getting ice. I need to land now.”
He clears me to land immediately. Except he tells me:
“Caution, Piper. There’s a crosswind at 28 knts, gusting to 35.”
At this point, I’m numb. I’ve done so much and landed in so many rough conditions that it’s just one more obstacle. And I think it’s that attitude that saved my life. I tell you, even with ice, a 30 knot wind, a freaking out passenger, and a heart beating 500 beats a minute, I NAILED that landing. It was a thing of beauty.
At the end of the day I hoped out of the plane, got on my knees, thanked God I arrived, and said:
“Next time, I’m taking Northwest.”
Getting back? Now that’s another story.
