Posted Sat Jul 16 08:36:56 PDT 2022
Well, I had planned to be in the car and driving to the airport 37 minutes ago. Unfortunately, the weather had different plans. That cold front that's been coming in from the north Pacific chose this morning to pounce, so the entire route is under low overcast clouds.
I'm feeling a certain delicious irony in having consciously taken so long to actually pick up my new biplane, delaying so the weather wouldn't slow me down too badly, only to have the weather be a huge complicating factor at the beginning of the trip: it was originally scheduled for June 3rd, but ended up pushed back nearly a month after a tropical storm innundated Miami on the day I was to start my transition training in Florida; thunderstorms across the southeast plagued my early days; hot weather nearly melted me in the southwest. And now, on the final day of the trip, the famous Seattle overcast is back, just in time.
At least this time, it's unlikely to last more than the morning. I should still be able to land at Harvey Field well before the sun goes down. More updates as events warrant.
Later...
Well, huh. That was, overall, very different than what I expected. But sort of fitting.
Dave from the forum offered to fly partway with me out of Scappoose toward Seattle. He has a Starduster, and a Starduster Too (the two-place version), both of which are fairly similar to my own Marquart Charger. That actually ended up being the least complicated part of the day.
I'd never flown with anyone before, so I was curious to see what it would be like. I knew that flying close formation is its own very particular and demanding skill, so I was pretty sure he was offering to fly very loose formation, still within sight, but not particularly close.
However, first I had to get myself to the airport. I'd arranged with my parents to borrow their car. They were off doing one of their things, and the idea was that I'd find a safe parking spot at the airport, park the car, and lock the keys inside. This part of the plan was reasonably straightforward. I'd scouted a good parking spot the night before, and saw a keypad on the person-door, so I figured I could key in some appropriate number that only pilots tended to know to get in.
The first place I tried, which was unmarked, had a code-lock box on the gate. It didn't open for the obvious codes I could think of, so I went back to the short-term parking spot, which had an actual electronic keypad I could use. I figured that would be set up for people like myself who are itinerant, and needed to get back to their plane.
But, no. Or rather, maybe, but I couldn't tell: the keypad didn't respond, and gave every indication that its batteries were dead. So... doom? Then someone drove up to the gate and opened it so it truck could get through. Then he drove off. Less doom, I guess. I walked through the car gate and opened the person-door from the inside. It wasn't on a spring, so it just hung open. Fortunate for me, I guess.
Got my stuff out of the car, locked the key inside with a bit of a gulp, and got myself through the gate and to the plane. Nothing was amiss, and I was quickly into stowing and preflight.
While I was doing the preflight inspection, Dave walked up. We'd met before, and it was good to see him again. We talked about my plane, and the trip, and agreed upon our plan: he was going to get fuel, and taxi over to the far side of the field, where the antique airplane association was meeting. I'd follow when I was ready, and we'd wait for the weather.
Because, yeah. The weather. That cold front that blew through left an ominous low overcast in the morning. The forecast was that it would start to break up around noon, and be largely lifted by 2 pm. I didn't want to wait that long, since I was planning to meet a friend at Port Townsend for lunch. So, I was kind of eyeing the sky to the north, and watching for any lightening of the gloom as my sign (along with turbo-refreshing the weather on my phone) to get going.
I got fuel, and taxied over to where Dave had parked. I got a couple shots of the planes together, his Starduster, and my Charger. Then, it was into the clubhouse to be part of the meeting for a little bit while waiting for the clouds to break up.
The club meeting was like every club meeting: dealing with all the unglamorous little stuff that needs to be dealt with. Lawn mowing, where to store/display a large model of a biplane, how to do things so the Port folks don't come complaining about what you did.
After about 15 minutes, the weather reports started to look better, and I made my exit (interrupting the meeting for a few minutes, since several of them had expressed interest in seeing my plane before I left), and then it was time for Dave and me to depart.
More later, as I juggle the demands of being home, and updating this probably-penultimate entry.
Yet later...
So, Dave and I took off. I performed turns-around-a-point above my parents' boat, where they were engaged in a training exercise, as a farewell gesture. Dave and I joined up over St. Helens (my circling making me very easily spotted), and started the journey north. The clouds were still low, but not dangerously so. He set up position about a quarter-mile off my left wing, and we flew together up to Chehalis or so, where he peeled off and headed back south. It was pretty cool to have a flying buddy, and much less stressful than when I've tried sticking together with riding buddies on the motorcycle. The fact that we could communicate on the radio, and there were no roads or other traffic to worry about made it much easier.
After he headed back, I continued north, flying more or less over I-5 the whole way. Past Olympia, I broke off and went straight where the road bears right around the south end of Puget Sound.
The weather, meanwhile, was resolutely not improving. The clouds had lifted a tiny bit, so I was up at a slightly more comfortable altitude of 2500-3000 feet, but it was still a solid deck over me. The forecast had suggested the clouds would be lifting and breaking up around this time -- it was about 1 pm as I approached the Bremerton airport -- but they really just didn't do that.
As I passed Bremerton, I had a choice to make. There's a hill northwest of the airport that would have been very uncomfortable to fly over. I could pass it to the left, which would be on the straight line to Port Townsend, or I could pass it to the right, which would take me well out of my way.
The sky to the left, on the short path, was lower, but not a lot lower. I was still comfortable with it. The sky to the right was noticeably higher and lighter. I was tempted to head right, but I was already running behind my anticipated schedule, and I was freezing.
In Scappoose, I'd donned my light jacket, since it was warm on the ground, and I knew I wouldn't be going very high, so I shouldn't see much temperature drop. As we passed Kelso, it became clear that I could have worn my extra fleece layer and been pretty happy. I wasn't in any trouble, just kind of annoyed that I was a little on the chilly side.
However, as I kept going north, the temperature kept dropping. By the time I was flying under the lower clouds to the left of that hill, it was below 60° F, and I saw 55 pretty soon after that. Previously, to fly in 55 and later 49°, I had worn my fleece layer in addition to what I was wearing at this moment. I was apparently too cold and feeling too late to consider stopping at Bremerton and putting on another layer, which would have been the smart thing to do.
Beyond Bremerton, things got worse. I thought the clouds were higher past the hill, but they actually got lower. It was better to the east, but right were I wanted to go was prohibited area P-5, over the Bangor naval base. If I wandered into that airspace, I'd probably lose my license, and the clouds weren't feeling dangerous, just bothersome, so I stayed aimed forward, and descended to get under them.
It was actually quite pretty, when I wasn't thinking about how increasingly cold I was getting. Port Townsend, where I was meeting a friend, was only about 15 miles north, so I kept going.
Now, if you read aircraft accident reports, the preceeding narrative is exactly the sort of thing that leads to crashes. That fact is making me pretty uncomfortable now: although I was vaguely aware of it at the time, I discounted it, and I was really only one set of lowering clouds from being forced into a very bad spot. It's frustrating to be able to so clearly spot the things I should have done, but didn't do.
I should have stopped much sooner, like in Olympia, or definitely in Bremergon, to put on more clothes. I should have turned right at the hill past Bremerton, to stay in the safer airspace. I should have not allowed myself to get into the get-there-itis mindset.
The lesson I have to take, again, and hopefully actually learn this time, is that I suffer badly from this problem when I'm close to my destination, and it's just a little bit more distance to get there. It's absolutely insidious.
Gloomy ponderings aside, I did make it safely to Port Townsend, and I did successfully meet my friend. I had a lovely burger at the Spruce Goose, and a final "farewell to diet holiday" piece of apple-berry crisp pie (surely, it was full of fruit; that's healthy, right?). We had a nice conversation, and I got myself on to the final-final leg of the journey after an hour or two of sitting and warming myself up. It was actually taking a brisk walk around the airport that finally warmed me up, as we'd sat outside on this unusually cold mid-July day. Thanks for the ironic welcome home, Seattle.
The difference in power between the Charger and the Champ became quite apparent leaving Port Townsend. At other airports, I've always been dealing with a new, unfamiliar environment, but suddenly at the Jefferson Counter International Airport, I was in a very familiar place. At a particular point in my departure, where in the Champ I would have been around 1200 feet, I was already to nearly 2000 in the Charger. It just climbs way faster.
Then it was a relatively uneventful flight over Paine Field, and on to Harvey. I noticed that the problem landing wire was being distinctly non-problematic, even at 2200 RPM, which had been a pain point before. I suspect that the colder temperature caused the wires to shrink a little bit, just enough to tighten them up so that wire wouldn't flutter. I also noticed at one point on the ground that the problem wire may be slightly misaligned with the airflow, which would encourage it to lift, stretch, deflect, depress, deflect, and lift again into the vibration that's been causing me so much annoyance.
In any case, I passed over Paine, where the plane will eventually live, and descended into Harvey Field. There I made a decent but not exemplary landing on the grass runway (I'd had a perfect landing at Port Townsend, and a perfect take-off when I left), and taxied over to the pump to fill the tanks a final time on this trip.
When I got there, I looked over and realized that the spot I thought I'd rented in one of the carport hangars was full of someone else's plane. He turned out to be a renter who didn't know why it was parked there, and after I talked to the folks in the office, it turns out what I had rented was the little not-quite-a-spot to the left.
I went back to the pump, and as I was filling my tanks, a gorgeous black-and-silver Stearman biplane pulled around. I gave him a thumbs-up, but it turned into a thumbs-down in my head as he kept his engine idling, and would creep forward every 30 seconds or so, apparently indicating his intense desire to get to the pumps I was parked in front of. There are two pumps. I'm sure he was doing what he felt was best, but to see a 96+ inch propeller inching forward ever half-minute was pretty damn intimidating, and I ended up pushing back much less than I normally would and getting out of there in a big hurry because of this jerk's self-importance. I never hurry if I can possibly avoid it, because that's when I make mistakes. So thanks to you, black Stearman pilot, for encouraging mistakes in your fellow aviators.
The resulting dark mood didn't make taxiing over to this half-a-spot covered space any nicer. I'm having a complicated reaction to this hangar situation. On the one hand, the Harvey folks went out of their way to find a spot for me on very short notice, which I appreciate. However, they're also charging me the full rate for a spot which I eventually had to enlist help to get into safely, which has a substantial divot in the turf, and which is almost too small to fit the plane into. I had to shift a heavy wooden ramp-thing out of the way, and half-crushed my foot in the process. It feels very janky. I basically won't be able to operate the plane out of that spot without a helper every time. That's ok for the moment, but is distinctly problematic beyond the next week or so.
However, I did get the plane in, and reasonably secured for the night. I'd talked a friend into coming to retrieve me, so I had a willing audience for the ride home, and it was nice to unlock my front door, set down my stuff, and just relax for a little bit. We chatted for an hour or so, then he was on his way.
I looked over at my Big Pile of Stuff. I'd commented on the drive back from the airport that I couldn't remember if I'd grabbed the knee board in the frenzy of unpacking the plane, and sure enough, it wasn't in my backpack. Crap.
I also needed to make up some intake plugs for the plane, so I grabbed some random cardboard, packing tape, a pen, and some scissors, and headed back out. I could have waited, but I figured I was feeling motivated, so I might as well go then. I think it was about 8:15 when I headed out.
Fortunately, making the templates for the intake plugs wasn't too hard, although it did take me until after 10. And I managed to remember the kneeboard as well, so it was a successful trip. Of course, I didn't leave myself quite enough charge in the car, and stopped for a short charge before getting back on the freeway (which turned into a short nap for me, which was welcome).
And so my trip from Florida to Seattle came to a close, around 5:30 on July 16th, 2022, with a little addendum stretching it to about midnight. I haven't totted up all the numbers yet (look for that in a future post; we're not done quite yet), but I flew around 3000 miles in 16 days. I had two days of rest where I didn't travel, although only one where I didn't fly at all. I put about $4000 on the credit card, between fuel and hotel costs. I think I paid between $6 and $8 per gallon for gas; I noticed the price at Harvey Field for the final fill-up was exactly $8.00 per gallon.
People on social media are asking for a simple reaction to the trip ("Did you have a good time?"), but there's really no simple reaction to a trip like this. Yeah, I had fun. I also froze and boiled, and worried about vibrating the plane to pieces, and met new people, and had horrifying, crap landings and perfect landings, and saw a huge swath of the country I'd never seen before, while feeling like I didn't really get to see it at all. I revelled in dancing around little puffy clouds, and worried about every new vibration (and there are a lot of vibrations). I exalted in showing my plane to my brother, and worried the whole trip might collapse on multiple occasions.
I'm sure I'll have more to say in the final entry where I sum everything up, but that's what I've got for the moment.
Copyright © 2022 by Ian Johnston.