Singlecoil
I don't reMember
- Joined
- Jul 26, 2002
- Posts
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Here is a perfect example of why you never bust minimums with teachers on board. The bush pilots on here know what I mean. In this case he was not only a teacher, but a reporter! This is a VFR 207 flight, by the way.
Brett Stirling: Things we cannot control: fog and the flight home
BRETT STIRLING
Around Alaska
Published: April 3rd, 2005
Last Modified: April 3rd, 2005 at 06:06 AM
KONGIGANAK -- "Can you see it?" the pilot shouted above the roar of the Cessna's engine. I shook my head and pressed my forehead against the cold glass, scanning the world beneath me for any sign of our village. The pilot banked the plane to give himself a better view, but he saw what I saw: a sea of pure white fog, blinding beneath the brilliant blue sky.
I looked at the global positioning system display in the dashboard as the pilot swung the 207 in a tight loop. The runway stood out against the green display. The runway should have been coming up on my side of the plane. I kept searching, but all I saw was the plane's tiny shadow cast on the fog below.
I looked at the pilot; he smiled, shrugged his shoulders and laughed. I had to join him. How could I not? This was the third time today I had gotten into a plane to try and fly home, and despite what the GPS said, I was no closer to home now at 5 in the evening than I was at 11 in the morning.
I had flown up to Bethel on Friday afternoon to watch our high school boys play in the district's basketball semifinals. They won the chance to play for the championship but came up short against our neighbor and rival, Kwigillingok. So early Sunday morning, I loaded up on fresh meat and vegetables and headed to the airport. The girl at the ticket counter looked at me apologetically as she said, "You have excess."
"I know," I said, smiling. I always do. I go up to Bethel with nothing and bring back a hundred pounds of groceries.
Our plane left around 11:30. The sky was a deep morning blue; high, wispy clouds stretched and caught the early light and appeared as gold threads in the sky. We landed in Tuntutuliak, a village near the Kuskokwim River about 45 miles south of Bethel, to drop off a couple of passengers and then headed for home. On the way south, the pilot pushed two buttons on the GPS. The pink line indicating our flight path changed, and he swung the plane to the west. "Got to go to Kwig first," he shouted.
We flew within about five miles of our village. I could make out the dark shape of our rust-colored school and the hulking figure of the lime-green tank farm. A few minutes later, we landed in Kwig to find one of the larger planes, a Cessna Grand Caravan, waiting on the runway for us. It turned out that a ticketing error had put two passengers for our village on the flight to Kwig, and the pilot of the larger plane didn't want to risk our notoriously muddy runway on such a warm day.
The pilot jumped out and seemed to be in an unusual hurry, ushering the two transfers onto our smaller plane. "Fog's moving in," he said as he helped everyone buckle in. In a few minutes, we were back in the air banking low over the scattered buildings that make up Kwigillingok. We leveled out, and I watched ground speed increase to over 120 knots. And that's when I realized we were flying into a wall.
As we approached within 2 1/2 miles, we still could see nothing. A hazy series of buildings came into being. I looked at the pilot, who nodded but shouted, "I'm not going in that low." We were barely over 300 feet, and although we could see buildings, the roofs were disintegrating. We would have had to skim the tundra to get in under the fog.
As we headed back to Bethel, I remembered how annoyed I became the first time I got stuck in Bethel four years ago. Most of us are used to getting where we're going when we're scheduled to. Despite what we sometimes like to believe, even with all our technology, we are not in control. We are at the mercy of the world.
A little after 1 p.m., we loaded the plane again. The engine coughed to life, but as the pilot wrote in his log, someone banged on the wing. The pilot killed the engine and opened his window. "Your weather just went to hell," the man shouted. Without a doubt, that was the shortest flight I had ever taken.
Near 5 o'clock, we tried one last time. I have a feeling peer pressure played a part in putting us in the air. One of the other airlines had loaded up our basketball team, and so the feeling was, well, if they're going ...
We started our approach dropping to 500 feet, then 300, flaps down. About three miles out, the visibility went. There was nothing in any direction. It was as if we had flown into a giant cotton ball. The pilot raised the flaps and throttled up. We climbed to over 1,200 feet before we punched through the fog.
Looming a thousand feet above us was a new wave of fog. The pilot banked sharply in front of the wave like a surfer. The fog washed over the coast, huge crests rising and crashing onto the land, receding into the ocean only to be met by the next wave. As we turned, we met everyone else. Five more planes. All six of us lined up and circled, a traffic jam in the sky.
"Can you see it?" the pilot shouted above the roar of the Cessna's engine. I shook my head and pressed my forehead against the cold glass, scanning the world. I saw nothing, nothing but fog and another night in Bethel and a trip home in the morning ... weather permitting.
R. Brett Stirling lives and writes in Kongiganak, 70 miles southwest of Bethel.
Brett Stirling: Things we cannot control: fog and the flight home
BRETT STIRLING
Around Alaska
Published: April 3rd, 2005
Last Modified: April 3rd, 2005 at 06:06 AM
KONGIGANAK -- "Can you see it?" the pilot shouted above the roar of the Cessna's engine. I shook my head and pressed my forehead against the cold glass, scanning the world beneath me for any sign of our village. The pilot banked the plane to give himself a better view, but he saw what I saw: a sea of pure white fog, blinding beneath the brilliant blue sky.
I looked at the global positioning system display in the dashboard as the pilot swung the 207 in a tight loop. The runway stood out against the green display. The runway should have been coming up on my side of the plane. I kept searching, but all I saw was the plane's tiny shadow cast on the fog below.
I looked at the pilot; he smiled, shrugged his shoulders and laughed. I had to join him. How could I not? This was the third time today I had gotten into a plane to try and fly home, and despite what the GPS said, I was no closer to home now at 5 in the evening than I was at 11 in the morning.
I had flown up to Bethel on Friday afternoon to watch our high school boys play in the district's basketball semifinals. They won the chance to play for the championship but came up short against our neighbor and rival, Kwigillingok. So early Sunday morning, I loaded up on fresh meat and vegetables and headed to the airport. The girl at the ticket counter looked at me apologetically as she said, "You have excess."
"I know," I said, smiling. I always do. I go up to Bethel with nothing and bring back a hundred pounds of groceries.
Our plane left around 11:30. The sky was a deep morning blue; high, wispy clouds stretched and caught the early light and appeared as gold threads in the sky. We landed in Tuntutuliak, a village near the Kuskokwim River about 45 miles south of Bethel, to drop off a couple of passengers and then headed for home. On the way south, the pilot pushed two buttons on the GPS. The pink line indicating our flight path changed, and he swung the plane to the west. "Got to go to Kwig first," he shouted.
We flew within about five miles of our village. I could make out the dark shape of our rust-colored school and the hulking figure of the lime-green tank farm. A few minutes later, we landed in Kwig to find one of the larger planes, a Cessna Grand Caravan, waiting on the runway for us. It turned out that a ticketing error had put two passengers for our village on the flight to Kwig, and the pilot of the larger plane didn't want to risk our notoriously muddy runway on such a warm day.
The pilot jumped out and seemed to be in an unusual hurry, ushering the two transfers onto our smaller plane. "Fog's moving in," he said as he helped everyone buckle in. In a few minutes, we were back in the air banking low over the scattered buildings that make up Kwigillingok. We leveled out, and I watched ground speed increase to over 120 knots. And that's when I realized we were flying into a wall.
As we approached within 2 1/2 miles, we still could see nothing. A hazy series of buildings came into being. I looked at the pilot, who nodded but shouted, "I'm not going in that low." We were barely over 300 feet, and although we could see buildings, the roofs were disintegrating. We would have had to skim the tundra to get in under the fog.
As we headed back to Bethel, I remembered how annoyed I became the first time I got stuck in Bethel four years ago. Most of us are used to getting where we're going when we're scheduled to. Despite what we sometimes like to believe, even with all our technology, we are not in control. We are at the mercy of the world.
A little after 1 p.m., we loaded the plane again. The engine coughed to life, but as the pilot wrote in his log, someone banged on the wing. The pilot killed the engine and opened his window. "Your weather just went to hell," the man shouted. Without a doubt, that was the shortest flight I had ever taken.
Near 5 o'clock, we tried one last time. I have a feeling peer pressure played a part in putting us in the air. One of the other airlines had loaded up our basketball team, and so the feeling was, well, if they're going ...
We started our approach dropping to 500 feet, then 300, flaps down. About three miles out, the visibility went. There was nothing in any direction. It was as if we had flown into a giant cotton ball. The pilot raised the flaps and throttled up. We climbed to over 1,200 feet before we punched through the fog.
Looming a thousand feet above us was a new wave of fog. The pilot banked sharply in front of the wave like a surfer. The fog washed over the coast, huge crests rising and crashing onto the land, receding into the ocean only to be met by the next wave. As we turned, we met everyone else. Five more planes. All six of us lined up and circled, a traffic jam in the sky.
"Can you see it?" the pilot shouted above the roar of the Cessna's engine. I shook my head and pressed my forehead against the cold glass, scanning the world. I saw nothing, nothing but fog and another night in Bethel and a trip home in the morning ... weather permitting.
R. Brett Stirling lives and writes in Kongiganak, 70 miles southwest of Bethel.
