Airport Stories: Storms and Transients

Some of the worst dilemnas in flying involve weather decisions.

A lot of times you get no-brainers. A perfect sky, calm air, cool temperatures - hey, that’s a good day, go fly. Thunderstorms, pouring rain, strong gusts, hailstones as big as your first - time to go hide under the bed. Those are easy decisions.

A hard one is when the weather is sitting on the fence between good and bad. On the day in question, there was a high overcast with good visibility beneath (good), calm air (good), and nearby, at least on weather radar, lots of yellow, orange, and red (bad). There were some powerful storms not too far off from Morris airport.

I called the airport. C was leaning pessimistic about the weather. “It’s raining here” she said, which launched a discussion about how heavy the rain was or wasn’t (in this case very light, sort of “spitting”) and prospects for more or less of the same. It was deemed very flyable rain, but that didn’t mean circumstances were particularly good otherwise.

My information was that the wind in the southern half of the broader region was from the southeast and in the northern half from the northwest - and in neither case very strong at all. Morris sat right where the two systems met, and its air wasn’t moving at all. My call was that the weather would be stable over Morris all day, the bad stuff would stay north, and it would start to improve around 3-4 pm. If I was right, I should be able to get some decent flight time in. If I was wrong I was about to make a 140 mile round trip for nothing more than a tuna salad sandwhich lunch. (Yes, I was still having tuna cravings.)

I drove out there, fretting most of the way which isn’t terribly good because a two-hour fret can wear you out. It started raining about 15 minutes into the trip, a good honest rain, a downpour and I almost turned around then, but in another 10 minutes of driving I was in dissapating clouds and weak sunshine. Halfway there timewise, I called C again, who reported no change, it was still light misty rain. OK, keep going. And most of the way there it was high overcast with an occassional glimpse of sun. At least until Minooka (gotta love these small town names), where it clouded up and got a little wet again.

I pulled into Morris and got out of the pickup (I brought the pickup because it has better air conditioning than the car, and at 9 am it was already hot). I looked up. High overcast. Little bitty spitty rain on my glasses. No wind. It didn’t seem too bad in the immediate vicinity, but airplanes don’t stay put, right? I spent a few minutes getting a look at the whole horizon. South and east the clouds were lighter grey, to the northwest things looked darker, but only a little bit. There were airplanes flying overhead but were they conducting business as usual or all coming in to get out of the weather?

There did seem to be a few more airplanes than usual on the ramp.

I went in to the office and checked out the weather on the computer. Yep, big nasty scary stuff still hanging out to the northwest, it hadn’t moved in the two hours it had taken me to come out. Question was - was it going to continue to stand still, or was it going to move? And if it moved, which direction would it go? This was not weather you would want to be caught in if you were flying a small airplane. Or even a medium sized one. I still thought the storms would stay put or stay north but … well, making a mistake with the weather can result in Bad Things. I had a brief mental image of being forced down in a bean field, attempting to run for cover under pounding rain and hail, and being hit by lightning 'cause I was the tallest thing for a mile around. Yeah, that kind of violent weather.

Briefly, I wondered if the Citabria was struck by lightning while aloft if it would burn. Maybe. If it ignited the wood and cloth probably would burn quite nicely. What a cheerful thought. And another reason not to play in thunderstorms with small airplanes.

I looked out the window. Dead air. The rain had stopped. Light grey clouds high above. It looked… peaceful. Almost. If you didn’t know what lay just beyond the horizon.

I said hi to C and collected the clipboard and the key to the hangar. She cheerfully told me J was still flying but go pre-flight the airplane and when that was done and J back on the ground we’d all look at the weather again.

When I caught up with him I could tell J was skeptical about the weather. Although pilots often come to the same conclusions based on the same information, this was a situation with no clear-cut answer and thus we were getting as many opinions as there were pilots. J and I had both looked at the weather on the same computer using the same services. He wasn’t thrilled at the idea of going up, and mentioned seeing lighting strikes to the northwest. I could tell it was a definite concern on his part. I went back to my argument about slow moving systems and southeast winds pushing the big stuff away from us, but added if he knew something I didn’t please speak up, I mean, he was the one who’d actually been up in the air already. Finally, I said “I think if we stay here, at our airport, we’ll be OK. If we see something nasty start to roll in we’ll just get our butts on the ground. Gravity works regardless of the weather, we can always land.”

J agreed to that so we went and got into the airplane. Let me back that up just a fraction. We went out to the airplane and J doublechecked to make sure we had ample fuel on board, a full load. “Just in case we have to divert somewhere. Or something.” Just in case the weather moved in and we had to make a run for it to somewhere else. No, we didn’t think that would actually happen or we wouldn’t be strapping into this machine but both of us had been flying long enough to know that no one controls the weather or completely understands it. We were just being prudent.

And then we completely stopped talking about the weather. Got in, started up, taxied out to the ramp, did the run up. As we headed out toward the runway there were three airplanes coming in to land, one of them another one of the school’s planes and two transients. We did seem to be getting a lot visitors. J informed me it was the start of the Great Oshkosh Pilgrimmage.

For those of you who might not know, “Oshkosh” is a town in northern Wisconsin. It is also the current home base of the Experimental Aviation Association (EAA), whose members range from folks who have never flown but are just fans of airshows and aircraft, through hang gliders, ultralighters, “real” airplane people (like me), guys who build airplanes, guys who build other things that fly, people who do fancy stunt flying (like J), on up through astronauts - NASA, Soviet, and Rutan launched.

Once a year, the EAA throws a big party. I mean HUGE. They’ve had everything from parachutes to the Concorde show up and fly, and this year SpaceShipOne is supposed to be coming. It’s supposed to be centered on Whitman field, but in reality spills over into two or three other local airports because there just not enough room to park all the airplanes that show up - last year it was about 12,000 of them. That’s just the aircraft. Plenty of folks drive in, too. It’s a fly in/drive in/airshow by pilots and for pilots, at least in theory.

The air traffic controllers who work there are all volunteers. Working the big EAA fly-in (they’re calling it “Airventure” these days) is quite a feather in their caps. During “Oshkosh Week” Whitman field becomes the busiest airport in the world handling more take-offs and landings per hours than any other place on the planet. Unlike an airport such as O’Hare or Heathrow, though, the traffic isn’t uniform in size or speed. Everything from 20 mph powered parasails to supersonic-capable aircraft shows up, so it’s as if the same road is being shared by skateboards and formula one race cars and the traffic controllers have to keep everybody moving and prevent them from occupying the same space at the same time.

Anyhow, this group of transients was the pre-fly-in crowd - people bringing their airplanes to display, volunteers planning to contribute with labor to making the whole thing work, and folks just showing up early to find a good parking spot. It’s a little different from some of the other big international airshows in that everyone, absolutely everyone, who flies is welcome to show up and yes, fly, provided you follow the rules (which are several pages long). At least in theory.

Such is the prominence of this event in aviation that pretty much anywhere in the world, when pilots gather and say “Oshkosh” they’re almost certainly referring to the Big Party and not the town itself. No, we don’t bow towards Whitman Field five times a day, but with some folks it gets pretty close to that. (To be fair, there are also aviators who despite the EAA and all their doings, too) Oshkosh attracts pilots from all over the world, and quite a few of them funnel through my home base area.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to do take offs and landings with all this going on. :slight_smile:

We waited for the other guys to land, looked a couple more times for arriving aircraft, then pulled out onto the runway. I asked J what he wanted from me and he said a normal take off and a normal landing to start. So… full power and move your feet

It was a nice take-off, which I say without a trace of smugness. Smooth, kept it on center the whole time, and a nice, gentle liftoff right into best climb attitude. Did a quick scan of the whole area, even turning around in my seat a bit to get a look out at the northwestern sky in my 5 o’clock. Area looked free of other aircraft and/or dangerous storms, though yes, to the northwest it did look threatening.

On climb-out J warned about the day’s temperature inversion - unlike most days, when it gets cooler as you go up today there was a layer of hot air over the “cool” (relatively speaking) air near the ground. Said it was a really sharp change and I’d know it when I hit it.

The boundary layer was 700 feet off the ground.

One second it’s moderate air blowing in through the vents and the next it was a hot, hot blast. I could feel it pouring into the cockpit near my shins (which are near the vent inlets), puddling on the floor, and rapidly rising up and through the cockpit. I started sweating instantly. Yuuuuuuuuck.

Pattern altitude is somewhat higher than 700 feet. With strangers in town, it wouldn’t be a good idea to cheat and stay low just for the sake of comfort. Especially in a highwing airplane.

Oh, yes, highwing vs. lowwing. Highwings have the wings on top. Lowwings have the wings below the fuselage (you can also have midwings, biplanes, triplanes, staggerwings, and during Oshkosh season just plain weird stuff) Just like your car has blind spots, so does an airplane. In a highwing, the wing itself blocks a significant portion of what’s above you. In a lowwing, the wing blocks your view of the ground and what’s immediately below. If a lowwing and a highwing are converging with the highwing at a lower altitude and the lowwing at a higher altitude they can easily be in each other’s blind spots. If they continue to converge they can meet, with the sort of disasterous results you’d expect. Definitely a Bad Thing. This is most likely to happen in the vicinity of an airport, where airplanes congregate.

So we’re taking the whole see-and-avoid, look-for-traffic thing pretty seriously. The Citabria has a clear panel directly above the cockpit, which helps cut down on the blind spot problem (though it does not eliminate it) and we both keeping looking up as well as to the sides and forward, even at times twisting around to look backward as much as possible. We’re in a relatively slow airplane and some of the stuff flying in to Morris could easily overtake us and run us over if folks aren’t looking where they’re going. We spend the whole rest of the day doing that sort of traffic watch, along with training and flying.

Anyhow, there I am, sweating and flying and looking around and adjusting the throttle and the trim and judging our distance from the runway and the effects of wind on our flight path (none at the moment) and looking for traffic and sweating and flying… Just a normal day in the sky, really. No big deal, we even have time for a little chatting: “So, does a school superintendent get the whole summer off just like the kids, or do they make you work?”, “Well, no, I just get a couple weeks off a year and I usually take it around this time.” “Oh, sure, no particular reason, just a couple weeks off, right? - going to Wisconsin in the near future?” “As a matter of fact, yes. Yes I am. For a week. For no particular reason. Ha-ha.”

(Let me interrupt here for moment. J wasn’t supposed to be around Morris on the day I’m writing about. A bunch of us were supposed to be flying with someone else I’ll call “S” this particular weekend because J was already supposed to be up at Oshkosh, but S … well, I’m not sure exactly what happened, but somehow he ended up in New York City and would not be able to get back. So presumably J had interrupted his plans to come back to Morris for the day so a bunch of us could continue our training uninterrupted. He’s a nice guy, isn’t he?)

(Yeah, yeah, all very interesting - just get back to the flying stuff, already, right.)

Well, here we are abeam the touchdown point (that means the end of the runway is more or less directly off my left shoulder). Reduce power, trim for the proper airspeed, and start the slide back down to the ground. Bring it around nice and easy, tweak it a bit more, sit back, relax, and let gravity do the work. We passed back down through the inversion boundary layer - ah! nice cool air chasing all the hot nasty stuff out of the cockpit! We come in nicely lined up, proper airspeed, approach and rate of descent looks good, check the rudder and stick action, move that rudder back and forth to feel how much force is needed and how the air currents are affecting things… over the fence, over the grass, over the pavement edge, over the numbers… ease back on the stick, nice and gentle, and just wait. The airplane settled and touched with a light >-b-b-bump< as the three wheels came down almost simultaneously. Ah! Don’t get lazy - you’re still flying! Move those feet, move those feet, move those feet…

That felt good!

“Full power, go back up.”

“Ha! That was a great landing - I don’t need anyone to tell me that.”

“You’re right. Now show me a wheel landing just as good.”

We go through the whole sequence again - up, into the hot, around, look for traffic, two-minute chat, look for traffic, carb heat up/power down/adjust speed, look for traffic, (relatively) cool air back into the airplane, down, around, and wheels on the pavement. No, the wheel landing wasn’t quite as good, they are a shade harder.

The next time around J had me pull the power not just partly back but all the way back when we were abeam the touchdown. This is an engine-out simulation - pulling the airplane engine back to idle is a lot like putting your car into neutral. Then engine bits may still be moving but they aren’t providing power to the wheels in the car of your car, or the prop in the case of the airplane. You’re coasting.

The Citabria glides pretty well once you get it adjusted to best glide speed, which isn’t that different from what we normally use on landing so going to that speed is almost automatic already. In straight and level flight the rate of descent is not alarming - it’s when you turn that you start going down with more speed.

Why is that, you ask?

Remember, it’s lift that holds the airplane up in the sky. With the power at idle it’s gravity pulling you along that generates sufficient lift to allow you to control your descent. At best glide speed you’re extracting the potential energy that you get from being above the ground in the manner that will hold you up the longest. This is generally seen as a good thing, especially if it’s not a simulation and your engine really has stopped.

Now, in order to turn an airplane some force of some sort is needed to change its course through the air - remember, one of Newton’s laws says that objects in motion not only tend to stay in motion, they tend to keep going in a straight line as well. The force you use to turn an airplane is, again, lift - but any lift you’re using to alter course can’t be used to hold you up in the air. Less lift to hold you up means you descend faster. As soon as you level out again your rate of descent slows, but by then you’re much lower and closer to the ground.

Engine-out landings aren’t difficult in theory… in practice they do require you to manage finite resources (altitude and time) in an efficient manner.

As we came in over the airport fence J had me nudge the power back up - no need to get carried away with this.

The rest of the morning consisted of lots more “engine-out” appraoches, refining techniques, including adjusting my grip on the throttle for better control, and lots of “move your feet” although truthfully by this point I was probably hearing it whether J was saying it or not - they really do program you like that. Students on first solo frequently report hearing a running commentary from the empty seat beside them. Sitting in the front seat of a tandem airplane is almost like that anyway since you can’t see your partner. If J hadn’t been giving me strategic taps on the shoulder now and again the experience wouldn’t have been much different if he had been on the ground talking to me on the radio. Usually.

Lots of traffic watching that morning, too - quite often airplanes were visible in the traffic pattern to only one of us and not the other. That’s an extra bit of stress right there, and another reason for going to Cushing but we couldn’t go to Cushing this time - Cushing was under the bad weather. Either we flew here, in the traffic, or we stayed on the ground.

It wasn’t that people were flying crazy - it’s just that there were bunches of them. At one point there were two planes entering the pattern together, but postioned so I had to lean forward slightly (try leaning forward without pushing on the stick - that takes practice) and look up to see them, sort of forward and above the left wing, and J simply couldn’t see them at all, they were in his blind spot. This was not a day were I could focus entirely on the flying and leave radio, traffic, and weather watch to the guy behind me. This time we both had to be on the look out for other airplanes.

Still, we did get to see some interesting hardware. At one point J pointed out a Fairchild that was crossing in front of us - us on the downwind and the Fairchild on base. He commented that it was a hard airplane to fly, and I wanted to ask him why but at that point we were ready to start the descent and it’s just not a good idea to distract yourself. So I put my question on hold, manuvered to fly the landing behind the Fairchild, J elected not to pull the power back to idle this time (engine-out drills in a crowded pattern while you’re extending your downwind and base legs to accomodate other traffic can potentially turn a simulated emergency into a real one, so in this case we elected to keep the power up a bit) and landed the airplane. J called for a go-around (again) and we went up (again).

We climbed out and as we turned left onto the crosswind leg I lifted the left wing, which was the low wing and also blocking quite a bit of our view of where we were going while in the turn, in order to look and make sure the downwind was clear of obstacles. I turned the airplane left again, onto the downwind, J may the proper radio call, and finally I felt I could ask the question that had been hovering unspoken in my mind for several minutes:

“Why is the Fairchild hard to fly?”

According to J, the front seat of a Fairchild resembles nothing so much as a big old living room couch, and the stick is this huge thing that comes up to chest height, the instrument panel is rather far away from you, and there’s a lot more wall than window in the cockpit. He also said that it flew really nice, despite the visibility issues and the strangeness of flying an airplane while sitting on a sofa. All of which made me want to land immediately and scoot over to look at this aviation wonder but I didn’t. I didn’t even remember to go over and have a look at it while it was parked on the ramp all afternoon. Maybe sometimes I get a little too focused on what I’m doing and fail to take advantage of all the opportunities around me. Which I regret, because we don’t get many Fairchilds flying through, there not being that many left in the world.

A few more laps and it was down and park and take a break. At least for me it was taking a break. J, as usual, was trotting off to sit in some other airplane and tell someone else to move their feet for an hour or so, or maybe fly inverted for awhile or whatever the heck he was doing that morning when he wasn’t flying with me.

I was hungry enough to decide on an early lunch, but when I went into the restaurant there weren’t a whole lot of available seats. All those transients who were stuck in our safe harbor because of nasty weather to the north had gotten hungry, too.

I chose a spot along the counter seating, across from one of the local helicoptor pilots and next to a gentleman who had flown his Yak up from Alabama (yes, an Oshkosh pilgrim). Mr Yak was also the proud owner of a twin Piper Commanche and something called a Badendeusch (which, frankly, may be badly mispelled between his Deep South accent and my lack of German). It seems a certain Herr Baden of Germany had designed the Baden, which is a parasol monoplane - that’s a high wing where the wing sits entirely above the fuselage, supported on struts. After the Baden, which was a single seater, came the Badendeusch, which has two seats, hence the “deusch” part, which means two in German (and which, again, I have probably misspelled). Supposedly only one of 60 in the world, which could be mine for a mere $125,000. My goodness, for $125,000 I could by three Citabrias. What I would do with three of 'em Og only knows, if I had that much money more likely I’d buy something in the Citabria price range, get checked out to solo the Stearman, and probably waste the rest on a downpayment on a house or something equally foolish and non-aviation.

I ordered - or at least I thought I ordered - a tuna salad sandwhich but it came back as a tuna melt. Er… well, there was only one waitress (there’s usually more than that), lots o’ people, and it looked edible. Given my limited time frame, and since it did look edible, probably best I didn’t complain and just eat it. It was a trifle greasy, and the french fries looked postively evil. I just worked on the sandwhich, drank my mug of ice tea, talked airplanes with the neighbors, and relaxed a bit. They asked what Hoosier was doing so far from home, had I flown in, was I, too, going to Oshkosh? More specifically, Mr. Helicoptor asked the Hoosier question, Mr. Yak had apparently never heard the term before. I said I was there for the tailwheels, which prompted another round of hangar flying and passing the picture of the Badendeusch around one more time.

Both guys were quite positive and encouraging about my getting the tailwheel endorsement. Made me feel a pale mix of sadness and anger that some of the guys at my home field had actually tried to talk me out of it. But if I listened to naysayers in my life I wouldn’t be flying period, so screw 'em all.

Anyhow, I finished eating and paid my bill. Still had some time to wait before round two. Went to the car and pulled out my ICOM - that’s a handheld aviation transceiver, a portable radio. I dialed in the Morris number and took a seat in a quiet spot near the runway where I could listen and watch the airplanes go round and round and think about what I’d done in the morning and what I planned to do better in the afternoon.

It was sort of interesting eavesdropping on folks. At some fields FBO’s put their radios on speaker, so you can sit and listen to what folks are saying, or there are a number of folks like me walking around with handhelds, but Morris doesn’t seem to be that way. The only folks hearing the airplanes are the other airplanes. And me.

J was in the yellow warbird again, doing all the radio calls so presumably the owner/student was pretty busy. I noticed the Citabria taxiing out to the runway. Er… I had left my headset in the Citabria. Granted, I wouldn’t need it until the airplane came back anyhow but I still wasn’t feeling too comfortable about leaving some of my equipment in someone else’s care, particularly when I didn’t know that someone. My own fault, though, for not taking the headset with me. I almost hit the push-to-talk switch to ask when this mystery pilot was planning to be back but J beat me to it, mentioning that there was a student scheduled in a short time period and the guy said he was just doing laps around the pattern and he’d have the airplane back down in plenty of time.

After which, not only is J doing radio calls for the warbird, but he starts a commentary on the Citabria pilot’s landings. “Oh, that’s lovely - who taught you to do that?” No false modesty in J, is there? Is there anyone at this airport who hasn’t had lessons from this guy?

By the way, in addition to all the mutal admiration going on, the conversation (which was a bit more chatty than usual on the radio) was futher complicated by the fact that all three of these guys have the exact same first name. No wonder we use the airplane numbers to distinguish ourselves while aloft.

Then J mentions that he should have thought about throwing me in with the guy currently in the Citabria - ah, well, another missed opportunity. I had needed lunch, though. Almost suggested running out to the runway or taxiway to meet Mr. Mystery and hop in the back - wouldn’t be the first time I’d chased after a ride. Last time I’d done so it had been me climbing onto the wing of a still-moving Mooney, but that was with someone I knew, who knew me, and a low wing where once you could get up on a wing with the airplane still moving then open the door and climb in at your leisure. Might be a little more complicated with a highwing, might require actual stopping (yeah, maybe the taxiway rather than the runway), and I wasn’t sure how the locals would react to that, or the guy in the airplane would react to that, some crazy broad chasing him down and leaping aboard. So I sat silent and unheard, watching the airplanes fly.

By the way, safety tip if you ever find yourself near moving airplanes: stay next to something bigger and taller than you. Pilots can get distracted, airplanes don’t always have great visibiltiy on the ground - in fact, in a surprisingly number of them if you’re on the ground you can NOT see what’s directly in front of you - and they aren’t expecting people in many areas. I’m not very big and under those circumstances not very visible. Pilots are, however, looking for things like light poles, windsocks, buildings, and other airplanes. So stand or sit next to something they’ll be trying to avoid anyway. That way, even if they don’t see you they’ll see the big obstacle you’re standing next to and you’ll significantly reduce the odds of Bad Things happening.

As I sat there I couldn’t help noticing a breeze had arrived. Along with a few gusts. I spent some time looking at the windsocks and the flag up on the pole near the airport office. The flag was rippling nicely. There were some mild gusts. Oh, no. Well, at least it was out of the south south-east. That was good, as it would keep the storms north of us. And it was mostly down the runway. The only question left was whether or not the wind conditions were something I could handle.

Soon enough the warbird landed. After the boys parked it I strolled over and asked for a look inside.

Couple things about military aircraft and me climbing inside them. First of all, military airplanes with props tend to have BIG props, which means the airplane has to stand fairly high off the ground so it can spin without hitting the dirt. This requires you to climb upward some distance. Secondly, the military has a minimum and maximum height requirements and builds the steps and handholds accordingly. I am shorter than the Air Force and Navy height minimums. Me getting into most military and former military aircraft is rather like rock climbing, except I don’t have a safety harness. Except with those indoor climbing walls you don’t have slick metal handholds (worn down and even more slick due to decades of use). At least it wasn’t raining - climbing up a wet warbird is even more exciting. I haven’t even attempted to do that with ice and snow around.

What kind of warbird? I don’t know - I forgot to ask. Predecessor to the T-6? It was big, yellow, with a sliding canopy, big single engine, big prop… I was told in the 1950’s/60’s it was used as a trainer for daring young men about to transition to jets. Another taildragger.

So - foot up, grab handhold, haul body upwards (body briefly reminds me I’m not 20 anymore, but I tell it to shut the hell up), other foot on the wingwalk, step forward - “The front seat is easier to get into” - grab side of cockpit, swing leg over, stand on seat - “That’s why it’s always dirty, it’s the only way to get in and out” - and sit down.

Wow - this is a busy cockpit.

The proud owner promptly starts pointing to things and telling me what all these levers and switches and pump handles and other gizmos do. I only thought I was busy in the Citabria. Way too much stuff going on in here, and nothing is even moving at the moment. You gotta play with all this stuff in here AND manuver it as a taildragger? At the same time? Oh yeah - it’s one of those airplanes where, on the ground, you can’t see jack in front of you. Really. The edge of the panel comes up to around my eyebrows.

You know those little bitty senior citizens who drive big old cars around? You know - where all you see is a pair of hands reaching waaaaaaaay up to grab the steering wheel and nothing else? If I flew this former military airplane that’s what it would look like more or less.

A little too complicated for my tastes - I like my airplanes simple.

Speaking of simpler flying machines - the Citabria was back. I managed to climb out of yellow bird without requiring too much assistance, got down off the wing without mishap, and went to claim “my” airplane while J was off to the restaurant again, no doubt to inhale some food prior to his next flight with me.

My headset was safe and sound in the back seat and I got to meet yet one more pleasent and interesting person. Turns out the person inside was another one of the flight school’s instructors. We chatted for a bit, then parted ways.

By the time I get the plane checked out and I’m in and buckled down J’s back, says “coming in”, and does so. As I wait for him to get settled and strapped in I can’t help but note the airplane is rocking slightly in the wind - it’s not a “breeze” anymore, it’s a definite wind. I checked out the flag again, it being easier to see from my position than the windsock. Still from the south south-east.

I noted the change in weather aloud, and J mentioned something about what a great “educational opportunity” this represented and how it shouldn’t be a big problem because it was mostly straight down the runway.

I’m not sure how J defines “educational”, but it can be a codeword to use in front of the tourists for flights of somewhat alarming characteristics when you don’t want to alarm the innocent. At least back in Indiana we’ve been known to use it that way. Come in for a landing with such turbulence stuff in the back of the plane is literally bouncing off the walls, floor and ceiling? That’s “educational”. Up practicing stalls and you accidently find yourself in a spin? “Educational” How was your flight? - Educational, and I’m glad my mother didn’t see that. Educational, because I learned something, usually I learned I shouldn’t do something or I didn’t like that.

But somehow I don’t think it will be that bad this afternoon. I did pay a little more attention on taxi, since this time I could feel a definite pull and tug from the air working on the plane. As I trundle on over to the ramp J has me turn left first which, because of our direction and the wind’s direction, requires considerable effort. The wind, you see, is pushing us the opposite direction, so it requires full rudder and a good application of engine power to turn us, slowly, to the left. Then he says to turn right - which merely requires me to reduce power and release the pressure on the rudder. zzZZip! We swing quickly around to the right in a 180 turn that leaves us, after I hit the brakes, facing into the wind.

It’s because we’re flying of course, even if we’re on the ground. The airplane wants to travel under the influence of the air, not with the line painted on the pavement.

I completed the engine run-up and checks, then went to the runway. J is going on about how this is totally different flight environment than the morning, and about how wonderful it will be for me to see the contrast between the two. It’s about time for me to start working on winds, anyhow.

Here we are again, at the beginning of the runway. I take some care to line the airplane up on center - might as well start with the best set up possible. J reminds me that there are some gusts, and we’re going to take off in a significantly shorter distance because even standing still (and we both finish this in unison) “we already have airspeed over the wings”. Standing still, facing into a 15 knot breeze, the airplane doesn’t know it’s standing still - from the machine’s viewpoint you’re already traveling at 15 knots. In calm air we need to be moving at 40 knots to lift off. Now, we only need 25 knots, relative to the ground, in order to fly. We’ll accelerate at the normal rate, but reach flight conditions much sooner.

Full power.

I’m moving my feet even before J starts up his usual chant. There’s more control because from the rudder’s viewpoint we don’t start from 0, there’s already 15 knots over the rudder to give me something to work with, but I need that control effectiveness, every bit of it. The wind is pushing us slightly off-center, so I have to counter that along with the tendency of the engine to push us left. We’re back to some swerving, but I was able to slightly anticipate the tail coming up and get back on course. And, oh yes, meanwhile I’m using the stick to keep the wings under control because they, too, are answering to the wind’s call. All of this happens faster, in less distance.

Then we’re off the ground and away, and I only have to deal with the air, not the air and the ground together. I have to correct for the wind drift, because in the traffic pattern you follow a set course over the ground, but the wings and wheels are not longer trying to go different directions, right now the wheels are strictly along for the ride.

There are a few bumps and buffets going around the airport, but nothing unusual or unexpected for conditions. Look for traffic - ugh! As hot air swirls into the cockpit I note that the inversion layer boundary has moved downward, to around 500 feet off the ground. Bleagh.

If you’ve ever seen a diagram of a weather front, a side view usually shows one air mass nudging over another, with a slanted border between them running down to the ground. As the fronts move, that slanted boundary moves, too, and from a pilot’s viewpoint that means the boundary moves up or down. The boundary was lower, so that meant one air mass was pushing another along. With a southeast wind, that meant an air mass from the south was prodding another, cooler one north. Probably air up from the Gulf of Mexico, warm and humid (yes, it was). Near the ground, you get a boundary. Higher up, and further north, the two air masses were colliding and generating storms - hence the worse weather to our north. But that same, nasty, hot-panting-dog-breath air was pushing those storms away from us. As the afternoon progressed J noted that the weather over Morris seemed to get better every time we went around the pattern.

Those same effects also meant that by tomorrow morning that hot, nasty air would be at ground level. It was forecast to be the hottest day of the year, in a year that was hotter than we’d seen in a decade. I believed it, because I was getting a taste of tomorrow’s ground-level weather every time we climbed into the air.

J wasn’t calling for specific landings now - he said I was to use whatever techniques seemed appropriate for conditions. Which, because of conditons, were tending more towards wheel landings than three-point. Which was OK - the best landing technique is the one that gives you the most control and the greatest safety.

The first one wasn’t too bad - I had to work harder than I had in the morning, but I kept it pointed down the runway.

The second time around I got the wheels on the ground and everything was going fine - at first. Then it swerved, swerved hard - must have been a gust - and I had that sudden icy wash of alarm as I realized the airplane was running away with me and I –

I wasn’t flying it anymore.

J had taken over the controls, and brought it firmly back onto track.

Back to being a passenger in the airplane I was supposed to be flying. Not that I had minded him taking over - not at all. The airplane really was beyond me at that point and if he hadn’t been there the situation had a high probability of a bad result, that is, groundloop, damage, or accident. That’s what an instructor is there for, among other things - to keep you out of that sort of trouble. I liked that J had done so decisively. If he’s going to take the airplane away from me then he should just do it, hesistation in that sort of situation is hazardous. And I tried to yield control just as quickly, because he doesn’t need me fighting him for control. J gave some very sharp, strong jabs on the rudders, I could feel his feet moving on either side of me as he did so, the vibration from his shoes brushing against my seat cushion. I was aware of his presence behind me in a way I hadn’t been for some time, and it was very reassuring.

Basically, I feel comfortable that this man is skilled enough to rescue me if I screw up. In the past I have had instructors where I didn’t feel that level of confidence, and to put it bluntly, you don’t feel very safe under those conditions. It’s hard to push your limits and expand your skills when you’re worried that if you make a mistake a Bad Thing will happen. Not that I think J is superhuman - he has limits, too - but they’re considerably beyond mine right now.

That little oopsie is also why the flight school isn’t quite ready to let me take the Citabria out on my own just yet - I’m not quite ready.

J was reassuring me about that. He said he let it go a bit because he wanted me to get a sense of how fast things could go sour, and what it felt like when the airplane was starting to get away from the pilot. You learn as much, if not more, from the things that go wrong as the things that go right. The real trick is to make sure the mistakes don’t become disasters. Not a problem - just part of the learning curve. Landings with winds, gusts, and pavement are harder in a taildragger, there was not disputing that.

I don’t recall if J flew it off the ground that time, or if I did, but by the turn to crosswind it was back in my hands again. Another landing, this time I was able to manage it on my own.

Around again, and I was sweating even after we passed back down through the heat into the more moderate air. No more chatting, I was concentrating on getting this right.

Down over the trees, over the fence, over the numbers…

!BUMP! - !BUMP! - !BUMP! –

Look! I just turned an airplane into a pogostick!

I went to full power.

“GOOD decision! That was EXCELLENT!”

“Yeah - I didn’t like where that trend was heading…”

“Yes, exactly - it was a bad trend. You did exactly the right thing. Good job!”

Well, yeah, that made me feel better.

J said “Now, I want you to do a couple more landings. You’ll do them just fine. We’ll end on the best one so you can go home feeling great.”

So up and around again, up into the hot nasty soupy air, turn left, look for traffic, turn left again, level off/reduce power, look for traffic, look at the weather (still improving), look for traffic in the air and on the ground, abeam the touchdown point carb heat on/reduce power/adjust pitch and speed, look right for traffic, look ahead for traffic, look left then turn left onto base, look at runway, feel the cooler air blow in, slip it down a little, turn while in the slip, line it up on center.

Over the fence - no comment from J in the back (yet)

Over the end of the runway

Over the numbers (J isn’t speaking, but in my head I hear his voice saying move your feet)

We’re down, under control, and rolling out.

Now I hear something from the back seat, and it’s “Oh, that was great! That was perfect! No, don’t stop - do it again. I didn’t mean for you to stop this soon.”

So I went up and did it again. As we’re rolling out of the turn onto final J says “I want your best landing this time”

“I thought I gave you my best landing last time.”

“You did - I just want to see it again.”

So I showed him :smiley:

And on that happy note we taxied back to the hangar. J said he’d have me take care of putting the airplane away and he would go talk to the transients still waiting out the bad weather. He said he’d been the one stuck at an airport by weather himself any number of times, and knew how they felt. If they weather up north wasn’t going to allow for them to take off this evening something would have to be done about getting them to hotels, then back to the airport the next morning. No shuttle bus service out here. Definitely the downside to small airplane travel, you can get even more stranded than with commercial travel. Myself, I’ve walked into my home airport office early in morning to find stranded pilots sleeping on the couches. It happens. One problem was there were a LOT more transients at Morris than there were couches and chairs. I’m not even sure there was sufficient floor space to hold everyone, if that had even been an option. Nope, the local airport folks would definitely give everyone stranded a lift to a hotel, no question. Anyhow, J was going to see about about the stranded travelers and we’d both meet back at the FBO office for the debriefing and logbook update.

So I drove the Citabria past the rows of parked aircraft - some quite old and some brand new and most in between, representing about 70 years of aviation altogether - and swung it around in front of hangar 10. I shut down the engine, J squeezed out of the back to get the door open and I put stuff away. I got out myself, bent low to get under the door, which was still folding upwards, and grabbed the towbar. Snapped that onto the back wheel and J pushed from the front on the left strut and we rolled her into her home.

Bending down to take the towbar off I notice something off about the tailwheel. I bent lower. A sizable teardrop shape was in the middle of the wheel. Not only were the treads worn off, but it was worn past the smooth rubber into the fiberous stuff underneath.

“J, there’s something wrong with the tailwheel…”

“What, the trends are worn down? Happens all the time, we go through a lot of tires --”

“No, J, this is worse, you need to take a look at this.”

So he came over and bent down and said “Oh, yeah - that needs to be replaced. I’ll tell C.”

I nodded. He went off to help the stranded while I filled out the paperwork, made sure all the switches and stuff were off, brought down the hangar door, turned off the lights, and locked everything up.

I met up with him on the way back to the FBO. He said that the weather was, indeed, lifting and folks were planning to take off and try to make their destinations tonight, which was good news. We chatted on the way back, and I said that this afternoon I knew I had done well, and didn’t need anyone to tell me that.

J nodded and said “You know, you’re about to join a very select group of people. Very few people are pilots, and very few pilots fly tailwheels.”

Yeah, that’s true. Left me with a warm glow, to know I’d done something special twice over.

Then we both went in to sit down, chugg a couple cups of water, fill out the logbook and add up the bill and do all that other not-so-fun stuff required by mundane reality and regulation. The next day was forecast to be over a hundred degrees at Morris (it hit 102) and I stated that I really didn’t think flying under those conditions would be a good idea, and J agreed.

Why not? Well, hot air is less dense - the engine doesn’t burn fuel as efficiently, so it suffers in power and performance. You risk overheating the engine, especially with the high power setting required during take-off, and even more so with repeated take-offs. The airplane doesn’t climb as well, and with Citabria being a little on the underpowered side it wasn’t that fantastic in the climb department to start with. A poorly performing airplane is more of a challeng on landing as well, with bumps and bounces more likely. They can handle a little of that (trainers get a lot of it anyhow), but there’s no good reason to go looking for that sort of thing. Then there’s the problem of pilots which, as human beings, aren’t very comfortable in extreme heat, either. You don’t want the pilots to get overheated, or sick with heat, and in any case it’s much harder to learn when you’re physically miserable. It’s hard on the machinery, it’s hard on the people, and it’s not worth burning your money to be miserable.

So we shook hands, wished each other well, and planned to meet again in two weeks. Two weeks, because the following weekend, with Oshkosh fully underway, J was going to be in Wisconsin for sure.

After I got home, on the news that night, there was film of the destruction wrought by the storms that had stayed north of Morris all day - trees down, powerfailures, roofs gone missing. Um, yes, was very happy to have missed all that.

Not for nothing, but check that wheel next week.

Biggest problem I have in F-24’s is that I can’t get far nuff away form the rudder pedals. I’m 6’4".

Well, it is not the Spirit of St. Louis but it is better than a Cessna 195. Or Spartan Exec. A lot of the 1930’s stuff have limited fwd vis.

You will do well in “T”crafts and Chiefs and Luscombe’s. I’m just too big. It is possible to fly them but actually dangerous because I can’t get full movement on the controls. Being a big guy is a disadvantage in a lot of planes. I had a chance to fly a Monney Mite and actually got in it but could not move the controls. So I had to pass … a real bummer for me.

I dropped C an e-mail - J’s good but he’s human and distractable. Not only is the wheel getting changed out, it was due for new hardware anyway so by next weekend that whole back wheel assembly should be brand new.

Wow, I know I gush in these threads all the time but I really want you to know I appreciate you taking the time to write them. It is SO much fun living vicariously through you. I love the attention to detail and chance to learn more about aviation from my chaise lounge :slight_smile:

The comment about the weather, especially the possibly bad flying but not horrendous and scary weather, reminded me of standing on a runway in Botswana looking up at a cloudy sky as we listened to the airplane we were hoping to fly out on fly overhead again and again. The visibility ceiling was about right about on the edge of being low enough that they knew they couldn’t land safely but eventually the plane landed- they loaded our luggage, then the people and we took off.

Two days later someone said to me (paraphrased) “After all our troubles with airplanes* aren’t you nervous about the rest of your trip?”

Me: No, not really- after this our group will be small enough that a new airplane can be acquired more easily if neccessary.

Brave words on my part. I was not so keen on the airplane after I saw just how little it was- and it was still much bigger than these that Broomstick is talking about- it could hold six people. Still, the tour group that I was with in Africa had about 38 people in it, but the group that I was going to be with for the last couple of days only had six- and that part of Africa has a lot of tourists traveling on small planes. As it turned out, our biggest problem was obstacles on the runway. Broomstick’s tales talk mostly about human traffic- we had to remove or discourage antelope, giraffes, and elephants from standing on our runway and eating the nice grass with no trees for predators to hide in.

I will also admit to breathing a sigh of relief once we were safely on the ground in Atlanta- where I knew that if our scheduled flight got canceled or delayed other flights could be arranged more readily than flights overseas.

  • All our troubles with airplanes: we weren’t supposed to ever land at that airport- but the airplane suddenly developed carbeurator(sp?) problems. It took them several hours to figure that out, so then we couldn’t leave due to nighttime setting in, and thus curfews for airplanes. Then we had the cloudy morning, then that evening our plane landed and got a flat tire, which they didn’t have a spare for at the airport, so we ended up traveling by other means to our next destination.

By the way Broomstick,

I think there is something wrong with this sentence

I think you mean despise rather than despite. I tripped over it last night, but then forgot by the time I reached the end of your epic and started composing a post. But, since you have asked for feedback on your writing, and since wrong letters which still make real words are some of the hardest types of mistakes to catch, I thought I’d point it out.

The paragraph underneath the one with the sentence I quoted is the one with the smiley in it.

Yes, yes indeed I did ask for people to make comments of all sorts, and constructive criticism offered in a civilized manner is always welcomed.

Truthfully, I sometimes get so caught up in the story-telling my spelling goes to crap.

The “warbird” you speak of sounds very much like a T6/SNJ (Texan… I think you yanks call it. It’s a Harvard to the rest of the world.) It would fit your discription and era, and the description would make sense.

I suppose there’s a slight chance it could be a T-28 Trojan. But I’ve never seen a yellow one of those (except for the linked picture). Trojans are HUGE though… Not to say Harvards aren’t big, but the Trojan is so ridiculously huge for a two-seater, I’m sure you’d have mentioned that… And looking back, I just realized that the T-28 is tricycle gear… So I think I’ll shut up now.

It sure looks like a T6, but I’m almost positive they said it wasn’t a T6 but rather its predecessor. Pointed out some features the owner said were “primative” and were updated for the T6, but being largely unfamilar with the sort of airplane under discussion I didn’t retain much of it, practically none.

It was big - it’s a low-wing but I could almost walk under the wing without bending over. Then again, I’m a shorty. I mean, geez, it was almost like going up one of those climbing walls that got trendy for health clubs a couple years ago. Almost asked the owner to hand me down a step ladder so I could climb out of the cockpit.

I’m no authority on warbirds… I’ll ask, if I think to, when I see them again.

Anyhow, it’s not a military paint scheme at all. It’s the same yellow, alright, but with green wingtips and no insignia that I recall seeing. After all, it’s been in private hands for decades, it might have been repainted more than once.

Definitely a tailwheel.

I think I have a winner:

The North American BT-9 Also known as the Yale or NJ-1.

The T-6’s predecessor. I’ve never seen one in real life, sounds like an interesting aircraft. All we get are Harvards up here… Although I probably never took a close enough look to tell the difference. Apparently there was a bunch delivered to Canada too. Guess I’ll take a good gander next time I fly in to Hamilton or Ottawa.