PDF Version October November 2008 - Midwest Flyer

eyond red line in the descent, busting
the altitude by 50 feet. It wasn’t until
I raised my voice to a certain pitch
that she broke free and corrected. She
recovered nicely and landed without
damage to anything but our nerves.
It was sticky hot on the ground. I
almost kissed the man who greeted
us with an ice-cold bottle of locally
brewed root beer. I chugged most of it
down before I realized how delicious
the root beer was, then savored the
rest of it. It was nice to pause for a
summer treat like that in the middle of
the crazy vacation I was having.
It was my turn to fly the next
leg, from Frankfort, Ky. to Franklin,
Pennsylvania. An extensive review of
the weather told us we have to deal
with clouds and rain, but we’d be able
to reach Franklin before it got really
bad. Visibility was poor and we were
in hill country, so this was another
difficult leg to fly. I called for “flight
following” and when confirming our
location, the controller informed me
that we were 400 feet higher than the
altimeter showed. He gave me the
barometric pressure and it was the
same as I had dialed in. Good grief,
400 feet off? Switching pages on the
GPS confirmed it: our altimeter was
whacked. We spent the rest of the
flight frequently comparing the GPS
to the plane’s altimeter, making minor
adjustments as needed.
Serendipity
We finally caught up to the other
racers when we landed at Franklin,
Pennsylvania. Most of them had been
milling restlessly around the airport
all day, unable to fly because the
ceiling and visibility was less than
VFR minimums at Saratoga Springs,
New York, our next stop. While my
partner was anxious to move on, I
20 OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2008 MIDWEST FLYER MAGAZINE
was actually pretty excited that we
were stuck on the ground for awhile.
I had read about the excellent Italian
restaurant on the field at Franklin and
hoped the timing would work that we
could eat there. It was my lucky day!
My partner and I had a meal that
was every bit as good as I’d hoped,
then checked the weather again. The
conditions were forecast to improve
and a few of the racers took off,
gambling that Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
would be at least VFR minimums by
the time they got there.
As much as we wanted the weather
to improve, though, it never did.
When we finally reached a time when
the flight could not be completed
before the official End of Day, I called
a taxi to bring us to a hotel. We found
out later that the racers who took off
for Saratoga Springs lost their bet.
They had to file IFR enroute and
divert to another airport, thereby
disqualifying themselves. Everyone
admired their wisdom in choosing to
admit defeat and stay safe.
A huge thunderstorm rolled through
that night. The next day was Friday, the
last day of the race, and the forecast
wasn’t good. It would be hard to find
a few hours of VFR weather. Only
two short legs needed to be completed
by 5:00 p.m. though, so I remained
optimistic. Not everyone was.
Final Day
A van brought a load of us racers
back to the airport Friday morning.
The lobby, ramp and skies were
already active with teams that had
gotten up even earlier than we did.
While unloading our bags, I heard
the throaty rumble of a plane flying
fast and low overhead. In the warm
morning mist, I looked up and saw
a Cessna 182RG doing its departure
fly-by, with an awesome contrail off
the left wing. Others in the group were
watching as well and we chattered
about how cool it was. Then we saw
that same plane on short final to land
on the crosswind runway. The contrail
we witnessed was 17 gallons of avgas
being sucked out of the wing because
the pilot had neglected to replace
the fuel cap during her preflight.
Fortunately, someone on the ground
recognized the problem for what it was
and radioed the crew, at which point
they immediately turned back to land.
The weather gods were smiling on
us. We had a few hours of acceptable
weather to get to Saratoga Springs.
We launched out of Franklin, Penn.
as quickly as we could and headed
northeast. The flight was much like
the last one: low clouds and low
visibility through the hills. We worked
it though, paying close attention to the
GPS and altimeter.
By the time we landed, we were
behind the pack again. No surprise,
since ours was the slowest plane in
the race. We wanted to spend as little
time as possible on the ground in
Saratoga Springs. There was only a
small window before the weather came
down on us. Saratoga is a sprawling
airport though, and the FBO was
quite a hike from where the plane was
parked. A courtesy car brought us up to
the lobby where we did a quick check
of the weather, then walked briskly
back to the plane. We didn’t have
much time before we had to worry
about thunderstorms developing.
The last leg of the race, Saratoga
Springs, N.Y. to Mansfield,
Massachusetts, was the shortest and it
was the hardest. We had to stay under
the clouds because the tops were too
high, and visibility below the clouds
was at absolute minimum. We were
flying in the hills of upstate New York,
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