Even simple flights, in addition to the personal joy they bring, are opportunities for valuable learnings.
Bear Hug
| Date | Aircraft | Route of Flight | Time (hrs) | Total (hrs) |
| 24 Apr 2026 | N21481 | SDC (Sodus, NY) - 7B2 (Northampton, MA) | 2.0 | 3139.3 |
I crested terrain west of Northampton, MA to behold the Connecticut River meandering through cultivated fields that glowed warmly with golden hour sunlight. Nestled in a bend of the river was the Northampton Airport (7B2, airport #300), an idyllic country landing field near the foundations of the Holyoke range. At 5:45 pm on a Friday evening, I expected to discover an airport in repose. Instead, I was surprised to find three aircraft belonging to the field's active flight school orbiting in the pattern.
I was greeted warmly by FBO staff and assured that my selected parking spot was appropriate for an overnight stay. I always worry about inadvertently parking on someone else's tiedown at new to me airports. Moments later, I saw a familiar blue Impreza arrive in the parking lot. The Bear has never been much of a hugger, but the literal bear hug that I received from my daughter upon seeing her for the first time since January made the whole trip worthwhile.
With The Bear's expert assistance, we dressed Warrior 481 in her pajamas for the night before driving to Mount Holyoke College, just seventeen minutes south. I enjoyed the unfamiliar reversal, me as a passenger with The Bear at the wheel. Five months of driving in Massachusetts had transformed her confidence as a driver. As we ate in the dining hall, The Bear handed me an iPad filled with images from a recent dance recital that she photographed as a paid gig. She was proud of them and justifiably so. She has developed a wonderful eye for photography.
In Recognition of a Hectic Week
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| Rhode Island State House during my Providence walkabout on the morning of April 23. |
Neither Kristy nor I were able to attend most of the orchestra concerts during her first year of college until this final one, Symphonic Possibilities. Even so, Kristy had work obligations that evening which meant that I made solo use of the airplane to expedite the journey. At the end of a hectic week, I was acutely aware of carrying accumulated fatigue.
On Tuesday, a colleague and I worked a half day before flying the Warrior to Providence, RI for a conference that I had been invited to chair. As chair, I was "on" for two days straight, including a late night reception on Wednesday. I managed to explore a few miles of Providence on foot Thursday morning and was charmed enough by the city that I am considering excuses to return and explore further. Once the Thursday sessions concluded, we returned to Atlantic Aviation-PVD, incidentally the only FBO that has ever charged me an hourly parking fee, and flew the Warrior back to Sodus. Friday began with an early start back at work, but I departed two hours early and flew to Massachusetts for my meeting with The Bear. I effectively tread back over the same territory as the day before, just in reverse and on a slightly divergent heading. An orchestra concert was just the kind of pause that I needed to rejuvenate at week's end.
After dinner, The Bear and I parted while she prepared for the concert. Solo, I walked the campus to compensate for the excessive amount of sitting I did over the preceding three days. Mount Holyoke's campus is truly lovely and the upper half of the Mary Lyon Hall clock tower was particularly striking when painted crimson by the setting sun. The Bear boasted that a publication (I forget which one) had named Mount Holyoke among the most beautiful campuses in the country. I agreed, but cautioned that Indiana would be tough competition in that category.
The Red-Legged Kittiwake
Mount Holyoke's orchestra performs in the campus chapel. It's a lovely space with a rather "live" sound for orchestra reminiscent of some European church venues The Bear played on tour in 2022 and 2024. It also has the most uncomfortable pews I've ever experienced and my back was upset with me by the time the two hour concert concluded. That pew ensured that I did not doze, which was quite likely its original intent.
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| The Bear and her soul piercing gaze with the Mount Holyoke Orchestra. Photo by V. |
During intermission, I was greeted by The Bear's roommate, V, who expertly wielded The Bear's camera to photograph the concert. She described one of her shots as The Bear "looking directly into my soul." There was no mistaking that one when The Bear shared the photo later.
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| Composer and director acknowledging their love for the oboe. Photo by V. |
That evening's program included a world premiere student composition entitled Hymn to the Third Death. Thematically focused on conservation of endangered bird species, the composer described for us how she used different instrumentation to give voice to individual birds. For the atmospheric first movement, she prominently featured the oboe to represent the red-legged kittiwake.
"We love you, oboe!" she exclaimed, turning around to look at The Bear. The director, Tian, also spun around, fixated on The Bear, and waved enthusiastically, a delightful moment that V captured perfectly from the chapel's choir loft.
Into the Soup
| Date | Aircraft | Route of Flight | Time (hrs) | Total (hrs) |
| 24 Apr 2026 | N21481 | 7B2 (Northampton, MA) - SDC (Sodus, NY) | 2.3 | 3141.6 |
I slept well that night, the kind of deep, unbroken sleep enhanced by exhaustion. I rose early and refreshed at my usual time and set about flight planning. I expected rain and low ceilings at home, but was satisfied that the air temperature aloft would remain high enough to avert any icing risk. Before I departed for Massachusetts, forecasts for my return suggested low IFR conditions after 11:00 am that could shut me out of Sodus. However, that morning's revised predictions called for higher ceilings and removed the time urgency for departure. Even so, I optimistically filed an IFR flight plan home with an 8:00 am departure time.
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| Waiting outside of "Blanche". |
I departed the hotel in Chicopee, stopping to top off the gas in The Bear's car before meeting her at Blanchard Hall (nicknamed "Blanche" by the students) for breakfast. It was an early start and, clearly, most students were still asleep. We enjoyed a substantially less crowded and quieter meal than dinner the evening prior. For her part, The Bear was game to meet for an early breakfast, but warned that it would be in her pajama pants. That seemed like a fine compromise to me.
Back at the Northampton Airport, I checked in at the FBO and offered to pay the overnight tie down fee. "Nah, don't worry about it," responded the young woman working the counter. Outside, I paused to contemplate a little wooden airplane that was just big enough. Following my gaze, the Bear knew what I was thinking before I even asked it. She is such a good sport.
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| For a moment, I thought I was at Re-Dun. |
There is nothing quite like a professionally striped sidewalk. The Bear helped me with the Warrior's canopy cover and we stood at the airplane talking for a long time, neither of us wanting to end the conversation. When I saw that it was nearly 9:00 am, I realized that I needed to go.
Runway 14 at Northampton points directly at the Holyoke range. Kristy and I hiked one of those peaks with The Bear on parent's weekend last October. To the right is Mount Holyoke itself, for which the college is named. Barely visible is the Summit House, the final destination for MHC students on Mountain Day each fall. I wish my employer had Mountain Day. I suppose we would need to find a mountain, first. Not many of those in Rochester.
I was airborne at 9:00 am. Though the river valley no longer glowed in golden hour light, I was sure to photograph the airport's surroundings before turning westbound on course and picking up an IFR clearance with Bradley Approach. Despite the fact that I was out in the sticks, I was surprised to receive a full route clearance, albeit a simple one.
"Cherokee 481, cleared to destination via Albany, Syracuse, direct."
It seems like whenever I file an airway route, I get cleared direct and whenever I file direct, I am assigned an airway route.
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| The Connecticut River, the Northampton Airport, Northampton, and Mount Tom. |
As I passed over the idyllic little airport, student activity was already beginning to stir on the surface.
The first 1.3 hours of flight were lovely with blue skies above and occasional scattered clouds below my 6,000 foot cruise altitude.
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| Albany, NY. |
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| "Corruption's such an old song that we can sing along in harmony And nowhere is it stronger than in Albany." - Hamilton |
I took notice of the Albany skyline for the first time, seeing a curious array of four identical skyscrapers aligned in a row. I noticed them earlier that week on the eastbound flight to Providence because they stood out from quite a distance against the backdrop of the Berkshire Mountains.
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| I entered the rain east of Syracuse. From FlightAware. |
Superiority Complex
At my home airport, the automated weather observation system (AWOS) dutifully reported a consistent cloud ceiling of 3,000 to 3,200 feet above ground level (AGL). Based on this, I expected that Rochester would descend me below the deck (the minimum vectoring altitude near Sodus is 2,000 feet) where I could fly a standard VFR traffic pattern to land. No instrument approach necessary.
However, despite constant reassurances from the AWOS, Rochester was reporting IFR conditions with ceilings closer to 800 feet. Runway 4 was in use by landing traffic at Rochester, but the glideslope equipment was out of service. This meant that the ILS (instrument landing system) lacked vertical guidance that morning and could not guide aircraft quite as low below the clouds as usual. Rochester ATC was actively seeking alternatives.
"Brickyard 123," called Rochester Approach to an inbound airliner. "Are you LPV capable?" LPV (localizer performance with vertical guidance) is essentially the GPS-equivalent to an ILS. It's the gold standard of GPS based instrument approaches. Warrior 481 has been LPV capable since I first upgraded to the GNS 430W navigator in 2012.
"Negative," responded the airliner. That pilot promptly requested delay vectors while the flight crew figured out the best way to get into Rochester.
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| Better than some airliners, evidently. Photographed the prior evening en route to Northampton. |
Ooo! Ooo! Mr. Kotter! I can! Except I had no interest in landing at Rochester beyond as an alternate if the weather was too low at Sodus. Given the AWOS broadcasts, I did not anticipate that to be the case.
"SkyWest 456," responded Rochester Approach to another airliner checking on. "Are you LPV capable?"
"No," responded the Skywest pilot.
How is it that my Cherokee is better equipped than a bunch of these airliners?
"November 481," called Rochester. "Say approach request." With a stiff wind out of the northeast, I requested the RNAV-10 approach starting at ZIKED. My thinking was that if I could fly the procedure on my own from an initial approach fix (IAF), ATC would not have to vector me to final while juggling a bunch of airliners at Rochester with reduced ability to navigate below the weather.
"November 481, expect that," responded the controller. With a few taps on the face of the GTN 650, the approach procedure was ready to go.
Can't Get There from Here
"November 481, I can't clear you to ZIKED. Can you accept vectors?" I can always accept vectors, but I was puzzled by this response. Why could the controller not clear me to ZIKED and why would he choose to vector me onto the final approach into Sodus when he already had his hands full at Rochester?
Flabbergasted, I accepted vectors to final.
Rochester assigned a descent to 2,600 feet and began issuing headings. First slightly to the southwest to widen me out from the airport, then to bring me around. Despite the AWOS claiming a 3,000 foot ceiling, I was still engulfed in the clouds at 2,600' (roughly 2,200' AGL).
"November 481, fly heading 010," Rochester instructed. They were turning me perpendicular to the final approach course, which meant that I would receive one more vector before being cleared to intercept the final approach course. That final vector came sooner than expected.
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| ForeFlight ground track of the approach into Sodus. |
While only partway through the turn to 010°, Rochester called back and blurted out the rest of the clearance. "Aaaaand, 481, go ahead and keep the turn going to 070, intercept the final approach course, cleared for the RNAV-10 approach at Sodus." To my ear, the controller's patter seemed to speed up as he delivered this instruction, from "conversational" to something approaching "auctioneer". It was as though talking faster would somehow increase the Warrior's rate of turn.
Flying on autopilot (literally, not mentally), I rolled the heading bug to 070° and punched the APR button to capture the final approach segment. I was too close to the final (hence the controller's hasty delivery) and overshot slightly (visible in the above track), but HAL smoothly rolled the airplane into a successful intercept. I crossed the final approach fix (FAF) just as I established on final, pulled the throttle back to achieve a 90 knot, 500 foot per minute descent, and locked in 10° of flaps.
Well past the final approach fix, I was still engulfed in the clouds and wondered if I would need to abort and fly the much advertised LPV approach into Rochester that morning. But I broke out at 900 feet above the ground, deactivated the autopilot, and made a smooth touchdown on runway 10 in steady rain.
I guess I needed to fly that instrument approach after all! On its dedicated frequency, the nearsighted AWOS continued to blather on about a 3,000 foot ceiling.
Why?
Overall, the 5.3 hour round trip flight to Northampton was an overwhelming success. It was my 300th unique airport, I reunited with The Bear, enjoyed a wonderful orchestra concert, and logged additional real world IMC experience with the GTN 650 Xi. But two lingering questions still nagged at me.
1. Is my little airplane really better equipped for LPV approaches than many airliners?
2. Why could the controller not clear me to ZIKED and why would he choose to vector me when he clearly had his hands full at the main airport?
I reached out to a friend and supervising air traffic controller at Rochester for answers. As it turned out, he was on duty that morning and remembered the scenario well.
Yes, he confirmed, many of the airliners that come into Rochester do not have WAAS GPS receivers and are not LPV capable. As strange as it sounds, my Warrior can fly low LPV approaches that an inbound Delta A321 might not be able to manage.
Further, he explained that my tight downwind to the airport meant that a turn at ZIKED would have exceeded 90°. (In terms of heading change, not bank angle!) ATC is prohibited from clearing aircraft direct to a fix on an RNAV approach where such a turn is required. He commented that they could have provided a short vector to the southwest, then cleared me to ZIKED, but the controller chose to vector me the rest of the way instead. Alternatively, they could have cleared me to GOYER for the procedure turn, but because it adds workload and flight time for pilots, they tend to assign that only that if a pilot requests it.
In the end, the flight entailed all of those wonderful things already mentioned (The Bear! Concert! Experience!) but included valuable learning, too!
