The Longest January

Date	Aircraft	Route of Flight	Time (hrs)	Total (hrs)
30 Jan 2014	N21481	SDC (Sodus, NY) - FZY (Fulton, NY) - SDC	1.5	1240.5

Low ceilings, howling winds, single digit (or lower) temperatures, snow...the scourges of winter for an aviator.

I was far too busy not flying in January to get any flight time.  On the morning of Thursday, January 30, the weather finally broke.  I drove to the Williamson-Sodus airport to attempt excavating Warrior 481 from the hangar.  As I surveyed the airport grounds, it was clear that all the other hangars were snowed-in as well.

I chopped and shoveled hard packed snow for an hour until I was satisfied that the snowbanks were low enough to pass wheels and wings.

Thanks to the wonders of preheat, Warrior 481 turned over immediately and idled happily on the snowbound ramp.  We wandered to the east, practicing airwork.  After a landing at the Oswego County airport, we headed for the Lake Ontario shore.

Fort Ontario in Oswego, NY.  It looked cold there.

In fact, the entire Oswego waterfront looked cold.

It would have been a wretched day to hike out to the Oswego Harbor West Pierhead Lighthouse.

I was grateful for the prodigious amount of heat pumped out by the Warrior's heater as I beheld an ice encrusted shore.

Still, it was beautiful in its own way.

And there were unusual vistas to see.

Hot oil, a happy airplane, blue skies, and interesting sights...an aviator's antidote to a hard winter.