Nov 23, 2009
Currently I’m riding the train south. The Cherokee is finally fixed, so I’ll stay down south for the night and then fly it back in the morning. I’m looking forward to logging a few more hours in the Cherokee. Not because I need Cherokee hours, but because its just a more pleasant airplane to operate, and I have a bit of an attachment to it after 700 hrs.
Last night I had an OPP officer knock on my door at about 6 PM. It was rather unexpected, and as I answered the door I tried to quickly scroll back through my mind to try to find the reason they were at my door. I didn’t REMEMBER doing anything illegal. They were actually here for a favour. The officer had a guy with her, and she explained that he had a family emergency, and needed to get to Toronto ASAP. He was wondering if I could fly him in the Comanche. He was visibly upset, and mentioned that he had a significant amount of money on his VISA to cover the fuel costs. I told them I would if I could, but I’d have to check the weather first, and clear it with my employers, so if I got stuck somewhere they’d know where I was. It sounded like it was going to be a long night; it would have been an easy 6 hr round trip, so if I was airborne by 7, I probably wouldn’t be back until close to 2 AM.
I got some stuff together and took a good look at the weather. I’m still not Instrument rated so as always I’d have to make the trip VFR, which can be problematic this time of year for covering such a large distance, especially at night, where scud running (very low level flying) isn’t so safe. There was fog forming all across my route. Fog is still probably the single biggest thing that scares me. Strong winds can be handled, thunderstorms can be flown around or navigated through with the Stormscope, its tough to land if you can’t see the runway through fog, let alone even see the fog at night. I had to call the poor guy and let him know I couldn’t do it. I felt bad, I’m not sure what his emergency was, I didn’t ask and it was none of my business, but he seemed pretty desperate to get to Toronto.
As I went to bed I wondered if we could have at least tried the flight, but then images of being stuck in the dark cold night above a layer of fog unable to land, and I decided that I’d rather be curled up in bed like I was.
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Back home now, safe and sound, and one day later. I stayed the night last night, and then spent most of the day killing time waiting for the weather to clear, as I woke up with ceilings on both ends of my route at 200 ft agl. Finally as daylight was running out today the ceilings lifted JUST enough for me to give it a go. I spent a good part of the flight flogging through poor visibility, but both the ceilings and visibility got better as I got further north and the ground fell away below me.
Once again I get to sleep in my own bed.
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I would have loved to fly to Toronto in the fog.. too bad my IFR if no longer valid. If you had yours you could have had a co-pilot. I've shot a few approaches to minimums in the Aztec and I loved it.
ReplyDeleteYa, would've been fun, and it would have been good to have another pilot onboard at the very least to keep me awake. But we'd definitely be going to our alternate. I checked the weather later that night and it did indeed go down to less than a 1/2 mile vis and 100 ft VV.
ReplyDeleteWe could have asked for the CATIII at YYZ. lol.
ReplyDelete