Docks Dieing and Low Flying

There hasn't been a whole lot of flying going on these past 3 days. I only flew once yesterday and then once today.

Before the river ice broke up there used to be a dock sitting on the shore that they used for the chief pilot's personal floatplane during the summer. However it disappeared at some point during ice breakup. Somewhere out in James Bay (or somewhere along the way) there is a single dock on a lonely journey to nowhere.

So a new dock is needed. A few days ago the chief pilot ran down to the dump and scooped a couple old truck gas tanks to use as floaters and brought them back on a trailer. Yesterday, having nothing else better to do and needing a reason to get out of the house, I volunteered my carpentry skills to start building the dock. The owner drew up a sketch plan for me, and we ordered the lumber. The lumber didn't arrive until late in the afternoon, so I didn't actually start work on it until after I had dinner. It wasn't much to build really, and it went together easily and it was fun to nail something together again. After about an hour's work I had the framing complete. All we had to do was fasten down the floats, and then put the deck on. I had the frame all squared up and nailed to the hangar floor so it wouldn't move, and was just getting ready to start putting the decking boards on, but then the owner came by and said he wanted to get the floaters tied on first before he put the deck on. Ok fair enough, it was getting late though, and seeing how it would take a couple of us to drag the floaters over and lift the dock frame on top, and also feeling accomplished enough with having the frame done, I called it a night.

This morning was spent fastening the floaters to the frame, and then spraying the whole thing with wood preserver. By 4:00 pm tonight we got a call for a flight, so I went back to the house to check the weather. The METAR (hourly weather observation) for here was calling 5200 ft ceilings and good vis, but the GFA (weather chart) showed a warm front cutting my route down the middle, with ceilings supposedly 400 to 1000 ft past the warm front. Hmm... decisions decisions. I wanted to fly, so I offered that I didn't mind giving it a try, and if the ceilings got too low I'd just turn around. So that was the plan. By 5:00 the plane was loaded and ready to go. I watched another plane, a Piper Cheyenne take off, and he disappeared into the clouds a lot lower then 5000 ft. I estimated it was closer to 1200 to 1500 ft. Oh well. The owner one more time assured me that if the ceilings were too low just turn around. By now I'm comfortable enough to fly in weather that is pretty much at minimums if it comes down to it, but they don't really pressure me to fly below legal minimums or in bad weather anyways, which I appreciate and respect. I've heard some stories of operators who let dollar signs decide more strongly on when to make trips, and try to push the legal limits. I've heard of one such operator out of Toronto (no longer in business) who constantly pushed his pilots (to the point of insulting them if they protested) to fly even when the weather conditions were dangerous, such as icing conditions that had even grounded larger airliners (the operator flew Cessna 310's and Navajo's). Eventually most of his pilots got fed up and quit, and then eventually the company went under. This guy was not a pilot himself, he was an East Indian businessman. I guess it helps that everyone in the company I work for are experienced pilot's themselves, so they understand the game better then a foreign non-aviating businessman.

Anyways I fired the Cherokee up and checked the AWOS. It was calling ceilings at 800 ft now. Technically that is below VFR weather minimum for VFR flight in a control zone. Minimums for a control zone surrounding an airport is that visibility has to be at least 3 miles, and the aircraft has to be operated at least 1 mile horizontally, and 500 ft vertically clear of cloud, and at least 500 ft above ground level. So basically that means no less then 1000 ft ceilings. There is a nifty little tool which I'm sure I've mentioned before which can be used in a control zone served by either a radio service or a tower. This is called Special VFR. When an aircraft operates under special VFR we only need 1 mile visibility and we only have to operate clear of cloud, we don't need to worry about the 1 mile horizontally and 500 ft vertically anymore. Special VFR is not allowed to be suggested by a controller. I imagine this is so pilots who are uncomfortable flying in such poor conditions don't feel pressured into accepting such a responsibility. Pilots can request it however.

In uncontrolled airspace when operating below 1000 ft all that is required for visibility is 2 sm miles during the day and to operate clear of cloud. As far as in the wording defining the limits of a cloud ceiling, there is technically no limit, but usually the requirements to stay a certain distance above man-made objects and built up areas come into play which dictates the minimum cloud ceiling based on that. For example if I have to operate at least 500 ft from any man made property, and I only have to operate clear of cloud, then that means my minimum ceiling is 500 ft. There is no such requirement to stay a certain height above terrain that is not build up or populated, which is the case up north here in the wilderness. So seeing as the visibility was good and I could operate clear of cloud without hitting the ground, outside of the control zone I'm good to go.

So based on the low ceilings when I started up and made my initial radio call to the radio service, I was expecting them to tell me conditions were below VFR for inside the control zone and that I wasn't allowed to depart. At that point I would request Special VFR thus removing my requirment to stay 500 ft vertically away from the cloud, and I'd be good to go. However he didn't tell me that. He didn't mention anything at all about the weather conditions, he just advised me of some IFR traffic shooting an approach and told me to call rolling as usual. Hmm, interesting. I'm not sure if he just wasn't up to date on the below VFR weather, or if he saw the inevitable Special VFR exchange coming and didn't want to bother with the semantics. Oh well, not that I care. Time to go flying.

I took off and I started skimming the bottoms of the clouds at 600 ft. They were even lower then what the AWOS was calling. Oh well, they're still do-able. I had a terrible headwind so I spent the duration of the abnormally long flight bouncing along at 600 ft agl, and crossing my fingers that it wouldn't get worse behind me stranding me for the night at my destination. That'd be a bugger. I landed uneventfully, unloaded my freight and installed the seat I brought with me to bring back my one passenger.

A headwind there meant a tailwind on the way back. I took off and once again levelled off at around 700 ft (the clouds were a little higher closer to destination). We were making great time, or it at least felt like it. We were so low and doing 142 kts groundspeed - the ground underneath whipped by pretty quickly. The ceiling for the most part remained unchanged. I think my passenger was a little nervous with the flight, it was bumpy and we were flying abnormally low to the ground. He kept tapping me on the shoulder and asking how much longer. Normally I don't mind tending to passengers needs, except when I'm busy. I always kind of expect passengers to have enough sense to leave me alone when we're taking off and landing, or when I'm noticeably busy. I'm not sure if its fair to expect passengers to intuitively know that or not. Since I'm the pilot, my opinion is tainted. In this case he tapped me on the shoulder when I was busy trying to spot the airport, join the downwind, slow the airplane down, and perform the prelanding check. Normally these would be separate steps with a fair amount of time in between, but in this situation the tailwind, combined with being so close to the ground meant the airport was coming up pretty fast. I was slightly annoyed that he was bugging me when I was busy, and at the fact that 15 minutes ago I told him we'd be landing in 17 minutes. You would think he could do the math. I half turned my head and thrust up my hand indicating "two minutes".

Once again on touchdown I managed to keep from ramming the landing gear through the top of the wings and stayed out of the weeds off the side, so I guess that makes for another successful flight.