Posted Tuesday July 16, 2019
I really thought I'd make it further today.
The weather for the last few days has been looking pretty dicey -- except Sunday, I could have left Sunday with an easy mind -- and today was no different. The civilian weather sources were suggesting that today (Tuesday) would be partly cloudy, and that Monday and Wednesday would be rainy, with Thursday and later just continuing that rain.
Norbert doesn't do that well in the rain (numerous leaks around doors and windows mean that it can get pretty damp inside, and wooden structural members are probably better off not getting wet). Plus, rain usually means low, heavy clouds that are not at all amenable to flying. So, Tuesday, today, was looking like the best bet.
The days leading up to now have been this sort of odd listlessness, as I waited for the appropriate time to do things around the house or in the trip preparations. Then I'd do the thing, and be excited for that moment to be doing something, but then once it was done, I'd have this nebulous time to while away until the next thing needed to be done.
Today was much the same. I woke up at 5:30 or so, unbidden (thanks brain), and lay awake for a bit pondering the day. My plan was to try for a 1 pm departure. Ideally, I'd fly over Highway 2 and Stevens Pass, then once I was past the Cascades, I'd continue on to Sandpoint, where the internet claims there is shockingly cheap avgas (a mere $4.19/gal!). If that didn't work (probably due to clouds blocking the pass), I'd try for Snoqualmie Pass. If that also didn't work, I had my ringer: if I could safely fly at all, I could probably make it to Portland, and fly up the Gorge, which allows for a safe Cascade crossing even with low ceilings.
The weather definitely didn't look like it was going to support a crossing at either of the local passes, so I reluctantly plugged the Snohomish-Portland-Dalles route in to the mapping app, and filed it as an alternate flight plan. I didn't love the idea of going all the way to Oregon just to turn around and go to the extreme northeast corner of Washington. But I also didn't love the idea of smacking into a mountain I couldn't see, so Oregon seemed like a viable option.
Remembering some last-minute chores (of course), I didn't actually leave the house until 12:20, and made one stop for a quick lunch at Costco, which meant I didn't get to the airport until after 1. Then I had some packing and preflight checking and faffing about with wood screws to do before I could take off -- the wing root fairing on the plane loves to come unscrewed from one of the wooden formers, and I've started down the path of increasingly aggressive adhesives to rebuild the hole so the screw won't just strip out again. It's just Elmer's glue so far, but there's more I can do, oh yes.
Soon I had it all sorted out, and fired up the engine at 2:30. What's an hour and a half between friends? I was off the ground at 2:38, and opened my first flight plan on my trip to Oshkosh.
The air was full of gorgeous puffy clouds, making their little cotton candy way across the sky, slowly billowing and filling as I flew past. While they were pretty, that also meant that I spent the first hour or so getting bumped around the sky as the rising air that was making the pretty clouds also jostled me around. The time-lapse footage from that part is probably pretty nausea-inducing.
I tried going down the east side of SeaTac for a change. I usually fly west across the water and fly down the Kitsap Penninsula, but looking at the course line, I figured I'd try something different. As I flew over the miles and miles of close-packed houses with no safe landing spots anywhere nearby, I remembered why I usually fly west. There aren't any better landing spots, but at least a forced landing would be a lot less likely to kill people on the ground. The clouds were forcing me to say below 2500 feet, which increased the feeling of not having any options. Still, it was interesting to see all the stuff I hadn't seen before, marvelling at some of the housing developments.
Once I got south of Tacoma, the clouds started to be a little bit less oppressive, and the SeaTac airspace also raised up, giving me some breathing room above. I climbed up to 3500 feet, and suddenly the hills ahead of me didn't look so ominous, but the clouds were not as high as I would have liked. Still, breathing room is breathing room, and I made my way past Kelso to Portland, passing a pretty isolated rain shower north of St. Helens. On the way, I'm pretty sure I heard an airplane calling itself "Elvis 82 Heavy."
The clouds were definitely lifting as I got further south, and by the time I was turning to avoid the PDX airspace, things were starting to look pretty clear. In fact, by the time the PDX controller was warning me that he wouldn't be able to talk to me below about 3500 feet in the Gorge, I was able to climb to 5500, which made for a much more comfortable crossing. That's nearly high enough to clear most of the lower peaks, and definitely high enough to avoid some of the more exciting turbulence that can happen down low in the Gorge.
My first stop for the day was the Dalles. I checked the weather, and saw the following ominous string in the report: 30015G29KT. Unpacked, this means the wind was coming from 300 degrees (blowing from the northwest), at 15 knots, gusting to 29. It wouldn't be much of a crosswind, but that ratio of wind to gust speed sounded like something to be avoided if possible. I examined the handy-dandy fuel report I'd saved (no cell service at 5500 feet over the Gorge, so you have to get things ready in advance), and discovered that the Hood River airport was showing the same price as the Gorge, $4.99 a gallon, and its weather was showing wind down the runway without gusts. Sold! It happened that I was right there, so I called the various air traffic control folks and informed them of my new plan. I dropped down and landed with surprisingly little ground speed (thanks, strong headwind!), and rolled up to the fuel dock.
Where, of course, I discovered that their fuel is $5.99 per gallon. Not $4.99. I only filled 16 gallons, so it's a comparatively small difference, but still. Never fun to have that kind of expectation busted.
By the time I'd filled the tank and filed a new flight plan (I really like filing flight plans via an app instead of by calling a guy on the phone) and started the motor, it was 6 pm. I thought back to the flight plan I'd just filed, where I told the FAA it would take me 3 and a half hours to get to my destination of Sandpoint, ID. The sun sets in Seattle at 9 pm, and surely doesn't set later in Sandpoint. I can't legally fly after sundown. Something was looking wrong here. I filed it away, and determined to just make as much forward progress as I could, and land wherever I happened to be when the sun was setting.
Up in the air again, and I was off in the direction of Sandpoint. The wind that had so helpfully pushed me along the Gorge (I hit over 90 knots over the ground, which is quite a burst of speed for Norbert) was now blowing me sideways, and I found myself constantly correcting as my brain wanted the plane to point where it was going, instead of living with it pointing to the left of where it was actually going.
The eastern side of Washington, once you get past the mountains, is a bit monotonous. There's a lot of golden brown. There's not much in the way of visually exciting geology. There's the occasional patch of green where someone is irrigating. I found myself excited to come across freeways, trying to guess which one I was flying over. I was usually wrong.
The controller came on the radio and reminded me that a restricted area was active, so I shifted my route slightly. I took a few pictures of dust plumes over a hill that were most likely from some kind of live-fire exercise. Oooh, aaah.
At one point, I called up the controller and asked to be excused from the frequency (having only one radio) so I could update my flight plan with a new destination -- now that it was obvious I wouldn't make Sandpoint, I was changing it to Deer Harbor, which is along the same line, but half an hour less flying time. He offered to change it for me, which I accepted, then we discussed whether or not that would update my "real" flight plan. I offered to talk to the other controller and see what they said, and we discovered that what the center or approach controllers can access is definitely a flight plan, but it's not the same as the flight plan the Seattle Radio controllers have access to. Mildly confusing.
That was the extent of my excitement as I traversed the golden fields of central and eastern Washington. I listened to the nerds of Critical Role as they fought monsters and schemed. It was pretty enjoyable, though I once again found myself wishing there were more than one or two positions I could sit in. I also found myself getting cold as the sun sank toward the horizon. The highly unreliable external thermometer was reporting something like 12° C, when it was showing something believable.
When the Spokane Approach controller took over, I found myself getting routed around the sky a bit as she kept me out of the way of the big planes landing and departing at Spokane International. That was unusual and kind of enjoyable simply for the rarity of the experience. Then, one eye on the increasingly red sun, I made a high-speed dive for Felts Field (having changed my destination again, realizing that even Deer Harbor was a dream), and landed on the little runway, taxiing up to the transient parking and watching the sunset fade to the west.
To my delight, Felts Field has a pilot's lounge, which means I don't have to set up a tent tonight, and can charge my phone without overloading the plane's electrical system. It's already 10:40 as I write this, and I figured I'd be falling asleep by 10:30 tonight. Nothing ever goes according to plan, but I have lots of leeway in my planning, so it should all work out alright. Now, to sleep, and to wake bright and early to tackle the Rockies, only the tallest mountain range in the country. Piece of cake, right?
Copyright © 2019 by Ian Johnston.