All week long the forecast had been for a crappy Saturday and a good Sunday. So I wasn’t at all surprised to wake up to a flyable Saturday. Because life is perverse.
In this case, I wasn’t at all unhappy.
Oh, sure, in my neighborhood we had low ceilings and wandering fog, but the wind was from the north, off Lake Michigan, and this was typical winter lake effect weather. I checked the weather for Morris and it was considerably better. Not perfect, and with the temperature just above freezing and a layer of snow we’d almost certainly have some low-level haze to deal with from evaporating moisture, but flyable.
It was actually pretty. The snow had been really sticky, so it coated everything. The world looked like spun glass and sugar frosting. Very pretty and glittering. Kind of hard on the eyes, but very pretty. Thank goodness for sunglasses.
I neglected to consider the roads. An hour and a half into the drive I had barely reached Mokena, and I should be at New Lennox by that point at the least, if not passing Minooka. See, Friday’s rain had turned into midnight ice and Saturday morning snow, much of which was still on the roads. It really was the sort of day where flying to Illinois would have made much more sense except that my Indiana home airport was strictly instrument conditions, so it wasn’t an option. There was nothing to do but call and let them know I’d be slightly delayed, but was on my way.
I pulled into the parking lot, various sorts of ice and snow going crunch-crunch-crunch under the car tires. How interesting. I crunched-crunched-crunched over to my usual parking spot - completely unplowed, of course, and it occured to me that while I could get my car into the spot I might not be able to get it out again. The Echo is a bit low to the ground, you see - it handles well on slick surfaces but can’t handle anything deep. The front bumper tries to snowplow and, well, it’s not a snowplow and it just doesn’t work. Great. Let’s see - back up on this narrow track? Go forward looking for a turn-around spot? Go forward. In fact, I would up in one of the ramp areas before I found a spot I felt I could turn around in without getting stuck. I drove over to the other parking lot - more crunch-crunch-crunch - and parked. I got out.
I darn near fell on my butt.
Yes, there was ice under that slush. This was going to be an interesting day, I could tell that already.
I tippy-toed around to the trunk of the car. I only wanted to make one trip, which meant I was going to load up with gear first, then go to the trailer, no matter how bad I needed to pee. Of course, that just loaded up my hands and arms, which was a lot of fun on a slippery surfaced covered in criss-crossing, icy ruts from various tires with large, knobby treads.
I was hoping the runway was in better condition than the parking lot. Hoo, boy.
It took me longer to get to the office trailer than I expected, but I did manage to avoid falling or stepping into any water puddles, of which there were a few. I don’t know if they salted those areas or if stuff was already starting to melt or what. I did, however, finally reach my goal. There were already a few people inside, standing around yakking.
C looked up, said “Yay! She made it!” and handed me a clipboard.
I gathered up my stuff again and started picking my way across the ramp to the hangar. The ramp was just slightly better than the parking lot, where it had been touched at all. The snowplow was still making the rounds and hadn’t got to the hangar alley where the Citabria lived. At first I thought the snow might make for better traction, then I remembered there was probably ice underneath. The walk to the airplane was beginning to look like the most hazardous part of the day.
I was about 3/4 of the way to the hangar when I hear someone call my name from behind. I turned around and saw J waving at me from about halfway between the restaurant and where I was. Looked like he might be holding onto something to stay upright, too. He bellowed something about preflighting and we’d wait until the plow was done before taking the airplane out of the hangar. I let him know I had heard,
Eventually, I got where I was going and got inside. First thing I noticed was that the airplane wasn’t plugged in. Oh, fardles. Then again, it had been up in the high 40’s the last couple days, so maybe the last time someone had flown it pre-heating hadn’t been necessary. I plugged it in. 20 minutes or so might not make a difference, but I didn’t see where it would hurt anything, either.
The preflight was pretty routine, except for that large flake of paint or fabric that had chipped off the left side of the fuselage, but it was largely cosmetic damage and had been properly attended to so that was OK. And some 800 lb gorilla had screwed down the oil cap so I needed help getting that loose. (We did have a new Citabria student… not that I want to accuse anyone without proof…) Pretty routine. The gas tanks were already full. By the time I was done the plow had cleared in front of the hangar and I got the door open, revealing a two-inch thick ridge of snow we’d need to get the airplane through. Not light fluffy stuff, either - this was heavy, wet, sloppy, “heart-attack” snow. I spent some time kicking notches into it so the main wheels wouldn’t get stuck.
J showed up. I saw him coming from way off because, of course, he was also doing the ultra-cautious I-don’t-want-to-fall-down tippy-toe walk across the ramp. We got the airplane out, with J cautioning me not to slip and fall. This was the most treacherous footing I’d seen out here so far, with the slush starting to melt and putting a layer of liquid over still mostly solid ice. I made concerned noises regarding the surfaces around here. J made reassuring noises about my ability to handle it, although he didn’t come up with them quite as quickly as on prior lessons.
I asked him point-blank what I needed to do to finish this project, what was left undone. He said I needed 10 consistent landings in a row on pavement, meaning consistent landings with minimal or no assistance. I already had that for turf. Which he mentioned we wouldn’t be using today, as with the snowfall and possible melting Cushing wouldn’t be safe. Well, I needed to work on pavement anyhow, so it all worked out.
We got in and started fumbling with the seat belts. My left lapbelt was really tangled. After several minutes of muttering and grumbling and grunting and tugging I followed the strap a little further and discovered it ran under the seat cushion. Oh, bother! I just got entirely out of the airplane.
A short time later, with several seat cushions piled onto the instrument panel, I discovered the belt strap had gotten wound around the metal frame of the seat. How in the world had that happened? Nevermind. Meanwhile, J had been (I think) attempting to console me, or at least calm my frustrations, by telling me about how much time aerobatic students spent on getting in and out of restraint harnesses and dealing with the parachutes before they ever left the ground. Anyhow, I got everything sorted out, reassmbled the seat, got back in, and strapped down. Finally.
I was begining to wonder just how much flight time I was going to get in this morning.
I did a fidget-check, to make sure my seating arrangements were satisfactory. About then I realized that my feet were sliding around on the rudder pedals. I had thought to knock the slush off them when I got in, but apparently I hadn’t done as good a job as I thought I had. Not a good feeling. I slid my feet side-to-side and realized for the first time there were little ridges on the pedals that would prevent my shoes from slipping off sideways. How handy. How thoughtful. I was much relieved, although I made a note to self to bring paper towels along with me next time we had a slush fest to wipe off the bottom of my shoes.
OK, ready to start. The battery was still good, and despite the lack of pre-heat it started on the first attempt. Woo-hoo! Happy thing.
As I cautiously taxied out J warmed me about not using the brakes any more than necessary, and preferably not at all. For one thing, if we hit ice they wouldn’t do anything to stop us anyhow, so don’t depend on them. If you locked the wheels up, well, that’s when you were more likely to lose control. He also cautioned me about avoiding the larger lumps of snow and ice, as it wouldn’t be a good thing for any of those to go through the prop. Particularly anything that was solid. He also said something about the tail loading up with ice. Ice freezing onto the tail was as far from the airplane’s balance point as you could get on the fuselage. It would be a relatively small weight, but a small weight on the end of a big lever. One of the scenarios we wanted to avoid was the one where enough ice built up to shift the center of gravity too far aft, so when we took off the tail would go down, the nose would go too far up, and we’d stall just off the runway. After which we would pancake onto the pavement. This would be painful, at best, and could well be lethal so don’t do that, OK? I filed the information under “New Ways to Get Hurt Really Bad I Hadn’t Thought of Before” and resumed my taxi to the south end of runway 36.
I turned onto the north end of the southbound taxiway which, at that point, slopes downward. Somehow, it looked a lot steeper this morning than it ever had before. It was better than the parking lot, but that wasn’t saying much. Directional control was going to be important here - clearly, I wanted to be pointed straight in my planned direction of travel before proceeding downhill. Yep - once we started on the downslope it was more sledding downhill in an airplane than taxiing. Have I mentioned that airplanes don’t really make very good sleds? They don’t. Just in case you had any doubts. We discussed the feasibility of putting the Citrabria on skis. Sure, why not? You’d save on all that snowplowing, too…
We successfuly reached the end of 36 without falling off the runway, groundlooping, or other variety of accident, incident, or mistake. That I did it completely without assistance was proof that I had come a long way from my first day in this airplane. The south end of the taxiway sloped upward, so the pavement was in better condition on the runway threshold. I found a relatively bare patch to do the engine run up and final pre-flight checks.
J pointed out the slush and ice thrown onto the struts and wings by the prop during the taxi and run up. Mentioned that it wasn’t enough to be a hazard (then briefly discussed hazardous ice build ups), but that it illustrated one of the hazards of flying off this sort of surface condition. Then he said to go ahead, he was ready.
I looked out at the pavement ahead of the airplane, then let my gaze travel off to the left, across what I could see of the runway. I could feel myself frowning.
“Go on.” said J “You’ll be OK, we’ll be fine. This take-off isn’t going to be nearly as interesting as you think it will be.”
(I want to know where this guy took his mind-reading classes. Maybe I’m not imaging his voice in my head when I’m flying - maybe he’s really inside my skull.)
Anyhow, I pulled out slowly. J reminded me to make sure my feet were off the brakes and that we wouldn’t accelerate as fast on this contaminated surface (“contaminated” is actually the technically correct term for “other than perfect, clean, dry surface”). Don’t panic if we hit ice, which we probably would, just keep moving the feet and fly the airplane. I got us lined up nice and straight, and made sure of it, before going to full power.
J was right (as usual), it wasn’t nearly as scare-- >cough< – interesting as I had feared. Lots of foot pumping, and we did eat up as much runway as a summer takeoff rather than what you’d expect on a winter morning, but we lifted off just fine. The airplane was behaving as it should, everything in the green.
Next problem - the local landmarks. A couple inches of heavy snow was lying on top of everything, including the trees and powerlines, and from above everything was near featureless white. J admitted he was having a hard time picking out most of the landmarks and he was much, much more familar with this area than I was. He pointed a few out, then had me dial in the VOR (It’s actually an ILS, but only another pilot would know or care about the difference. And maybe not even care.). I still don’t know if it had been checked recently enough to be IFR legal, but for VFR flight it would be good enough to help guide us home, if we needed it. Considering that we weren’t planning to go more than 10-15 miles from the airport, just a few minutes travel, on a morning with clear air this should put into perspective just how a featureless a snowfall had made the landscape.
We did some slowflight, nothing too exciting, and J pointed out that the slush on the airplane was leaving, melted by the friction of traveling through the air, brushed off by the wind of our travel, and subliminated by the sunshine on it. He also pointed out that this only worked on sunny days near freezing, and not always then. To which I agreed, and pointed out that the right strut and wing was still slushy, being on the shaded side of the airplane, so we turned it around to allow sunlight on that side. We were rehearsing landing approaches at a couple thousand feet, making sure I had a good feel for how the airplane was handling that day so as to minimize variables when actually setting it down on a less than ideal surface.
This was about when J suggested some unsual attitude practice. Now, in my blissful, aviating state I foolishly thought that this meant what prior unusual attitudes had been - some nose-high stuff, some banks, sure, OK, I’d done that before.
Silly me.
I keep forgetting J is not your average pilot, nor your average instructor. In my experience, your average instructor is no more comfortable with odd flying positions than the average pilot, that is to say, not at all comfortable and they tend to not change things around too abruptly or too extremely. J, I’m told, is extremely open-minded about what constitutes “acceptable flight attitude”, which is why when you ask him for straight and level you have to remember to specify upright or inverted. I also somehow forgot I’m a complete chicken. I mean, I’m a coward, I’m already scared.
J takes the controls and boom we’re in a 45 degree bank, nose high, totally uncoordinated. I must have blinked, because I missed any transition. The brain and body went immediately to red alert and the buttocks informed central command of a defnite tendency towards sliding down and to the left, which is not a good feeling while the eyes are confirming that yes, you ARE several thousand feet above the ground. That was much more abrupt than I expected. Which actually makes for a pretty good wake turbulence drill. Except that was a lot more gentle than real wake turbulence would likely be.
Oh, yeah, I squealed. Squeaked like a rusty door hinge. Screamed like a little girl. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Which I’ve been told is also a common reaction to wake turbulence.
Of course, there was rudder pedal stomping and stick work and stuff after that initial frozen moment of startle. Not my finest moment. Not really the best response, either, as J was informing me as I brought it back to straight and level.
“And you want me to sign your logbook?”
“Yes, and I’m here so I can learn how to perform to an acceptable level.”
“That wasn’t what I’d call acceptable.”
“I know that, which is why you’re still the back seat, right? I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“It’s going to take more rudder more quickly than you just did. What would happen if you got hit by a wake for real? That could flip you over entirely.”
“Well, then, let’s stop fooling around with half measures - let’s go back and get the Decathalon and you turn me upside down and give me a good shake or two. I’m sure after about 5 or 10 minutes I’ll stop screaming and get used to it.”
The resulting Small Difference of Opinion finally resolved when J asked me what would have happened in real life if the wake from say, a King Air had hit me like that close to the ground.
“Well, gee, J, I guess I’d be screwed, wouldn’t I?”
“Yes, you would.”
“Well, then, I guess we better do that little exercise again.”
To be honest, it didn’t feel any more comfortable the second time around. Or the third. But by number three I was reacting better to it. Somewhat. Look, I know airplanes can move sideways through air. I even have some understanding of how that works. But normally when I’m in a bank gravity is still perceived as down, towards my feet. Not somewhere off the side of my left hip. And normally I’m the one doing the banking. This felt like control had been snatched away from me (well, yes, it had been). That is not a feeling I like.
After that was all sorted out we decided to head back for landing practice. Which is about when we realized that our short little Discussion about the Difference of Opinion had distracted both of us.
Neither of us was sure were the airport was anymore.
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