Fall Weather Flying

We've had really crappy weather lately. Monday I flew most of the day but we called it quits by late afternoon because the winds were getting too strong. Tues and Wed I sat around and did nothing because we had two full days of high winds and rain. Thursday morning was also not much good for flying due to poor vis and low cloud, so I only got 3 flights in the afternoon done, and most of those were spent bombing along through 3 miles vis at 400 ft.

Today, which is Friday, seemed like it might be pretty good, so we decided to get at it a little earlier to get as many fights as we could in. On the weekend they're also closing the airport where I do 80% of my flying into for runway resurfacing, so there's also the push from that to get as much as we can in today.

So I hauled myself out of bed this morning and did my morning routine: Sit around a for a couple minutes and wait for my brain to start functioning, check my email, check the weather, take a shower, have breakfast. There weren't any Low pressure systems or fronts moving in at all on the map, even though there might be a little bit of low vis, and the METAR was reporting just over 1000 ft overcast and 8 sm visibility. Not a great day for a joyride but enough to get 'er done.

Our first flight was a pax flight, so we got out to the airport and loaded the airplane and I got the preflight done. There was another company van coming after us with my load of passengers, but by the time I was ready they weren't here yet, so I hopped into the Cherokee to get to start it up and get it warmed up. Just as I was shutting down my pax load showed up so it ended up being pretty good timing. They had more luggage with them than what we had pre-loaded, so we had to take some stuff out and rearrange it so it was loaded properly.

As we taxied out for takeoff the AWOS was now reporting 8 sm vis and 600 ft overcast clouds. Worse then when I had checked it when I got up. Conditions were pretty much the same all the way up the coast. I dropped my passengers off, and headed back south with an empty airplane. As soon as I got within range to check the AWOS broadcast I tuned it in to see how the weather was doing. Sure enough it it had dropped even further down, now calling 500 ft overcast and 2 1/2 sm miles visibility. I'd have to get special VFR to get in to land, which is kind of like an IFR clearance to fly in lower weather conditions in the sense that in the type of control zone I was flying into, only one IFR/Special VFR aircraft would be allowed in the zone at one time.

I called up the radio service, advised my intentions and requested my Special VFR clearance. There was going to be a delay, since there was an IFR aircraft landing, and then another one waiting to take off. I had been listenning in on the frequency for a couple minutes beforehand, and was aware of the traffic, so I was expecting a delay, and let them know I'd orbit out of the way to the west of the field for the time being (orbit: basically a "hold" for VFR aircraft, just flying circles around a particular landmark).

"Roger, give me a call when you're 5 miles out."

Before I even made it to 5 miles out the aircraft that was waiting to depart called to cancel their flight and they needed to taxi back to the gate. Not sure why, could have been mechanical problems, or some sort of passenger issue, or maybe one of the pilots decided that had to go to the bathroom, and no they couldn't hold it. Anyways with the landing aircraft down and clear that left me free and clear. So before I even had to start my orbits, I got my clearance to enter the zone and land via Special VFR. Generally once a clearance is issued, any subsequent aircraft aircraft wishing also to obtain a clearance to take-off/enter the zone has to wait their turn... unless they're a medevac flight - they get priority over everybody. So sure enough, 4 miles out and a King Air 100 medevac called for their IFR departure clearance.

So my clearance got cancelled, and I had to orbit afterall. Okie dokie. This was actually a first for me, I've gone into a few different airports using Special VFR lots of times, but I've never yet had to wait. There's no real landmarks up here to orbit around, so I just flew circles between 4 and 5 miles NW of the field via my GPS, and I'll tell you, after 6 or 7 minutes of circling in poor visibility and close to the ground, I was thoroughly disoriented! I had lost all sense of which direction I had been heading, which direction I came from, and I no longer had that mental awareness of where I was relative to the field. It took a deliberate gaze at my GPS screen to "re-aquire" my mental position fix.

Soon enough the radio service was back calling me on the radio to re-issue me my Special VFR clearance. I had chose the NW of the field to orbit because the usual routes out of the the airport are to the North-North-East to head up the coast, or South to head to the usual southerly stop. The runway I intended to land on was also runway 06, which mean I needed to approach the airport from the west to land. The approach to that runway runs right alongside the river, which our little town runs along. In order to set up for my final approach for runway 06 I'd have to overfly the town. Now as you remember the ceilings were quite low. When I made my initial check of the AWOS, it was calling 500 ft, but now 15-20 minutes later after flying closer to the airport and then orbiting for 5-10 minutes it had dropped even lower, down to 300 ft overcast. In reality, at least about 3 miles to the SW of the field, the weather was more like 250 ft overcast and probably 1 1/2 miles visibility.

In that town area there's both an NDB radio tower, and a cellphone tower. I made sure I flew my base leg much further to SW to avoid overflying the town, both so I didn't smack into a radio tower, and because we're not really allowed to buzz town areas at heights lower then 1000 ft, except for the purpose of taking off and landing. I guess technically I was landing, so it would be ok. But 250 ft just seemed a little to low to me. Mainly I didn't want to cause people the inconvenience of no cellphone service. That would be tragic. So would fishing a dead pilot and busted airplane down from a cellphone tower.

Anyways I made sure not to overfly the town, and even though 4 miles away I couldn't see the airport yet, I knew I could just follow the riverbank right in to the runway threshold. So that's what I did. I got a nice tour of the town waterfront as I safely flew by over the water. I also saw my house, and my bosses house on the way by, as they are situated right on the riverbank. I wondered if they saw me as I buzzed by at 200 ft. Finally a little more than a mile out I could make out the runway APAPI lights (a set of two lights that turn red or white and give you and indication of glideslope). They were both red, meaning I was too low. Huh, no kidding. At what I figure to be just about a mile final the runway started to come into view. The winds were light and I managed to put it down just as soft as ever, if I do say so myself.

I taxied in, called the radio service advising "Down and clear", and shut down. The Ops Manager, my trusty dispatcher/boss rolled up with the fuel truck. "How's the weather?"

"Uhh, ya I think we're done for a bit."