November-December 2007 Web Log

Last Flight in 2007  (December 31, 2007)

My church buddy Roger Pink and I had been wanting to get some flying time in, so I thought, "Hey,  why not head to Chattanooga for coffee and pie?"

The weather was absolutely beautiful the last afternoon of the year, more than making up for the clouds, rain, drizzle and fog we'd been having off and on.  All morning it had been really soupy fog- couldn't see your hand in front of your face.  But about 11 AM  it cleared up like a champ, so I met Roger at Arby's for lunch and we headed over the Gainesville to pre-flight Trixie.

Headwinds coming from the southwest, so flying time going up was pretty slow- just over an hour.  We flew at 6,500 feet and the going was smooth and easy.

After a loaner car, coffee and pie at IHOP, it was back to TacAir, where we sweet talked Brittany into taking our photo while we struck a rather dramatic pose....

Back in the plane and then home.  The tailwind made flying home fast and easy, only taking 40 minutes.

Roger's fun to travel with.  Good company and lots of interesting stories to tell.  Plus, he bought the pie- how cool is that?

December Rain, Y'all  (December 23, 2007)

What with my 10-day trip to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and the long hours since I came back, I've been busy- and the weather's been lousy.  Here it is almost Christmas, and while I've been able to do some touch and goes, and made a few short trips to outlying airports, that's really been about it for the month.

We've gotten rain off and on for two weeks, but look at the photo of Lake Lanier.  Still down 16 FEET from full, and the drought officially continues.  We're thankful God has blessed us with rain, but we need more.

Today I did 4 landings at Gainesville, one at Jasper and one at Lumpkin (where I bought some cheap gas.)  Very windy today, with some nasty crosswinds, particularly in Jasper.  (Jasper has some "interesting" wind gusts right off the end of runway 34 that can curl your hair if you're not prepared for them when you're on short final-- that's why I went over there today.)  I offered several folks at church a chance to ride, but everyone was busy getting ready for Christmas.  So I had a good two hours by myself in the cockpit.

Total flying since the last post: maybe 6 hours.  Maybe.  My total hours are now 127.

Post Thanksgiving Flying  (November 23, 2007)

Since Cathy's boyfriend (Tamari) (spelling?) and Jim's Florida College friend Hannah hadn't flown yet, Friday morning we took a spin.  Fun.  A relatively short flight with a spin over the lake and a return back for a straight in landing on runway 22.  Hannah took the controls while we were at 4,500 feet and she did just fine.  What could be better than flying an airplane?

Paul and Alice to Habersham  (November 21, 2007)

Jim's friends Paul and Alice were up with him for Thanksgiving.... I was bored.... they were bored.  So we went flying, of course!  I'd much rather burn $35 worth of fuel than sit around the house.  Alice is an avid photographer, so she sat in the backseat and took lots of photos while Paul and I flew the plane.  Hazy day, but not too bumpy.  We flew to Habersham, then over to Lake Lanier, then back to Gainesville.  And I realized how NASTY I'd let the plane get.  Greasy windows.  Not cool.

B-17 in Chattanooga  (November 19, 2007)

Audrey and I flew to Chattanooga for lunch with Scott Fosse and Karl Hebert.  As we were about 25 miles out, a B-17 called Chattanooga approach.  ATC must have asked him four times "state what type aircraft" before I keyed the mike and said, "Chattanooga Approach, Skyhawk 20026.  The aircraft you're asking about is a World War II 4-engine heavy bomber, a bravo 17."  She immediately came back and said, "Hey, how cool is that!?"  Pretty funny.  She vectored him three of aircraft behind me for landing.  Neat.

Dodging Coyotes in Louisville, Kentucky  (November 17-18, 2007)

Decided to go and see our daughter Libby, who moved to Louisville in April this year... so I got up early Saturday morning while it was still dark-- it was a cold 26 degrees, so I primed the carburetor 6 times, and she fired right up.  (Beats my last attempt at starting during cold weather.)  I taxied to runway 22 and took off, then immediately swung around to a heading of 334 and climbed to 6,500 feet.

It was a cold but clear morning and the flight up was easy-- only 2:45 total flying time, not including my fuel stop in Oneonta, Tennessee, where I picked up some cheap gas and made a quick bio break.

As you can see from the first photo above, air traffic control vectored me right past downtown Louisville towards the Clark County (Indiana) airport, where I met up with Libby and Brian.  We visited for a bit, then I took them flying... of course!  Brian took the controls and did a great job.  We flew alongside the river for a bit before returning back to the airfield.   Fun flight of an hour.

After lunch I took two Libby's friends Emily and Brock flying, and on landing we almost hit a coyote who was standing just left of center line.   I've got to say, that was a first.

Sunday afternoon after church I flew back home to Gainesville.  It was a sweet, simple and easy flight. 

I took off at 12:35 pm, climbed to 5,500 feet and swung gently around the Louisville airspace before pointing the plane towards Gainesville.  The mountains in south Kentucky made the ride a bit bumpy, so I climbed to 7,500 feet, where I stayed until I got almost to Georgia.   But when I got to Georgia I had to climb over a line of clouds to skirt both mountains and clouds, getting to a record (for me) of 11,000 feet.  Whew!

But soon enough I was able to drop down over the clouds and line up for a landing in Gainesville.  Total time from Clark County to Gainesville was only 2:30.  Beats an 8 hour drive hands down.

Board Meeting in Chattanooga  (November 13, 2007)

Had an executive board meeting of the Cherokee Area Council, BSA in Chattanooga late in the day, so after my last meeting of the day (with my attorney, of course, seems like all I do is meet with or talk to attorneys) I hopped in Trixie and flew to Chattanooga.  Cloud bases were at 5,000 feet so I flew fairly low and flew to Jasper, then to Chattanooga.  Had a mild tailwind and made it there fairly quickly, even in spite of being vectored way northeast of town first.

Return flight was great- a big thunderstorm had passed through Chattanooga while I was at my meeting, so I had the airport pretty much to myself.  I turned in my loaner car, paid my fuel bill and looked over the radar.  No sweat.  I went out to the plane, got clearance to 47A (Canton) and got OK to taxi.  Took off on runway 20 almost immediately, and shortly thereafter he cleared me to turn left to head for Canton.

Because I was still pretty low (3,500 feet MSL) I did the same thing as the trip up by making Jasper my "turn" since it's lined up neatly out of the way of the mountains between Gainesville and Jasper.  A nice surprise tonight- tailwind on the return, too, so I ended up with a tailwind both ways the same day!

Easy and uneventful landing on runway 22 in Gainesville- wind was coming almost straight down the runway.

Chris and Connor Combs  (November 11, 2007)

Sunday afternoon was clear blue skies and perfect for flying, so I took my buddy Chris Combs and his son Connor (2nd grade) flying.  We were up for an hour and had a great time. 

First we found their house off of highway 369, circled it and the subdivision once while they looked around and took pictures, then we headed a bit further west looking for Chattahoochee Elementary school.  ("The play ground is really small, isn't it?" notes Connor.)  Then we turned along Georgia 400 and headed north to overfly their karate dojo by the Dawsonville Outlet Mall.

I decided to climb a bit higher (I always like having a bit more altitude, thank you very much), and we circled north of Dahlonega.  Chris got some photos of the campus of North Georgia College and showed Connor where they had gone while downtown.

Soon enough we circled a bit more southeast and headed around to the north of Gainesville, circled around a bit more to the right, ending up to the east of the airport and headed in to land on runway 22.

"Thanks Mister Ross!" said Connor.  (Always happy to oblige!)

Mike's Damaged Piper  (November 4, 2007)

This morning before church I was getting ready to shut down my Blackberry when I saw an unusual email from my friend Mike Maybury tied to something unusual that Ferrell Brown and I had seen yesterday at the airport.

As we were leaving yesterday we saw a Piper Archer that had been chewed by a propeller- a "hit and run"?  We took a few photos, shrugged and said, "Wonder what that was all about?"  Well, Mike confirmed it via email when he said he got a call yesterday afternoon telling him his plane had been damaged.  Unbelievable.

I flew this plane last Summer, and Mike had just moved the plane from Mathis Airport to Gainesville less than a month ago.  Apparently the airport authorities are 90% sure who did the deed, and how it was done- "Plenty of evidence showing what happened."  Since it's now an ongoing criminal investigation, I won't put any more information down here in this posting about what they know.  But Mike was taking it pretty well, all things considered, when I called him after church.   A "hit and run" at the airport.  Unbelievable.

No Shortage of Saturday Flying (November 3, 2007)

Woke up at 4 AM Saturday morning, swung by McDonald's on the way to Gainesville for some early morning (translation: "Night") flying.   Took off at 4:45 in calm air, heading for Anderson, SC.  It was an easy flight, and had a very simple and easy landing on their runway 35 (beautifully lit) after speaking to air traffic control.  I taxied to the end, swung around and took off on runway 17.  Leg #2 was longer- flew to Jasper, Georgia (a bit more than an hour), and I made some ham radio contacts on my 2 meter handheld radio- some pals were headed to a "ham fest" in Lawrenceville and I caught them at about 5:45 AM through the Sawnee Mountain repeater way back in Forsyth County (147.150+).  But pretty soon I put the ham radio away and listed to some music on my MP3 player.  Fun.

But then, the bizarre.  After landing, as I took off again from Jasper a pigeon on the runway flew up and hit my left wing.  So today at the Jasper airport there's a pigeon either limping, flying in circles... or laid out! 

I flew on back to Gainesville, and as I flew it started to slowly get light in the east.  I could see some foggy patches in the low-lying areas, and lots of fog on the lake.  See the photo.  The cool part was seeing lights, street lights and headlights down through the fog.  WAY cool, so I took a mess of photos while setting up for my landing on runway 4.

Went back home to put the swing set together for the grandkids' visit for Thanksgiving in a few weeks.

Two more flights as the day progressed.  After lunch I took Cathy and her friend Madison for a flight over to Cumming, around Sawnee Mountain and back.  The wind made the flight pretty bumpy- way different than my early flights this morning.  I showed Madison how to take the controls over Lake Lanier.  The girls had a great time, and after we landed, I pushed the plane back into position, looked over and saw them lying down on the taxiway taking face pictures! 

What a riot!  (You'd think they'd share any of their pictures with me?   Nooooooooo....)  Got them a cold Coke at the Shell Fuel Farm, then back to the house.

Last flight of the day with my ham radio buddy Ferrell Brown (KE4QDC).  We spent an hour flying around to Cornelia, over by Dahlonega and then back to the airport for a pretty bumpy ride.  It was his first time with me, his second time in a small plane and he was "nervous but happy" as he put it.  Winds were pretty gusty, a bit of crosswind on runway 29- lots of late Saturday afternoon traffic at the airport.  As with most of my crosswind landings, I only put in 20 degrees of flaps for my landing. 

After landing we fueled the plane back up (with Jack's help) and parked.  Saw an unusual sight before we left- the Gainesville police (!!) were parked on the flightline and were talking with the Gainesville FBO, who were standing in front of a chewed-up and bent Piper Archer.  Gotta be a story behind that.  Took a few pictures and talked about it with Ferrell most of the way home.

A most enjoyable day of flying.

September-October 2007 Weblog Posts