Posted Monday, July 29, 2019
After my grounding by the rainstorm yesterday, I was hopeful that this morning would bring nicer weather. I was not disappointed, though my wildest dreams were also not fulfilled.
What I got was a scattered layer of clouds at about 2500 feet, and strong winds coming from exactly my direction of travel. Still, better than blinding rain.
The weather briefer thought that things would get better fairly quickly, but conditions were not particularly conducive to taking off right when I got up. Jeremy, the airport attendant who'd come out to greet me when I landed yesterday, suggested I take the crew car in to Grace's for breakfast. A fine suggestion.
Grace's turned out to be a fairly typical family restaurant, and the veggie omelette I ordered (it was even on the menu!) was uninspired but filling. It was also quick and cheap, and I was back at the airport and ready to launch by about 9:30.
The wind was blowing strongly down the runway, and Norbert and I lifted off from Alexander Field. We were quickly (well, quickly in the retelling, anyway) at 2500 feet, and nearly brushing the bottoms of the clouds. The ride was bumpy, between the 25ish knot headwind rumbling over the landscape, and the rising air that was creating the layer of cumulous clouds under which we cruised.
In fact, that came to be the defining fact of the day: turbulence. I made it to my planned stop of Boyceville without problem, but the plane took constant attention to keep on course and at altitude. It's not a disaster if I deviate a bit from the planned course or altitude, but it's better to stick pretty close to the plan.
The sky was empty except for me and Norbert. The traffic display showed basically no one else up in the air. As I've mentioned before, my traffic display is limited to a certain set of airplanes, so I'm sure there were other planes in the air that I couldn't see on my little screen. Still, it was comforting in a way to know that I didn't have to worry about running into anyone else.
I turned on the music for this leg of the flight. I didn't feel like the melancholy college jams from last night (seriously, Liz Phair and Sarah MacLachlan in full effect), so instead it was Circus Contraption and Bitter:Sweet. Familiar music is nicer to listen to when I'm constantly being interrupted by the air traffic controllers. Listening to the Critical Role podcast, which is essentially an unbroken narrative story, gets frustrating on busy channels, since the radio won't pause the auxiliary audio, just mute it.
Landing at Boyceville was uncomplicated, though it was kind of hiding behind a hill, so it took me a while before I really had it clearly in sight. My bladder was full to bursting, so I made that my priority once I was on the ground. As I was climbing out, a gent was walking up to meet me, offering tiedown straps. I declined, since I'd only be there a minute and the wind wasn't too strong. He offered me the bathroom in his hangar, which he said was nicer than the public one. As I walked in, I spotted the white and pink Piper Cub, which I had seen but not photographed at Oshkosh. We had a conversation about the plane, which he restored in those colors specifically to encourage young women to try flying, as well as being a tribute to breast cancer awareness. I thought that was pretty cool.
We parted with a handshake, and I pumped Norbert full of gas again. The new leaning regime was paying off: 4.7 gallons per hour from Alexander to Boyceville, instead of the 5.5 GPH I was seeing on the way in. The engine will be happier too.
I forgot to mention this yesterday, but as I was leaving Fond du Lac, I decided it would be an ideal time to try out my new QT Halo headset. I was excited to have something that would be easier to put on, lighter, and generally more pleasant to wear than the David Clarks. The QT Halo is essentially a U-shaped piece of wire with a microphone coming off one side, and a couple of earplugs on tubes, with a wire attached that plugs into the ship's intercom. The David Clarks are the big green safety-nerd headphones you see in every picture of a pilot ever.
The initial impression of the Halo was alright, but the instant I hit the transmit button, the shine started to wear off. There was a weird flanging sound on my transmitted audio, and the tower said they could hear it too. The microphone didn't quite reach to my mouth, though I could kind of get it close by wearing the halo band crooked; my transmitted audio was not only flanged, it was too quiet. The band didn't like to stay crooked on my head, either. The final nail in the coffin was when I realized that I was only hearing the radio about half the relative volume (radio:external noise ratio) no matter how much I turned it up. I took off the QT and fished the old green cans from under the rear seat where I'd stashed them. Much better. I guess lightness and ease of use just don't trump sound damping, microphone placement, and sound quality. Dunno if I'll hold on to them or not, but I felt like a fool parted from his money in the air yesterday.
Back to the present. Tanks engorged with fuel, we taxied backwards on the runway, and launched after about half an hour on the ground. The weather had improved, which is to say the clouds were higher. I was able to cruise at 3000 feet, and the extra 500 feet made me surprisingly more comfortable, as I felt like I had a lot more options for where to land if the engine decided to give up. Fortunately, it continued to run like a perfectly healthy engine.
The leg to Staples was longer, at 2.7 hours, and even at 3000 feet, I was getting pretty beat up by turbulence. The problem is that I had to constantly vigilant, without a chance to relax for more than a few seconds before the air would twitch us off course in some way. Suddenly we'd roll off to the side, or yaw weirdly, or the nose would move magically up or down without my asking it to. I tried correcting when it happened. I tried leaving the controls alone and just letting it happen. Neither one made a substantial difference, and leaving the controls alone to let the air have its way with the plane quickly led to being pretty distinctly off course. At least I wasn't suffering from motion sickness.
Staples was a relief when I finally spotted it and landed. The wind was strong enough that it felt like the tires didn't chirp at all, and we couldn't have rolled more than 300 feet, a remarkably short landing for this plane.
After the plane was fueled up, I decided to tie it down (the wind was strong enough that I was seriously worried about a wing lifting) and have a little rest. The Staples airport has a nice little pilot's lounge, and one of the airport board members walked in shortly after I arrived and welcomed me. Same thing happened the last time I came in. Staples is clearly pretty anxious to see more activity at the airport.
I made a decision: I would take a nap, for I was very tired after all the turbulence. If I woke up and felt like I was revving to go again, I'd take off for Barnes County Airport in Valley City, ND. If I was still feeling beat, I'd make Staples my stop for the day, even though it was only about 4 pm. There was a courtesy car, and town held the promise of dinner and not fighting to keep the plane on course.
I woke up about 45 minutes later, and realized that I was feeling refreshed. So, out to the plane, untie, and let's get going!
Staples to Barnes would take me past the Minnesota-North Dakota border at Fargo, and as I passed over, I marvelled at the change in scenery. Somehow, right about the border between the states, the landscape really does go from fields-and-forests in Minnesota to just fields in North Dakota. It was odd. Bob mentioned it when I was in North Dakota on the way in.
The weather had improved noticeably during my nap. The clouds were now at 4500 feet and breaking up. I found, once I was in the air, that they were even higher, and I could safely cruise at 4500 feet. I'm not sure if the weather changed, or if being higher was the trick, but the turbulence was much less on this final leg of the day. For the latter half of the flight, the clouds even cleared away completely so I was flying in a mostly-smooth, empty sky. The headwind even reduced a little bit, so I was only facing about 15 knots instead of the 20-30 I'd been seeing earlier.
Barnes County has a multitude of runways, so that the approach diagram in Avare looks a bit like an occult symbol. I picked runway 35, which was not only grass, but the one most closely aligned with the wind. Unfortunately it was also a bit washboarded, so that landing was not as smooth as I might have liked, and this time it had nothing to do with my landing technique. Once I was down and moving slowly, it was pleasant enough, and I taxied to fuel.
Barnes County has a little pilots' lounge, where I've stationed myself. There's also a self-checkout crew car, so I drove into town to have some uninspired pizza at the Pizza Corner (its chief benefit being that it was open until 10:30; I didn't get myself away from the airport until 8:45). The wide open sky showed beautiful colors as the sun set, and I took a couple beauty shots of Norbert silhouetted against the fading colors, while being mobbed by excited and gigantic mosquitoes eager for a bit of a snack.
There is, unfortunately, no shower here, so I'll have to satisfy myself with a bit of a sponge bath and try to get some sleep after I check the weather and make my plans for tomorrow. Hopefully I can make similar good progress, and the weather won't thwart me again.
Copyright © 2019 by Ian Johnston.