The Trip

I’m on my way. Right now I’m the plane, its on autopilot, just heading over the south shore of Georgian Bay north of Wiarton. The sky is so far clear so its an easy flight and I have time to blog on my brand spankin new netbook (a mini laptop computer). I anticipate lower ceilings past Sudbury, and I’ll have to pay a little more attention to flying. All I see right now is the blue sky above with a few clouds in the distance around me, and an expanse of deep blue water ahead of me. I barely see any ice in the water, its mostly melted off by this time of year.

I like flying twins, they give me a warm fuzzy. Not only do they allow me to fly over water legally with no lifejackets on board, but they give me the confidence in the aircraft to do it as well. It will be an interesting change switching back to flying singles in my job, especially since it will be almost all over hostile terrain. Its going to require me to change my thinking again in that I’ll have to constantly be looking for good places to land if my engine quits - it will always have to be in the back of my mind. But for now, I’m in the Twin Comanche.

Its Sunday afternoon as a I write this, I’ve been delayed by weather 3 days now. I suppose that’s not too bad now that I say it, but its seemed like an eternity. Especially this morning, I basically spent the entire morning clicking refresh on the AWWS (Aviation Weather Website) waiting for the weather to change. It finally looks like I may be able to squeak through, so I’m on my way making a run for it.

It’s a little less then a 3.5 hr trip from takeoff to landing. Timmins is the last airport before my destination, which is about 45 min away, but thanks to the Comanche’s tip tanks, I have enough fuel to fly all the way to my destination, dink around for a bit, and fly all the way back to Timmins with fuel remaining in case the weather is no good. That gives me another warm fuzzy. Its important to always have a plan B.

I’m pretty much over the center of Georgian Bay now, and there’s a big cluster of ice chunks, it kind of looks cool. Too bad I forgot to put fresh batteries in my camera.

Its 4:03 right now, I’ve been airborne for an hour, so in about 40 more minutes my tip tanks will be dry and I’ll have to switch to my auxiliary fuel tanks. I’ll burn on those for a bit, but I want to keep a little fuel in them, so I won’t run them dry. I’ll make my final fuel selector switch over to the main tanks after about 45 minutes on them.

I also have to remember to make a position report. I’m getting into pretty remote terrain, and if I go down it would be nice to have narrowed down the search parameters for the SAR guys, giving them a better chance to find me sooner.

Gauges check all green. I’ve got a headwind so groundspeed is only showing 144 kts, so if I don’t have to fly a dogleg around weather I’ll be there in 2 hours 20 minutes.

Well I’m just crossing over the north shore of Georgian Bay now, with Sudbury about 30 nm ahead. Weather still looks great, minus the suddden light turbulence that is making it difficult to type on my netbook. The turbulence appears to have subsided now.

Here’s another cool picture. I’m flying about a hundred feet below a layer of scattered to few clouds. Once again no camera, but I have a bunch of pictures of clouds anyways. The awesome view from the cockpit doesn’t quite translate into an equally awesome photo.

Gauges check green, will expect to switch tanks in about 20 minutes. The tip tanks are nice because I can run those right bone dry since they don’t have a rubber bladder. The other ones, while they can be run dry if I wanted too, its better to leave some fuel in them.

I’ve now climbed 500 hundred feet so I could get on top of that scattered layer of clouds. Its always smoother above cumulous clouds then it is below. For now the layer is only few to scattered, so its okay to be on top, but I’ll have to watch and make sure they don’t close in on me and trap above the cloud layer.

I’m over Sudbury now, I can see the smoke stacks below me. Once I’m on the North Side I’ll call London Radio and make a position report. Actually I might as well do it now.

Done. Now SAR knows I’ve at least made it past Sudbury.

The cloud layer seems to be getting a little thicker now. Its now definitely a scattered layer, looking like it might turn into broken shortly. I might have to descend through a hole shortly to get underneath.

I expect my engines will start sputtering shortly, meaning I’ll have to switch the fuel tanks over. Whenever I have passengers I usually try to warn them that the engines may start surging shortly and that its nothing to worry about so they are not terrified when it starts happening. Its caught me off guard in the past before when my mind was occupied with other things, and …

Ok I’m now below the cloud layer. I’ve made a spiral desent through a hole in the clouds, and I’m now at 2500 ft above sea level, down from 5000. Its much bumpier down here, so I may have to end my blogging here.

As I was saying though, running a tank dry can really catch you off guard if you’re not expecting it! The first thing you brain tells you is "engine failure!", and just before you crap your pants you remember the fuel tank just needs switching over.

Anyways I must be going now.

5:31
So I’m down to 2000 ft, cruising underneath the clouds. The weather is stable enough for me to pull out the netbook and write a quick update. I passed by Timmins about 15 minutes ago. Oh I see Cochcrane off my left wing. Less then an hour to go.

Ok as I was typing that the cloud layer lifted a couple hundred feet, and now I’m at a more comfortable 2200, about 1400 ft above ground level. Much of the last hour was spent skirting hills and treetops 400-800 ft above the ground, but now the terrain is dropping away a little bit, so I have some more room to play with.

I passed a lone lookout tower on a hilltop in between Timmins and Sudbury, which I marked on my GPS. I couldn’t see any roads leading up to it or anything. It would be quite the trek to get to, I wonder what it was there for, and how old it was. How erie. I always think things like that are so cool. They have a past and a story to tell and it makes me wonder.

Well in another 30 minutes or so I’ll begin landing preparations, and I don’t have much else to talk about at the moment. Once I get settled in and hooked up to the internet I’ll upload this blog and maybe write another. Peace.