So no exciting stories to tell in this post, sorry folks, but I do feel the need to write something. So far October has been one of my busiest months yet for flying, which means lots of money for me, as I partly get paid by the mile. I figure by the 28th I'll have blown by July's record number of trips. Not that its actually busier for the company now than it was in July, but our summer temp pilot went home at the end of September, so now I don't have to share.
I got the latest Aviation Safety Letter, which I always enjoy reading. I got the publication on the way to the airport for my first flight of the morning, so I tucked it into my flight bag for a little in-flight reading if I got a chance. I wonder what would happen if I got in an accident while reading the newsletter... I can imagine the accident report: Cherokee 6 loss of control and subsequent flight into terrain. Aircraft destroyed and pilot, sole occupant, received serious injuries. Findings as to cause: Pilot's attention was diverted while attempting to remain a safe pilot by reading about safety issues in the Aviation Safety Newsletter, which contributed to loss of control of aircraft. Wouldn't that be ironic, if not unlikely.
This quarter's issue was actually quite interesting, there were some good stories, as well as a number of interesting accident synopses. There was the usual student in a Cessna 150 accident, there seems to be one in every report. This time it was a first-time solo student ending up off the runway and dinging the prop. Pretty standard stuff. Some other ones make you shake your head and ask "what was he thinking?", like a Cessna 310 pilot who was demonstrating a single engine approach and landing, who actually shut the engine down. During the approach, he found out too late that the remaining engine operating at full power wasn't enough to reach the airfield, and he crashed in a field 1 mile short of the runway. What was he thinking? Who actually shuts an engine down like that so close to the ground just for the heck of it? The report doesn't seem to indicate that the pilot was an instructor and the passenger a student... so was he just showing off? Real smooth...
There was also a private Beech Bonanza that had a gear up landing due to being distracted by chatting away on the radio all the way down to touchdown. Thats why the "sterile cockpit" rule was invented (aka don't talk while you're landing/taking off). I can understand how sometimes there can be distractions and it would be easy to forget to extend the landing gear, but at the same time I can't understand how it still happens, especially to people who own the airplane they fly, and know they have to pay for stuff they break. Personally for me when I fly the Twin Comanche, I consciously maintain a healthy state of paranoia during my approach, and verify the landing gear is down probably 4 or 5 times before I cross the runway threshold.
Then there's the accidents that are just plain bad luck, or just cases where the pilot accepted the calculated risk and the cards weren't in his favour, like the private Maule who tried landing on a grass strip. He did a low level pass to inspect the field first, and it looked good, but then he flipped over after touchdown. Bummer. Sorry about your luck.
I also feel sorry for the helicopter pilot whose rotor wash blew a sign loose off of a building and sucked it into the tail rotor. He managed to land safely however.
There was also a accident that seemed to ring familiar with an experience I had back when I flew my old C-150. A Piper Super Cub on skiis tried to take off in too deep of snow, and couldn't get enough speed, so he aborted the takeoff, and kicked the passenger out to try again. Not only did he not get off the ground the second time, but he also crashed into a crevasse and overturned. My experience wasn't nearly as extreme, but I can relate to how the pilot must have felt. I landed at a grass strip (on wheels) just north of London to pick up my cousin and take him for a flight. The runway was plenty long enough, 3000 ft, but after I landed I realized that the grass was very thick, probably 6 inches high, it hadn't been mowed in a couple weeks I guess. You get that feeling like, "oh crap hopefully I can get off the ground". We decided to give the takeoff a try with the both of us, but I had set a spot on the runway that was my go/no-go spot, if I wasn't off the ground by then I'd abort. It ended up being no problem at all, it took a longer take-off than normal, but we still got off the ground before my no-go spot, so it all worked out in the end. Unfortunately the ski pilot in the accident report wasn't so lucky. Such is aviation I guess.
In other news, its cold enough now that we're back to putting the engine blanket and wing covers onto the airplane every night so we don't have to scrape frost off in the morning. Its not really a big deal, but for some reason I just hate doing it. When I come in from my last flight of the day I just don't feel like tucking the airplane into bed, I just want to go home and eat dinner. I know, I'm a whiner. At least its a low wing airplane and they're easy to put on.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
Thanksgiving Shakedown
Fall air is definitely here. I can smell that crispness in the air, and I'm starting to have to bundle up as well. I always bring more sweaters/coats then I have to because you never know how cold it might be 150 miles north, and it wouldn't hurt to have an extra layer of clothes handy if I end up on an unplanned night of camping in the middle of nowhere.
A few days ago I took the Twin Comanche up for some circuits. Its been a few weeks now since the engines have been fired up, and I had a bit of a craving for some twin flying. I just went up for 3 circuits, about a half hour flight which satisfied my fix and gave the engines a good workout. At one point there was a Dash-8 inbound and the radio service advised them that there was a "Cherokee 6" in the circuit. I almost felt like correcting them, but it was my last circuit, and in the big picture my airplane type didn't matter a whole lot in that situation. In the past they've also advised other traffic of a "Twin Comanche" when I've been flying the Cherokee. Its obvious they've made the connection that its the same pilot that flies the two different airplanes, and they key on the sound of my voice I suppose.
Today is the Thanksgiving Monday, and I had a couple flights today, so I didn't get a turkey dinner. Not that I would have if I didn't fly. To be honest its getting a little tiresome living up here being away from friends and family, and not having much to do other than rotate between watching TV, reading, and playing on the computer in my days off. I'm still really enjoying the flying, and I'm going to miss it over the winter, but despite that I'm counting the days on when I'll be home for the winter. I will get my fix of flying over the winter though in the form of IFR training. This winter I REALLY have to finish up my Instrument Rating. If I don't, my INRAT exam will expire and I'll be back to square one with that. I also want to have a shot at a twin-ifr job as well. I have almost 1200 hrs total time now, most of that being PIC time, with almost 200 of that being multi-PIC time as well, so I think I've got a pretty good shot at finding something half decent - hopefully. I'm sure how much good another year of single-engine VFR flying will do career-wise for me. I guess we'll see how it all plays out. Hopefully the industry gets a bit more momentum that it got this last spring.
My first flight today was a couple passengers to the usual destination up the coast. The weather was pretty good with only a broken-scattered layer at around 3500 ft, so enroute it was smooth sailing. When we were loading the airplane my boss mentioned with a bit of a wink in his eye that they didn't seem to have much stuff. Usually passengers load the airplane up stuffed to gross weight to get the most out of what they're paying for the charter. If they don't stuff the airplane, its sometimes a hint that the cargo they do have onboard MIGHT just be helping to pay for the trip in the form of contraband liquor. A couple weeks ago I took one passenger up the coast to the community across the river from the one I was going to today, and this one passenger only took with him 4 boxes and 1 50 lb bag of potatoes. Unfortunately for him, his daughter who was supposed to meet him at the airport didn't show up, so he took off to go hunt her down, and in the meantime, the local police showed up and searched the airplane. Turned out ALL of his boxes were nothing bud bottles of hard liquor. By the time they were finished all he had left that wasn't confiscated was his sack of potatoes. It was hilarious. In that case it was ridiculously obvious that he was trying to smuggle liquor. No one legitimately chartering an airplane only brings 5 small pieces of luggage and themselves with them, it just doesn't make financial sense. One of the officers there mentioned that catching that load before it got distributed meant avoiding lots of headaches. He said that 70% of the violence and trouble they have to deal with up there is a direct result of alchohol.
In the case today, there were two people going up, and they didn't have a ton of stuff, but they did have more than a few pieces, so I didn't think anything of it. Apparently my boss picked up on it though, since he made that comment. When we pulled into the ramp after landing sure enough there was a whole convey of vehicles waiting for us. There was a local police truck, an OPP SUV, and my passengers ride waiting for them. This was only the third time since I've been up here that the police in this town have shown up to search a suspected bootlegger flight, usually the local police don't seem to be that hardcore about searches, not in this community at least. The OPP are pretty hardcore though, you know that if they show up something is going down.
So we unloaded the airplane while all the vehicles surrounded the airplane and they all went to work at opening up the bins and boxes and rustling through the stuff. They also searched the passengers themselves, and I looked over laughed and shook my head when I saw one of the passengers with their foot up on the horizontal stab with her pantlegs pulled up and a bottle of vodka taped to her shins. Where am I. Actually they found quite a bit. By the end of it I counted around 14 bottles of vodka, and another 25 or so bottles of some sort of low-alchohol content cooler-type beverage. Quite the load. I figured the street value of all of that would probably be around $2000. So much for the profits they were hoping for, haha. Usually the cops just confiscate the alchohol and drive away, but this time in addition to the liquor, they also apparently found baggies of weed. Now they were in trouble. Long story short in addition to having the contraband confiscated, they also both got arrested. Well, sucks to be them, lol. Good thing this time we got paid for the flight before we took off. Once all the commotion had finished and the vehicles and people were safely away from the airplane, I started up and I was off heading back home for my next flight.
A few days ago I took the Twin Comanche up for some circuits. Its been a few weeks now since the engines have been fired up, and I had a bit of a craving for some twin flying. I just went up for 3 circuits, about a half hour flight which satisfied my fix and gave the engines a good workout. At one point there was a Dash-8 inbound and the radio service advised them that there was a "Cherokee 6" in the circuit. I almost felt like correcting them, but it was my last circuit, and in the big picture my airplane type didn't matter a whole lot in that situation. In the past they've also advised other traffic of a "Twin Comanche" when I've been flying the Cherokee. Its obvious they've made the connection that its the same pilot that flies the two different airplanes, and they key on the sound of my voice I suppose.
Today is the Thanksgiving Monday, and I had a couple flights today, so I didn't get a turkey dinner. Not that I would have if I didn't fly. To be honest its getting a little tiresome living up here being away from friends and family, and not having much to do other than rotate between watching TV, reading, and playing on the computer in my days off. I'm still really enjoying the flying, and I'm going to miss it over the winter, but despite that I'm counting the days on when I'll be home for the winter. I will get my fix of flying over the winter though in the form of IFR training. This winter I REALLY have to finish up my Instrument Rating. If I don't, my INRAT exam will expire and I'll be back to square one with that. I also want to have a shot at a twin-ifr job as well. I have almost 1200 hrs total time now, most of that being PIC time, with almost 200 of that being multi-PIC time as well, so I think I've got a pretty good shot at finding something half decent - hopefully. I'm sure how much good another year of single-engine VFR flying will do career-wise for me. I guess we'll see how it all plays out. Hopefully the industry gets a bit more momentum that it got this last spring.
My first flight today was a couple passengers to the usual destination up the coast. The weather was pretty good with only a broken-scattered layer at around 3500 ft, so enroute it was smooth sailing. When we were loading the airplane my boss mentioned with a bit of a wink in his eye that they didn't seem to have much stuff. Usually passengers load the airplane up stuffed to gross weight to get the most out of what they're paying for the charter. If they don't stuff the airplane, its sometimes a hint that the cargo they do have onboard MIGHT just be helping to pay for the trip in the form of contraband liquor. A couple weeks ago I took one passenger up the coast to the community across the river from the one I was going to today, and this one passenger only took with him 4 boxes and 1 50 lb bag of potatoes. Unfortunately for him, his daughter who was supposed to meet him at the airport didn't show up, so he took off to go hunt her down, and in the meantime, the local police showed up and searched the airplane. Turned out ALL of his boxes were nothing bud bottles of hard liquor. By the time they were finished all he had left that wasn't confiscated was his sack of potatoes. It was hilarious. In that case it was ridiculously obvious that he was trying to smuggle liquor. No one legitimately chartering an airplane only brings 5 small pieces of luggage and themselves with them, it just doesn't make financial sense. One of the officers there mentioned that catching that load before it got distributed meant avoiding lots of headaches. He said that 70% of the violence and trouble they have to deal with up there is a direct result of alchohol.
In the case today, there were two people going up, and they didn't have a ton of stuff, but they did have more than a few pieces, so I didn't think anything of it. Apparently my boss picked up on it though, since he made that comment. When we pulled into the ramp after landing sure enough there was a whole convey of vehicles waiting for us. There was a local police truck, an OPP SUV, and my passengers ride waiting for them. This was only the third time since I've been up here that the police in this town have shown up to search a suspected bootlegger flight, usually the local police don't seem to be that hardcore about searches, not in this community at least. The OPP are pretty hardcore though, you know that if they show up something is going down.
So we unloaded the airplane while all the vehicles surrounded the airplane and they all went to work at opening up the bins and boxes and rustling through the stuff. They also searched the passengers themselves, and I looked over laughed and shook my head when I saw one of the passengers with their foot up on the horizontal stab with her pantlegs pulled up and a bottle of vodka taped to her shins. Where am I. Actually they found quite a bit. By the end of it I counted around 14 bottles of vodka, and another 25 or so bottles of some sort of low-alchohol content cooler-type beverage. Quite the load. I figured the street value of all of that would probably be around $2000. So much for the profits they were hoping for, haha. Usually the cops just confiscate the alchohol and drive away, but this time in addition to the liquor, they also apparently found baggies of weed. Now they were in trouble. Long story short in addition to having the contraband confiscated, they also both got arrested. Well, sucks to be them, lol. Good thing this time we got paid for the flight before we took off. Once all the commotion had finished and the vehicles and people were safely away from the airplane, I started up and I was off heading back home for my next flight.
Friday, October 2, 2009
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."
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."
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Making a Break for It
I had three flights today. I was going to have only 2, but the other pilot took the day off, so I got the one flight he was going to do. I'm not complaining, bring it on.
The day started out quite nice, somewhat warm, for the time of year at least, and only a harmless overcast layer which had all but broken up by my second flight. My third flight up the coast was an entirely different story however. All seemed well until about 20 miles south of my destination, where I could see a long line of dark clouds on the horizon. Wow that moved in fast, there was nothing like that visible on my last run, less than 2 hours ago. As I got closer things started to look worse and worse; there was a solid line of heavy rain moving in. I couldn't yet tell if it was still north of the field, or if the field was already drowned in it. My wondering was answered when the town came into view, ahead of line of heavy showers. The heavy stuff hadn't yet made it to where I was landing, but I was already starting to fly through spats of rain, the kind where the raindrops make a big splat on the window.
I turned final with the line only a couple miles off my right wing. It was apparent I was definitely going to get wet unloading the plane. Oh well, last flight of the day anyways, no big deal. FLASH! A big bolt of lightning struck the ground out my left window about a mile to the south of the field. Well that was... unexpected... but there wasn't much I could do at that point because I was already on final. I landed, and taxied in, and then the heavens just opened up. It POURED.
I only had my zip-up hoodie sweatshirt with me, so I put that on with the hopes that it would provide some sort of rain shield. We unloaded the airplane as fast as we could, but it didn't do much good, I was completely soaked through and standing in a 1 inch puddle before we even got the truck backed up.
There was also rumbling thunder and lightning flashing every few seconds while we were unloading, it was quite the storm actually, and I wondered how long I'd be stuck here, soaking wet, waiting for it to move off.
As our luck would have it though, the rain stopped just as soon as we finished unloading the airplane. The driver remarked in disdain that of course the rain would stop as soon as we were done unloading. I chuckled, but it was good news for me. I might be able to get out of here afterall. Once I was ready to go, I took a look to the north in the direction of where the storm came from, it didn't look like there was any more coming at least in the next couple minutes. I also looked to the south towards the stuff that had just passed us, and also in the direction I needed to go. As bad as the rain we got on the ground was, it looked like we even missed the worst of it, and there was an opening of sunlight that I could see, so I decided to give it a shot.
I took off and made a break for the patch of hope. On both my left and right were two storm cells with so much rain, it couldn't have been more then 1 or 2 miles visibility inside. I could also see the occasional lightning strike flash inside as well. I'm definitely staying out of those, but between them was a brilliant glimmer of bright blue sky. What I wouldn't do for a stormscope right now! The company bought a second Cherokee 6 back in June, which still isn't ready to go yet (waiting for the engine, but it should be any day now), but its equipped with a stormscope. Its a WX-8, which is a slightly different model than the one I have in my Twin Comanche (a WX-10), so I've been itching to try it out, and today would have been perfect. I doubt that there will be any more summer storms by the time the new Cherokee is online though.
Five minutes later I was out of the worst it, so I could relax, and another 5 minutes after that I was back in the sun, as if it had always been a beautiful day! I filed a PIREP of the weather conditions with the radio service when I approached home. It wasn't a busy day today, so I was likely the first/only aircraft to have encountered the conditions, and of course there aren't any weather stations other than the airport I'm based out of. In a way I actually enjoy that part of my job up here. Flying down south there are weather stations all over the place, so before you take off you can know with a fair degree of accuracy the weather that you're going to encounter along the way, but up here, except for our GFA charts (a regional weather map, which depicts likely conditions), which are often vague, or downright wrong, there's nothing. So when we take off for a trip to the north its very much flying into unknown conditions. Quite exciting, and it gives me that little taste of "frontier bush pilot". I'd love to do some of the winter ski trips into the bush with the Cessna 206, but I haven't had the opportunity yet, since I've only been up here since April, which was when the bush trips were just finishing up.
The day started out quite nice, somewhat warm, for the time of year at least, and only a harmless overcast layer which had all but broken up by my second flight. My third flight up the coast was an entirely different story however. All seemed well until about 20 miles south of my destination, where I could see a long line of dark clouds on the horizon. Wow that moved in fast, there was nothing like that visible on my last run, less than 2 hours ago. As I got closer things started to look worse and worse; there was a solid line of heavy rain moving in. I couldn't yet tell if it was still north of the field, or if the field was already drowned in it. My wondering was answered when the town came into view, ahead of line of heavy showers. The heavy stuff hadn't yet made it to where I was landing, but I was already starting to fly through spats of rain, the kind where the raindrops make a big splat on the window.
I turned final with the line only a couple miles off my right wing. It was apparent I was definitely going to get wet unloading the plane. Oh well, last flight of the day anyways, no big deal. FLASH! A big bolt of lightning struck the ground out my left window about a mile to the south of the field. Well that was... unexpected... but there wasn't much I could do at that point because I was already on final. I landed, and taxied in, and then the heavens just opened up. It POURED.
I only had my zip-up hoodie sweatshirt with me, so I put that on with the hopes that it would provide some sort of rain shield. We unloaded the airplane as fast as we could, but it didn't do much good, I was completely soaked through and standing in a 1 inch puddle before we even got the truck backed up.
There was also rumbling thunder and lightning flashing every few seconds while we were unloading, it was quite the storm actually, and I wondered how long I'd be stuck here, soaking wet, waiting for it to move off.
As our luck would have it though, the rain stopped just as soon as we finished unloading the airplane. The driver remarked in disdain that of course the rain would stop as soon as we were done unloading. I chuckled, but it was good news for me. I might be able to get out of here afterall. Once I was ready to go, I took a look to the north in the direction of where the storm came from, it didn't look like there was any more coming at least in the next couple minutes. I also looked to the south towards the stuff that had just passed us, and also in the direction I needed to go. As bad as the rain we got on the ground was, it looked like we even missed the worst of it, and there was an opening of sunlight that I could see, so I decided to give it a shot.
I took off and made a break for the patch of hope. On both my left and right were two storm cells with so much rain, it couldn't have been more then 1 or 2 miles visibility inside. I could also see the occasional lightning strike flash inside as well. I'm definitely staying out of those, but between them was a brilliant glimmer of bright blue sky. What I wouldn't do for a stormscope right now! The company bought a second Cherokee 6 back in June, which still isn't ready to go yet (waiting for the engine, but it should be any day now), but its equipped with a stormscope. Its a WX-8, which is a slightly different model than the one I have in my Twin Comanche (a WX-10), so I've been itching to try it out, and today would have been perfect. I doubt that there will be any more summer storms by the time the new Cherokee is online though.
Five minutes later I was out of the worst it, so I could relax, and another 5 minutes after that I was back in the sun, as if it had always been a beautiful day! I filed a PIREP of the weather conditions with the radio service when I approached home. It wasn't a busy day today, so I was likely the first/only aircraft to have encountered the conditions, and of course there aren't any weather stations other than the airport I'm based out of. In a way I actually enjoy that part of my job up here. Flying down south there are weather stations all over the place, so before you take off you can know with a fair degree of accuracy the weather that you're going to encounter along the way, but up here, except for our GFA charts (a regional weather map, which depicts likely conditions), which are often vague, or downright wrong, there's nothing. So when we take off for a trip to the north its very much flying into unknown conditions. Quite exciting, and it gives me that little taste of "frontier bush pilot". I'd love to do some of the winter ski trips into the bush with the Cessna 206, but I haven't had the opportunity yet, since I've only been up here since April, which was when the bush trips were just finishing up.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Bad Day for Passengers
Things are still going strong coming into the second half of September, which has been totally unexpected. I was under the impression at the beginning of the month that the busy time would be wrapping up, but apparently thats not the case.
Yesterday was cold, wet and miserable however. There was a strange layer of mist blanketing the entire route of flight, giving a vertical visibility of 1000-1500 ft and forward vis of around 3-5 miles. The temperature on the ground stayed between 4-6 degrees C for the better part of the day, but a high pressure system was forecast to move in from the north and push the bad weather away. On my first flight I took off with two passengers onboard and initially climbed to 1000 ft into a headwind. It was pretty turbulent as well as wet and rainy underneath the cloud layer, but I could see the sun and just a tint of blue sky above me, so it looked like this mist/cloud layer was pretty thin. One of my passengers was really not enjoying the ride, she was very nervous, tapping her knee and wringing her hands. The longer we flew the more nervous she got, eventually to the point where she was shivering out of nervousness. I figured for the sake of my passengers I'd pop up another thousand feet or so to get on top of the cloud layer, where we'd see the sun and hopefully the turbulence would taper off a bit as well.
Once at 2000 however I looked up again but it still looked the same, I could still just barely see a bit of blue sky and the sun piercing through the mist, but now I was flying on instruments as the ground had long disappeared. The layer didn't look like it was this thick, but oh well, it can't be more then another few hundred feet before pop out the top. At 3000 ft nothing had changed. We were still in the layer of mist - it was such a strange phenomenon. Here I was 2000 ft higher than I was initially yet looking up still looked exactly the same. It looked like just a thin layer of mist above me. I considered continuing the climb even further, but the temperature was very close to zero degrees as it was, so I didn't want to get any higher and start picking up ice, and we were flying into a headwind, so I didn't want to fight too strong of winds either, so I conceded defeat and started a descent back down to where I could see the ground. Conditions were the same all the way up the coast, so we spent the remainder of the flight bouncing around in the rain and mist at 1000 ft.
Once we landed and unloaded my passengers, I had 5 more waiting ready to come back with me. We got all loaded up and ready to start up when one of the ladies on board said, "No, I can't do it". Can't do it? She was a little larger so I assumed the leg room wasn't enough or something and asked if she wanted to sit in the front where there's a little more leg room. Her friend explained that she was too nervous because of the weather. Oh, not much I could do about that. I could see how it was a bit of an indimidating day to fly - like I said it was cold, rainy, and the winds were quite gusty. In the end we departed with only 3 of the 5 passengers back southbound. The way back was bumpy, but eneventful and quick as we caught a stiff tailwind for the return leg.
My second trip was the same thing. I decided not to experiment with the cloud layer this time however and just stayed at 1000. A Navajo from the other local carrier that departed about the same time I did for the same destination decided to try to get on top however. They advised they were climbing to 3500 ft. I wondered if I missed the cloud tops by a mere couple hundred feet, since I only climbed to 3000. A few minutes later they radioed an advisory that they were now at 4500 ft and level. They had been fooled by the illusion as well, and ended up having to go higher.
The pilots for that carrier are regulars in the area like me, so we're on pretty familiar terms and usually all recognize each other's voices, so I keyed the mic, "Did you manage to find the top of that mist?"
"Ya we popped out at about 4200 ft."
I remarked that I tried that on my last flight but gave up at 3000.
"Hey Chad have you been to **** already today?"
"Yep."
"What are the winds like?"
I tried to remember exactly how the windsock looked. I tend to have a short-term memory and forget entirely what the conditions were at the airport on my last visit, but I managed to pull the mental image of the windsock out of the back of my brain.
"Ahh, gusting about 12-15 knots, pretty much 90 degrees [to the runway direction]."
"Alllll-riiiiighhht."
I smiled to myself. I guess I'm not the only one who likes crosswind landings - they keep life interesting.
By the time I was southbound again for the second time the High Pressure system was starting to work its magic you could see it starting to clear up in the north, but it was still pretty turbulent. About 10 minutes from landing one of my passengers tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I had a tissue. "Sorry no I don't." I turned around to see their young son leaning into a sick bag that his mother was holding for him. Poor guy. Not a good day for my passengers apparently. One terrified flyer, another one that cancelled out of panic, and now a sick kid. I haven't yet had an adult puke in the airplane, but that would make my 3rd child, all probably under 5 that haven't been able to hold it in on the bumpy days. All in a day's work of a pilot I guess.
Yesterday was cold, wet and miserable however. There was a strange layer of mist blanketing the entire route of flight, giving a vertical visibility of 1000-1500 ft and forward vis of around 3-5 miles. The temperature on the ground stayed between 4-6 degrees C for the better part of the day, but a high pressure system was forecast to move in from the north and push the bad weather away. On my first flight I took off with two passengers onboard and initially climbed to 1000 ft into a headwind. It was pretty turbulent as well as wet and rainy underneath the cloud layer, but I could see the sun and just a tint of blue sky above me, so it looked like this mist/cloud layer was pretty thin. One of my passengers was really not enjoying the ride, she was very nervous, tapping her knee and wringing her hands. The longer we flew the more nervous she got, eventually to the point where she was shivering out of nervousness. I figured for the sake of my passengers I'd pop up another thousand feet or so to get on top of the cloud layer, where we'd see the sun and hopefully the turbulence would taper off a bit as well.
Once at 2000 however I looked up again but it still looked the same, I could still just barely see a bit of blue sky and the sun piercing through the mist, but now I was flying on instruments as the ground had long disappeared. The layer didn't look like it was this thick, but oh well, it can't be more then another few hundred feet before pop out the top. At 3000 ft nothing had changed. We were still in the layer of mist - it was such a strange phenomenon. Here I was 2000 ft higher than I was initially yet looking up still looked exactly the same. It looked like just a thin layer of mist above me. I considered continuing the climb even further, but the temperature was very close to zero degrees as it was, so I didn't want to get any higher and start picking up ice, and we were flying into a headwind, so I didn't want to fight too strong of winds either, so I conceded defeat and started a descent back down to where I could see the ground. Conditions were the same all the way up the coast, so we spent the remainder of the flight bouncing around in the rain and mist at 1000 ft.
Once we landed and unloaded my passengers, I had 5 more waiting ready to come back with me. We got all loaded up and ready to start up when one of the ladies on board said, "No, I can't do it". Can't do it? She was a little larger so I assumed the leg room wasn't enough or something and asked if she wanted to sit in the front where there's a little more leg room. Her friend explained that she was too nervous because of the weather. Oh, not much I could do about that. I could see how it was a bit of an indimidating day to fly - like I said it was cold, rainy, and the winds were quite gusty. In the end we departed with only 3 of the 5 passengers back southbound. The way back was bumpy, but eneventful and quick as we caught a stiff tailwind for the return leg.
My second trip was the same thing. I decided not to experiment with the cloud layer this time however and just stayed at 1000. A Navajo from the other local carrier that departed about the same time I did for the same destination decided to try to get on top however. They advised they were climbing to 3500 ft. I wondered if I missed the cloud tops by a mere couple hundred feet, since I only climbed to 3000. A few minutes later they radioed an advisory that they were now at 4500 ft and level. They had been fooled by the illusion as well, and ended up having to go higher.
The pilots for that carrier are regulars in the area like me, so we're on pretty familiar terms and usually all recognize each other's voices, so I keyed the mic, "Did you manage to find the top of that mist?"
"Ya we popped out at about 4200 ft."
I remarked that I tried that on my last flight but gave up at 3000.
"Hey Chad have you been to **** already today?"
"Yep."
"What are the winds like?"
I tried to remember exactly how the windsock looked. I tend to have a short-term memory and forget entirely what the conditions were at the airport on my last visit, but I managed to pull the mental image of the windsock out of the back of my brain.
"Ahh, gusting about 12-15 knots, pretty much 90 degrees [to the runway direction]."
"Alllll-riiiiighhht."
I smiled to myself. I guess I'm not the only one who likes crosswind landings - they keep life interesting.
By the time I was southbound again for the second time the High Pressure system was starting to work its magic you could see it starting to clear up in the north, but it was still pretty turbulent. About 10 minutes from landing one of my passengers tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I had a tissue. "Sorry no I don't." I turned around to see their young son leaning into a sick bag that his mother was holding for him. Poor guy. Not a good day for my passengers apparently. One terrified flyer, another one that cancelled out of panic, and now a sick kid. I haven't yet had an adult puke in the airplane, but that would make my 3rd child, all probably under 5 that haven't been able to hold it in on the bumpy days. All in a day's work of a pilot I guess.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
London and Back Again
Just got back from a visit back down in London. I was lucky enough to get to go home on a long weekend, when all of my friends were free/home as well, and it was awesome weather.
We took off Friday morning in the Twin Comanche, first bound for North Bay, as I was dropping a friend off there for the weekend so she could visit her friends as well. I've decided that I don't like North Bay. Its such a huge airport (that I'm not really familiar with), and there's no control tower to tell you what to do. There's only a radio service, which means its up to you to find out where you need to go and how to get there to take-off or park after you've landed. Its strange taxi-ing around such a huge airport without the reasurring clearances issued by the controllers. It makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong.
After I dropped my friend off I started back up again and picked my way through the taxi-ways back to the active runway.
I had a great weekend. Went camping for a night, then canoeing, spent a day at the beach playing volleyball, played some tennis with my Dad, and helped out with some farm chores. All in all a pretty full weekend. Good times. Today it was time to head back up and back to work. I was planning to leave around 9:30 in the morning but London was fogged in, and didn't get away until around noon to head back up to North Bay again for the first stop. It was a relaxing flight. I only had about a 5 knot headwind, and it was pretty smooth above the clouds at 7500 ft. I had the airplane cruising on autopilot and managed to read a couple chapters of one of the books I borrowed.
When we got back we gathered all our stuff and parked the airplane and by that time the fuel truck showed up with the Ops Manager and the other pilot - we each had one freight flight up the coast, so off I go to the races.
The flight up the coast was fairly uneventful, the flight on the way back started to get interesting about 20 miles from the field. I was just about to key the mic and call the radio service to advise I was 20 miles and about 9 minutes out when a big Hawker freight plane beat me to it. He also called inbound and although he was still behind me estimated the field about 45 seconds before me. The other pilot in the C-206 was also about 3 miles behind me, so we were all planning on landing within the span of about 2 minutes. Could get interesting. We were all instructed to report 10 miles out, and there were a few minutes until that point where none of us were entirely sure how it was all going to pan out. I watched the mileage to go tick down on the GPS and tried to find the Hawker coming up behind me. He stayed at a higher altitude then me so I wasn't worried of a risk of collision, but more so whether he was going to pass me in time to make his descent and land before I started my approach. We all planned to the use the runway that allowed a straight in approach.
At 10 miles back I called the radio service again and advised my position and also made the suggestion that if the C-206 behind me had me visual I could slow down a bit to give the Hawker more time to get in front of me. So that was the plan. By the time I spotted the Hawker I realized even with me slowed WAY down it still didn't give him enough time to pass me, so I advised that I'd join the circuit on a left base instead of final. I watched as I crept closer and closer to the airport dragging the airplane along at 90 mph while the Hawker rumbled along its approach on final parallel to my flight path. I could slowed down further, but I also didn't want to push my luck with the C-206 following behind me. Even adding a base leg into my circuit left me fairly close behind the Hawker. As I was turning short final he was just starting to clear the runway. The Hawker is a big airplane, bigger then a Dash-8-100, so I was concerned a little bit about the possible wake turbulence. I made a mental note of where the Hawker touched down, and made sure to keep my approach higher and land beyond it. I must have just grazed the wake turbulence area on short final because for a quick second the airplane waggled and shuddered before smoothing out again. I touched down without incident and rolled to the end of the runway to quickly clear for the last of the three of us landing.
We took off Friday morning in the Twin Comanche, first bound for North Bay, as I was dropping a friend off there for the weekend so she could visit her friends as well. I've decided that I don't like North Bay. Its such a huge airport (that I'm not really familiar with), and there's no control tower to tell you what to do. There's only a radio service, which means its up to you to find out where you need to go and how to get there to take-off or park after you've landed. Its strange taxi-ing around such a huge airport without the reasurring clearances issued by the controllers. It makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong.
After I dropped my friend off I started back up again and picked my way through the taxi-ways back to the active runway.
I had a great weekend. Went camping for a night, then canoeing, spent a day at the beach playing volleyball, played some tennis with my Dad, and helped out with some farm chores. All in all a pretty full weekend. Good times. Today it was time to head back up and back to work. I was planning to leave around 9:30 in the morning but London was fogged in, and didn't get away until around noon to head back up to North Bay again for the first stop. It was a relaxing flight. I only had about a 5 knot headwind, and it was pretty smooth above the clouds at 7500 ft. I had the airplane cruising on autopilot and managed to read a couple chapters of one of the books I borrowed.
When we got back we gathered all our stuff and parked the airplane and by that time the fuel truck showed up with the Ops Manager and the other pilot - we each had one freight flight up the coast, so off I go to the races.
The flight up the coast was fairly uneventful, the flight on the way back started to get interesting about 20 miles from the field. I was just about to key the mic and call the radio service to advise I was 20 miles and about 9 minutes out when a big Hawker freight plane beat me to it. He also called inbound and although he was still behind me estimated the field about 45 seconds before me. The other pilot in the C-206 was also about 3 miles behind me, so we were all planning on landing within the span of about 2 minutes. Could get interesting. We were all instructed to report 10 miles out, and there were a few minutes until that point where none of us were entirely sure how it was all going to pan out. I watched the mileage to go tick down on the GPS and tried to find the Hawker coming up behind me. He stayed at a higher altitude then me so I wasn't worried of a risk of collision, but more so whether he was going to pass me in time to make his descent and land before I started my approach. We all planned to the use the runway that allowed a straight in approach.
At 10 miles back I called the radio service again and advised my position and also made the suggestion that if the C-206 behind me had me visual I could slow down a bit to give the Hawker more time to get in front of me. So that was the plan. By the time I spotted the Hawker I realized even with me slowed WAY down it still didn't give him enough time to pass me, so I advised that I'd join the circuit on a left base instead of final. I watched as I crept closer and closer to the airport dragging the airplane along at 90 mph while the Hawker rumbled along its approach on final parallel to my flight path. I could slowed down further, but I also didn't want to push my luck with the C-206 following behind me. Even adding a base leg into my circuit left me fairly close behind the Hawker. As I was turning short final he was just starting to clear the runway. The Hawker is a big airplane, bigger then a Dash-8-100, so I was concerned a little bit about the possible wake turbulence. I made a mental note of where the Hawker touched down, and made sure to keep my approach higher and land beyond it. I must have just grazed the wake turbulence area on short final because for a quick second the airplane waggled and shuddered before smoothing out again. I touched down without incident and rolled to the end of the runway to quickly clear for the last of the three of us landing.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Who wouldn't wanna be me?
Last night I found myself in an empty airplane on the last flight of the day westbound into a beautifully clear sky with the sun setting in front of me. I was in a good mood and was rocking out on my MP3 player to Keith Urban's "Who wouldn't wanna be me" song as I was flying and watching the sun set.
I always like to lock my gaze on the sun and witness the exact moment that the last sliver of the sun disappears below the horizon. I know I shouldn't look directly at the sun, but at least I was still wearing sunglasses. I usually forget to take them off when the evening light starts to fade, and inevitably end up wondering why the cockpit lighting doesn't seem to be as bright as I think it should be. That's when I remember that I'm still wearing sunglasses.
Well just as soon as the sun went down, I remember reading Alan Cockrell's post on his blog http://alancockrell.blogspot.com/ about having the sun and moon on his "yo-yo string" and being able to make the sun or moon come back into the sky after it had already set by climbing. I imagined how that would be cool to see. I assumed you could only see that flying a jet aircraft that has the power to quickly climb into altitudes well above what little piston aircraft can do... or could you? Could my little Cherokee haul the sun back up to this side of the horizon? Nah... there's no way. I almost didn't try it. Then in a split second, now or never decision I pushed the mixture, prop, and power levers in and pulled back into the best climb the little Cherokee could muster. When I had finished converting my kinetic energy into altitude I pushed the nose back down into a more reasonable attitude and looked to where the sun had set. NO WAY! Sure enough, a mere 1000 ft climb had summoned about a quarter of that orange glowing disk back into the atmosphere. I broke out laughing hysterically in disbelief. What a sight!
Fantastic. Who wouldn't wanna be me?
I always like to lock my gaze on the sun and witness the exact moment that the last sliver of the sun disappears below the horizon. I know I shouldn't look directly at the sun, but at least I was still wearing sunglasses. I usually forget to take them off when the evening light starts to fade, and inevitably end up wondering why the cockpit lighting doesn't seem to be as bright as I think it should be. That's when I remember that I'm still wearing sunglasses.
Well just as soon as the sun went down, I remember reading Alan Cockrell's post on his blog http://alancockrell.blogspot.com/ about having the sun and moon on his "yo-yo string" and being able to make the sun or moon come back into the sky after it had already set by climbing. I imagined how that would be cool to see. I assumed you could only see that flying a jet aircraft that has the power to quickly climb into altitudes well above what little piston aircraft can do... or could you? Could my little Cherokee haul the sun back up to this side of the horizon? Nah... there's no way. I almost didn't try it. Then in a split second, now or never decision I pushed the mixture, prop, and power levers in and pulled back into the best climb the little Cherokee could muster. When I had finished converting my kinetic energy into altitude I pushed the nose back down into a more reasonable attitude and looked to where the sun had set. NO WAY! Sure enough, a mere 1000 ft climb had summoned about a quarter of that orange glowing disk back into the atmosphere. I broke out laughing hysterically in disbelief. What a sight!
Fantastic. Who wouldn't wanna be me?
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