Aviation stories told here

[Jmmccutc]

we need some more stories to bump all the polls away....

 

[mar]

Unforecasted weather?

I think it was Dec 22, 1997.

Either that or Dec 23. But in any case it was just after the winter solstice--the shortest day of the year. In Bethel that means about 4 or 5 hours of daylight. The sun rises about 10:30am and sets about 3pm.

I'm coming back from the Bering Sea coast in a Cessna Caravan. All I have on board is a kids snow mobile. Before I land in Bethel I need to make one more stop in Nunapitchuk about 30 miles due west. As I get closer and closer the clouds (wouldn't you guess?) get lower and lower. There's a light snow fall and the wind has picked up.

In addition to the falling snow visibility is also reduced by the blowing snow. For all intents and purposes I'm essentially caught out in a ground blizzard with the associated whiteout.

It's not really a big deal because as I've pointed out, there's nothing to be concerned about geographically and I was instrument current in a fully equipped instrument airplane.

But the unforecasted wind and deteriorating visibility has me cursing the weather gods one more time.

Nevertheless, I manage to find the village easily enough and do my last bit of business. Drop off a little mail; pick up a little mail. And then I blast off for Bethel a quick 10 minutes away.

En route I pick up the ATIS and I'm anticipating having to pop up for an IFR clearance for the LOC/DME BC to Rwy 36.

Bethel also has an ILS to Rwy 18 but it's really gusty out of the northeast. In fact, the ATIS is calling the wind 040 at 29 gusting 38.

Whoa.

Visibility: 1/4 SN BS
Ceiling: 900

Holy cow. I pop up and get in line in the stack at the FAF NAPAC.

I call up dispatch and let them know I'm number three for the approach but we're all holding for vis. I also inform them I have about one hour of fuel and I'd like them to call around and find an airport with some visibility *and* lights because it's getting dark.

The result: Every airport with lights within an hour is either at mins and going lower or below mins. The entire delta is engulfed by the blizzard.

As all of this is transpiring a Twin Otter requests and is approved for the ILS. The Metroliner below me informs Center he'll need to return to Anchorage. So that's leaves just me.

Company and Center would both like to know my intentions. I tell them I'm gonna need just a few more minutes to collect my thoughts.

I decide that I'd rather try the Back Course to an airport that I'm familiar with than burn a bunch of fuel to divert to an airport with an ILS. And I wasn't too comfortable with the thought of trying the ILS at Bethel with a 35 kt quartering tailwind in spite of the success of the Twin Otter.

So I request the approach clearance for the Back Course and get switched to tower. When I check in with tower I recognize the voice. The tower guys and the pilots are real tight in Bethel. We'd play cards and have BBQs every summer. Their only instruction that night was, "...report NAPAC inbound."

"Roger."

And then I commenced the best damm Back Course approach I'd ever flown. I decended to the MDA of 460 and never went below that. There was no need to go below the MDA as the ceiling was 900. All I had to do was track the localizer right to the antenna. And, in fact, with 1/4 mile vis that was the first thing I saw.

At an indicated airspeed of 90 kts with a 35 to 40 knot headwind my groundspeed was somewhere on the order of 50 to 60 kts.

The Caravan is a wonderful airplane.

I crossed the threshold at 460 feet, landed and cleared the runway. Just then, tower calls, "Say your position on the approach."

"Clearing at Charlie."

"Uh, roger. Give us a call when you get in."

I was so focused on flying the approach I forgot to report NAPAC inbound. That's when they were going to clear me to land so---basically---I landed without a clearance.

Oops. But over the phone, he said, "Hey I know you were busy, but I just wanted to let you know."

Guess who bought the beer for the next BBQ?

After I got inside the office, I promptly filled out a NASA form and met with my fellow pilots and dispatcher who helped try to find me a viable alternate.

I often look back on that flight and wished that I had simply declared an emergency. At the time it didn't feel like one. It just felt like another decision we face every now and then out in the bush. But in reality I was out of options and needed to land soon. Declaring an emergency would've just got the monkey off my back.

Live and learn. Every day: Live and learn.

 

[ibaflyer]

So there I was.... a new IFR certified pilot still proud of my accomplishment when I get a letter from the FAA saying that there was a problem with the D/E and I was going to have to re-take my IFR Checkride again. I think that they called it a 709 ride. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong)

Anyway, after a number of phone calls I get to the bottom of this whole mess. It seems that there was another student that took his checkride and passed but just was not too happy with the D/E so he sent a letter to the FAA complaining about the checkride and said that he did not feel that the D/E completed all aspects of the checkride. (Did not include a circling approach)

Well the FAA, because they are sooooo reasonable, fires off a letter to the D/E about his checkrides, He tells the FAA to Kiss his A$$ and that he would surrender his D/E certificate. So the FAA, in their ultimate wisdom, say " in that case, we have no other option than to re-examine all of your IFR checkrides since this complaint was filed. Hence, the nice letter I get from the FSDO saying that I need to make an appointment for a new checkride.

I make the appointment, the new D/E says that it is a nice day and he needs to get out of the office so he comes here to my local A/P and gives me my checkride. I take-off, put foggles on, fly to CAK, fly the ILS 23, he calls that he has the airport in sight at the outter marker and then asks me to do a side-step to RWY19. End of check ride.

That's all! I was amazed. All of these phone calls, letters and appointments for this?

Ah yes.... Our tax dollars at work

 

[Duke Elegant]

Great thread mar.

This means I have some good competition so I'd better get cracking.

I love hearing stories from pilots and crew no matter what their experience. After all , some of my yarns are about my early years which were most enjoyable.

Keep them coming guys and gals ....

Duke

 

[VNugget]

Everyone has a story

Alright, if you REALLY want student stories, here's my getting lost story. Except I wasn't really lost. Hope it's worth a chuckle.

This is my second solo cross country, the 150nm one. The middle leg calls for a fligt over Rio Vista airport as a checkpoint. (For those with a San Francisco sectional, it's on the south side, near the very top, right under the Travis AFB Alert area). I was flying from Sacramento, and the terrain befor it is pretty featureless so I was relying mostly on dead reckoning. It has two crossing runways. A slight glitch in the "system" had arisen several days before, during my planning, when I had made a tick mark on it to measure my distance from, which obliterated one of the crossing runways. This resulted in my expecting to fly over a one-runway airport. Combined with the fact that I had started the timer in the wrong mode, so I had no time, and the winds aloft forecast wasn't very accurate, I wasn't very sure of my position during the 10 or so minute prior to that checkpoint.

Well, when I came across an airport with TWO runways, I was duly confused. I started circling overhead to try to figure out where I was. Quickly running all the airports I knew of in my mind, the closest match of the runway configuration I had in my mind was Tracy airport. Thse familiar with the area will realize that Tracy is quite far away from Rio Vista, and I thought that if I had gotten THAT far off track, maybe flying wasn't for me Next, what else was I to do but make the dorkiest radio call you have ever heard? On CTAF, "which airport on this frequency has a runway layout of [and I listed the numbers]?" No one answered.

By the time I got the sense to whip out my AFD and start looking up airports, a lot of planes had started to take off and land, I matched up what they were saying with what I saw, and it turns out I really WAS over the right airport.

 

[mar]

Duke, there's no comparison...

...but they do say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.

I'm enjoying the stories as well, on both threads. I think I get half of my satisfaction from flying and half from listening and half from telling...

...wait a minute. What'd I just say?

 

[VNugget]

The Poll Bandit strikes again...

bump

 

[Vector4fun]

OK, I'll post another. Beats Politics and Polls.


Back in the late '70's, I got my CFI with this lady. Linky We even did my spin endorsement in her Aerobat when she was well into her 70s. Edna was quite a character, and a sweet lady. She had friends all over.

One was Mrs. Nydia Meyers, Al Meyers' widow. (Think Meyers OTW, Meyers 145, and Meyers/Aero Commander 200.) So one Spring, Mrs. Meyers flies down for her yearly visit with Edna, but the weather turned sour, and she had to delay her return flight back to Tecumseh Mi. Mrs Meyers insurance required her to fly with a safety pilot, and he had to return to Michigan as scheduled. Which meant she was stuck in Roanoke until another safety pilot could be arranged. Well, Edna knew I was an airline brat, and could get a pass back home from DTW, so she volunteered me. (I got volunteered for a lot of stuff back then, most not nearly as much fun.) Edna took me up and gave me a 15 min checkout in the right seat, and we scheduled the flight home. Roanoke TX to Tecumseh MI in Mr. Al Meyers own 200. It was a sweet flight, and I sure did learn a lot about a little-known, but great airplane . Any of you guys get the chance to fly one, take it! It would run off and leave a Bonanza of the same hp. And I can't say for sure if it's still true today, but back in the '70s, there were no ADs, not ONE, for any of Al Meyers' airplanes. Not the OTW, the 145, or the 200 series.

When we got to Tecumseh, Mrs. Meyers gave me a tour of the family home, which was nearly a museum of aviation stuff, and autographed a booklet about the history of Meyers aircraft, which is sitting on my desk as I write this. Then made sure I got something to eat, and drove me to DTW to catch a flight home. It was a neat trip with a very gracious lady.

 

[mar]

Impressive performance

<<The Meyers 200D has never had an in-flight structural failure and has never had a FAA mandated Airworthiness Directive (AD) issued against the airframe. The 4130 chrome-moly steel tubular roll cage and understructure act like a race car protective cage during a crash. Several Meyers aircraft have been forced down in the trees and off airport runways with documented instances of the occupants walking away with only minor injuries or a broken bone.>>

But I liked this idea the best.

Nice story.

 

[Singlecoil]

Another day for armbands. February 27, 1995

It was just another boring flight on a clear day out to the tip of the Seward Peninsula. I was having a casual chat with a Markair Express Twin Otter pilot who was a few miles in front of me also heading for Wales. He was one of the guys I shared some bear butter with in Noorvik a few months earlier. I was so bored I was switching my radio one click at a time trying to find radio stations. Uncharacteristically, this Baker Aviation 207 had one of the best radios I had ever come across. I was able to pick up stations from as far away as Barrow, Fairbanks, and even Anchorage, a good 600 miles away. Nothing like a little big city music.
As we approached Wales, we could see some ground fog and blowing snow in the vicinity of the airport. The Otter was ahead of me so I had the luxury of letting them find out how bad it was. I could see them approaching the runway at about a 45-degree angle and then turn at the last second to land. Not your normal approach but after all, these guys worked for Markair. As I descended into the fog layer they came on the radio saying, “The visibility is very low right near the ground here.” “Yeah, thanks.” Markair woosies, don’t they know who I am? I turn to a heading that I think will line me up with the runway, relying heavily on my GPS, also known as my eggbasket.
Descending through 400 feet I see nothing but hazy whiteness and strangely, the Markair plane. If that’s the ramp, the runway must be around here somewhere. I finally see the runway and attempt to line up, only I can’t. Apparently those guys forget to mention the 25-knot crosswind. Just as I cross the threshold, my plane tilts into the wind. I consider going around, but for some reason decide not to. As I touch down, the plane weathervanes into the wind. I’m sliding sideways down the ice-covered runway, gunning the throttle to dodge the runway lights. I turn around to taxi in and can’t see anything; the visibility must be 1/16 to 1/8 of a mile, well below legal limits. And for what? 99 pounds of mail, not a very good reason. On my way back to Nome I was contemplating my decision-making process, what else is a Psych degree good for, when I heard an unusual radio call.
“See if you can find a gravel bar with some smooth gravel to set it down on.”
Hmmm. The Markair plane called the pilot and asked what was going on.
“Well, we’ve got a Yute Air 207 burning in a valley down here.”
The instrument panel shrunk before me as my vision narrowed. This was somewhere around Kotzebue, and I knew all of Yute’s pilots. Two of them were close friends from college. You don’t expect to hear things like this on a perfectly clear day like this one. I thought about their “new guy” from Chicago. I helped him fix his computer when he moved to Kotzebue a few months earlier. He struck me as a very cocky individual, flipping my roommate and I sh!t like he’d known us for years. Back in Nome, I called up to Kotzebue for the grim details. All I was able to find out was that it wasn’t either of my two close friends. Later in the day I discovered that it was indeed the new guy, and that he was the only occupant. He never called out a mayday, and was certainly killed on impact. The cause may never be known, but it has been reported that one of the other pilots was talking to him minutes before the fiery crash. The pilot was having trouble receiving him, but the new guy said that was because he was flying low over the hills. I knew there was a reason why I don’t do that sh!t anymore.

 

[Singlecoil]

Another day for armbands. February 27, 1995

It was just another boring flight on a clear day out to the tip of the Seward Peninsula. I was having a casual chat with a Markair Express Twin Otter pilot who was a few miles in front of me also heading for Wales. He was one of the guys I shared some bear butter with in Noorvik a few months earlier. I was so bored I was switching my radio one click at a time trying to find radio stations. Uncharacteristically, this 207 had one of the best radios I had ever come across. I was able to pick up stations from as far away as Barrow, Fairbanks, and even Anchorage, a good 600 miles away. Nothing like a little big city music.
As we approached Wales, we could see some ground fog and blowing snow in the vicinity of the airport. The Otter was ahead of me so I had the luxury of letting them find out how bad it was. I could see them approaching the runway at about a 45-degree angle and then turn at the last second to land. Not your normal approach but after all, these guys worked for Markair. As I descended into the fog layer they came on the radio saying, “The visibility is very low right near the ground here.” “Yeah, thanks.” Markair woosies, don’t they know who I am? I turn to a heading that I think will line me up with the runway, relying heavily on my GPS, also known as my eggbasket.
Descending through 400 feet I see nothing but hazy whiteness and strangely, the Markair plane. If that’s the ramp, the runway must be around here somewhere. I finally see the runway and attempt to line up, only I can’t. Apparently those guys forget to mention the 25-knot crosswind. Just as I cross the threshold, my plane tilts into the wind. I consider going around, but for some reason decide not to. As I touch down, the plane weathervanes into the wind. I’m sliding sideways down the ice-covered runway, gunning the throttle to dodge the runway lights. I turn around to taxi in and can’t see anything; the visibility must be 1/16 to 1/8 of a mile, well below legal limits. And for what? 99 pounds of mail, not a very good reason. On my way back to Nome I was contemplating my decision-making process, what else is a Psych degree good for, when I heard an unusual radio call.
“See if you can find a gravel bar with some smooth gravel to set it down on.”
Hmmm. The Markair plane called the pilot and asked what was going on.
“Well, we’ve got a Yute Air 207 burning in a valley down here.”
The instrument panel shrunk before me as my vision narrowed. This was somewhere around Kotzebue, and I knew all of Yute’s pilots. Two of them were close friends from college. You don’t expect to hear things like this on a perfectly clear day like this one. I thought about their “new guy” from Chicago. I helped him fix his computer when he moved to Kotzebue a few months earlier. He struck me as a very cocky individual, flipping my roommate and I sh!t like he’d known us for years. Back in Nome, I called up to Kotzebue for the grim details. All I was able to find out was that it wasn’t either of my two close friends. Later in the day I discovered that it was indeed the new guy, and that he was the only occupant. He never called out a mayday, and was certainly killed on impact. The cause may never be known, but it has been reported that one of the other pilots was talking to him minutes before the fiery crash. The pilot was having trouble receiving him, but the new guy said that was because he was flying low over the hills. I knew there was a reason why I don’t do that sh!t anymore.

 

[mar]

I met that guy.

Singlecoil--That crash holds a special sick place in my stomach unlike all of the other crashes to follow.

I interviewed with Yute in Jan of 1995 and met that guy in the office in ANC. When I came back up in March people were still reeling from the death.

I heard he had spotted a wolf pack in a tight spot low in the hills. He couldn't turn out of the rising terrain. Too low and too slow.

That death marked the beginning of a series of as many in the last nine years. And now at over ten I've stopped counting.

 

[Singlecoil]

That one was grim allright. It was a beautiful, sunny day (except in Wales). He was fully loaded with bypass mail which I'm sure was a factor. The story you relate about the wolves is the same one I heard as well. I also heard another pilot he was talking to at the time was having a hard time hearing him. He then told him that he was "kinda low" or something like that. I used to do that to keep from falling asleep sometimes, but not fully loaded.