Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater
"The weather briefer says the clouds are marginal, and there are some thunderstorms still lurking around, but let's drive to the airport anyway, and maybe things will look better when we get there." The time was 8:15 pm, July 4th. The place, north Seattle.
We gathered our stuff: warm clothes (it's the 4th of July in Seattle, of course there was heavy cloud cover and intermittent rain), headsets, random flight bag items, a bottle of water. We piled in the car and aimed it northward, to Paine field.
The sky looked alternately ominous and glorious, depending on whether you were looking away from or towards the sunset. Clouds stacked upon themselves, giving every appearance of being incipient thunderheads, tinged yellow and gold with the light of the descending sun. Over the roar of road and wind, we could hear the popping of firecrackers.
We pulled up to the fence outside of Northway Aviation, and I dialed the weather briefer again. To my surprise, he said that conditions were improving as predicted. That never happens. Ok then, I decided, we were good to go!
I got out and got to preflighting little N805W, which would be our trusty mount that night. (Don't believe those pictures, by the way. My head tops the trailing edge of the wing, and Kristin, at 5'2", can just barely stand underneath the wing without hitting her head.) Kristin stayed in the car, where it was a much more comfortable temperature. Nothing notable turned up in the preflight -- even the tires were properly inflated. Firework reports popped and pinged off the metal buildings as people around Paine celebrated their diminishing freedom.
I called Kristin out, and we fired up the little motor (I say "little," but the motor in a Cessna 152 would provide a hell of a power boost to most economy cars if appropriately regeared -- air makes a very inefficient traction medium). After a quick fuel stop (amazingly, the little plane has enough load capacity to carry Kristin, myself, and full fuel; I had to redo the calculations twice to make sure I was reading it right), we taxied out to the runway, and launched into the gathering darkness.
I had a brief radio exchange with another pilot who was coming in, just before we took off. He wished us a good flight, and jokingly expressed his hope that no one was celebrating their freedom by firing guns in the air. I had a little private shudder, and exclaimed, "don't even joke about that."
We were off without incident, the little plane struggling to climb with the extra weight of full fuel and Kristin aboard. It was not a dangerously low climb rate, but I had to remind myself of the difference in performance when you suddenly load a noticeable percentage of the total weight of the plane in. (To those who are sensitive to the propriety of talking about a woman's weight, let's just say that Kristin is quite light, but so is the plane, so it doesn't take much to add up to a "noticeable percentage.")
Almost immediately, fireworks were visible off to the sides of our path, giving the impression of lofting toward us until they popped in a shower of sparks off to one side or the other. As we left the Paine Field airspace, I called up Seattle Approach and set up flight following. This is a service in which air traffic control will help you spot other aircraft which might pose a collision risk. For the most part we had no need of their services, but I always like having someone else watching my back.
The fireworks below were not as frenzied as I recalled from two years ago, but were still impressive. Kristin had her neck craned around, looking at all the sparkling, scintillating light below us. The engine droned on as we ascended to a relatively safe altitude. Between the engine, our distance, and the sound-damping headsets we wore, the pop and crackle of exploding gunpowder had dissappeared.
We had gotten a later start than I wanted, but this meant that as we were passing abeam of Lake Union and Elliott Bay, the professional displays were in full swing. Kristin tried to record them on the digital camera at my urging, but conditions were too dark for the movie mode to record much more than darkness. Elaborate sprays of red and white sparks danced below us, lighting up the underside of the wing with their glare. Gleaming rings of multicolored sparks flared and died over Lake Union. Competing bursts of approximately floral flares ignited and faded over Elliott Bay. The ridiculous competition of the two shows struck me as we watched both from the air.
We flew along, hovering motionless over Lake Washington: a long, irregularly shaped patch of blackness separating scintillating lights, two strings of brakelight-red, sodium-orange and headlight-white pearls linking the lights to each other. The north end of the lake erupted rocket trails from a barge as Lake City or Kenmore residents celebrated our independence from those oppressive British monarchists so long ago.
Around us, other planes flew, taking in the view, or ferrying passengers, or going about whatever errands they had to do. A helicopter passed below and in front of us with surprising speed.
We proceeded past the Renton airport, Kristin half-twisted in her seat to look backwards at the retreating firey displays. In retrospect, it would have been better to turn back and watch the big displays while they were still happening, but I was hoping to find the same carpet of shimmering sparks I'd seen two years ago over Renton and Kent. Alas, I was dissappointed, Renton remained remarkably passive on the airborne-display front.
We turned and descended to 1500 feet to pass over SeaTac airport at the tower's instruction. It's usually somewhat thrilling passing over the big airport, with the big planes, but the haze and lack of planes lined up on final approach made the traversal something of an anticlimax. We climbed back up to a safer altitude and banked back north, passing over the considerably darker and less sparkling western shore of Puget Sound.
Just as we were approaching closest to downtown Seattle, the fireworks reached their ultimate paroxysm of overactive flashing and booming, then went dark. Alas, we'd just missed the Grand Finale. Kristin still seemed satisfied, and I know I was. I pointed out the glowing trail of red lights along Alki Drive, and expounded my theory that they had to be cars. In fact, a lot of roads looked quite busy, and I remembered part of the reason I was so happy to be watching all this from 2000 feet -- less having to deal with people.
As we returned, I pointed out Fremont and Ballard, and about where my house is, and the gaudy necklace of highway 99, stretching north and south. I-5 put in an appearance below us, sleek and efficient looking compared to 99.
We turned back towards Paine Field, and descended for a landing. I aborted the first one, after it was clear that we were too high and too fast to make a safe landing. The second go-around was much more successful, and we made a very good landing, the wheels chirping below us as they spun up to match the tarmac racing by.
"Well, how did you like that?" I asked. "That was really cool!" exclaimed Kristin. Can't ask much more than that for a first real flight.
Posted at 12:32 permanent link category: /aviation
Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater