A Swimmer in the Sky

Sorry, folks.

I've been running Air Tractors down to South America, and I've been too busy to breathe.  It's a privilege, at my age (I'm 65), to have a learning curve so steep.  The downside is, I have stories to tell, and I want to tell them, but I don't know when I'll get to them. 

The growing season is underway in South America, and there are still airplanes in Texas they're waiting for desperately.  I haven't been home since the 12th of October, and I've got two more planes to deliver before I'll have a chance to go home.  I'm afraid when I do, I'll have to show an I.D. to get in the door. 

Have patience.  There are some good stories.  I just need to catch up so I'll have leisure to tell them.

N8523C

Air Tractor 502B   AT-502   Rosenberg, Texas to Cuiaba, Brazil
Date	Destination	Distance (nm)	Flight time (hh+mm)
16 Oct	Okeechobee, Florida	823	5+57
17 Oct	Aquadilla, Puerto Rico	930	6+29
18 Oct	Boa Vista, Brazil	1033	7+45
20 Oct	St. Georges, Grenada	653	4+42
21 Oct	Aguadilla, Puerto Rico	535	3+28

Proposed:  22nd Friday - Fort Pierce, Florida; 23rd Saturday - Olney, Texas.

N747LE

Cessna Grand Caravan   C-208B   Moundridge, Kansas to Sunshine Coast, Australia
Date	Destination	Distance (nm)	Flight time (hh+mm)
24 Sep	Johnson, Kansas	204	1+23
"	Santa Maria, California	924	6+22
26 Sep	Hilo, Hawaii	2070	13+01
27 Sep	Apia, Western Samoa	2321	15+53
29 Sep	Nouméa, New Caledonia	1339	9+11
01 oct	Brisbane, Australia	785	5+31
"	Sunshine Coast, Australia	45	0+20

N9018J

Cessna Skyhawk SP   C-172S   Moundridge, Kansas to Pskov, Russia
This is the first of a number of 172's going to Pskov.  It popped up on short notice while my passport was in the hands of a visa service, having a Brazilian visa and extra pages inserted (I'd filled up almost all the original visa pages in less than two years after getting a new passport to replace the one I'd previously filled up), so I asked them to hold on to it till I got the forms to them for the Russian visa.  The Russians are particular.  The application form for a business visa requires information you'd put on a resume, and they require a letter of invitation from your business partner.  We got the invitation letter in a day or so, as a scanned email attachment, and it looked impressive, with all sorts of official-looking stamps.  It was in Russian, and I couldn't read much of it, but I could see the dates of the invitation were from the 1st to the 15th of September.  It was already the 26th of August, and it would be the second week in September before I'd get my passport back with the visa in it.  There was no way I could get to Russia before the 10th, and that left only five days' margin.  But nobody had thought to consult the ferry pilot. The airplane was ready, but it was in a hangar in Kansas, and there wasn't any point bringing it to Bangor with Hurricane Earl roaring up the coast, so I waited till Friday the 3rd to go after it.
Date	Destination	Distance (nm)	Flight time (hh+mm)
03 Sep	Warrensburg, Missouri	178	1+29
Beautiful weather, and a nice tailwind.
"	Dayton, Ohio	450	3+31
It was coming on evening by the time I'd filled up with avgas at Warrensburg, but I pushed on to Dayton so I could spend Saturday with my son's family there.

N5153B

Cessna Skyhawk SP   C-172S   Burlington, Vermont to Muchamiel, Spain
This was left in Burlington on its way to Saint Petersburg, Russia, by a pilot who had second thoughts about ferrying.  I'm always happy when someone who begins to have doubts about this enterprise bails out while he (or she) is still alive and the airplane undamaged.  I've seen it happen more than once that a nervous pilot panics and kills himself in a situation that shouldn't have been fatal.  And I don't believe it's any reflection on the pilot to be nervous, any more than it's a reflection on someone afflicted with acrophobia that he can't stand on the edge of a cliff.  It's much better to accept your constitutional limitations and find some other line of work. I've never been to Russia.  I'm disappointed that I have to drop this airplane in Spain, but I have a prior commitment and won't have time to take it all the way.  This is part of a large order of Cessna Skyhawks by the University of Civil Aviation in Saint Petersburg, and there are more to come, so maybe I'll get another chance.
Date	Destination	Distance (nm)	Flight time (hh+mm)
14 Mar	Millinocket, Maine	210	2+56
There was a big storm to the south, bringing strong easterlies—a Nor'easter, as they call it—which had made the national news for flooding and for blowing down trees on people's cars and houses.  I planned to leave before it got too close, and to fly VFR between the clouds and the Green Mountains to avoid the ice aloft.  I figured I'd reach Saint John's in eight hours.  But it took forever to get hold of the lone Customs agent to clear me outbound, and by the time I took off the storm had moved nearer, and I had 70-knot headwinds at 3,000 feet.  With that wind tumbling across the ridges, I was getting a carnival ride, and plenty of time to enjoy it.  The XM Weather was showing the winds at 9,000 feet to be just as strong as at 3,000, but not so perfectly in my face, and as I flew away from the storm center and toward clear air, I climbed, hoping to gain back some time.  But it was no good.  I was going to be two hours late, by my best estimate, and the margin for Canadian Customs and Immigration is plus-or-minus half an hour.  I needed to make a phone call.

N52697

N52679   Cessna Skyhawk SP   C-172S   Lakeland, Flordia to Wycombe, England
Date	Destination	Distance (nm)	Flight time (hh+mm)
22 Feb	Palatka, Florida	101	53
A front in southeast Georgia would have pushed me out to sea, so I just moved the airplane to Palatka and spend the night with Hugh Rawls, another ferry pilot who's flying a 172 to the same destination.
23 Feb	Elizabethtown, North Carolina	349	2+57
After all the rain from the front there was fog and low ceilings in the morning, which broke up towards noon.  At Elizabethtown I checked to see if there was any way to get to Bangor.  If I'd been carrying diptheria serum to Nome, I'd have forced a way through.  But I'm not, so I'm spending the night here.

N52638

Cessna Turbo Skylane   C-T182T   Lakeland, Florida to Toussus-le-Noble, France
Routing through Denmark for tax purposes.
Date	Destination	Distance (nm)	Flight time (hh+mm)
22 Jan	Elizabethtown, North Carolina	451	3+13
I had to wait at Lakeland till a cold front passed south through the area.  Elizabethtown was forecast to improve to a 1,000-foot ceiling, but it didn't, and I ended up shooting the GPS approach right down to minimums.
"	Westfield, Massachusetts	584	3+54
I wouldn't be in Bangor until after hours, and an oxygen refill would cost a forture.  But AirFlyte, at Barnes Field, has oxygen—and pretty cheap fuel, as well.  I expected to be there between 16:00 and 17:00, but I was late leaving Lakeland, and I got slowed down on this leg by worse-than-forecast headwinds, deviations around thunderstorms (though at 17,000 feet I was able to slide just over the top of much of the weather), a bit of ice, and a re-route to the east of New York's busy airspace.  I didn't arrive till just after 18:00, but it was okay:  the mechanic was still there, working on his own Cessna 172, in a hangar full of gorgeous bizjets (his day job).
"	Bangor, Maine	232	1+51
A VFR flight on a clear night, the lights sliding slowly by, snow dimly visible in the fields.  I could see Bangor from seventy miles out.  I'd been away since the 20th of December, except for one night on the 27th.  A long time.

N233PS

Piper Cheyenne   PA-31T   Cairo, Egypt to Fargo, North Dakota

This is an old friend:  a 30-year-old early-model Cheyenne I last flew in October of 2006, from Bamako, Mali, to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for a cloud-seeding company.  Now they've brought it from Riyadh to Cairo for me (it's difficult to get an entry visa for Saudia Arabia), and I'm to take it the rest of the way back to company headquarters in North Dakota. The poor plane looks tired:  the paint is faded where it's not scratched or peeling; the instrument panel is full of old-fashioned steam gauges.  But it's been doing a job of work, trying to make rain fall on the desert, and while it hasn't been kept pretty it's been kept functional.  It may be old, but it's still sprightly.  It'll climb away from the ground at 2,500 fpm, and still be doing 1,000 fpm up at FL240.  I was expecting maybe 200 knots at altitude, but it's giving me book performance:  an "economy cruise" of 235 knots true on 400 pph at FL220.  The thing to watch out for in an old Cheyenne is the heater.  It's a typical Janitrol aircraft heater that burns jet fuel and runs full blast whenever it's on.  The temperature of the aircraft cabin is controlled by cycling the fuel on and off, which can be done manually or automatically by a thermostat—except that in the older Cheyennes the thermostat generally doesn't work.  The heater is part of the "environmental system", and you need to have the environmental master switch on, one mode switch in "heater" (instead of "air conditioner"), and the other mode switch in "manual" (instead of "auto").  Then whenever you want heat, you flip on the heater fuel switch, which opens a valve in the fuel line; and when you're too warm, to flip the switch back off.  What could be simpler?  The heater fuel switch is in clear view from the left seat, but, unfortunately (as we'll see), the other three switches are hidden behind the copilot's control yoke—and they all feel alike.

N52782

Cessna Skylane   C-182T   Lakeland, Florida to Marseilles, France
Date	Destination	Distance (nm)	Flight time (hh+mm)
26 Dec	Elizabethtown, North Carolina	460	3+11
I'm following a weather system up the east coast, and looking at a narrow window to get past that system over the Davis Strait on Monday night.
27 Dec	Bangor, Maine	787	4+55
I had clear skies most of the way, and stayed clear of clouds until the descent, where the freezing level was 7,000 feet or so.  It was still raining at Bangor, and the Gulfstream ahead of me broke out at 500 feet, but I had the approach lights in sight at 1,000 feet. And a 60-knot headwind on final at 2,500 feet.

N73BL

Piper Turbo Saratoga   PA-32R-301T   Bangor, Maine to Panshangar, England
Date	Destination	Distance (nm)	Flight time (hh+mm)
20 Dec	Goose Bay, Labrador	608	4+02
21 Dec	Narsarsuaq, Greenland	682	4+55
"	Reyjavik, Iceland	675	4+56
22 Dec	Stavanger, Norway	855	6+25
23 Dec	Esbjerg, Denmark	231	2+02
"	Southend-on-Sea, England	405	3+00