Overdue
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| With Carol and Dad at Knoxville Downtown Island Airport in August 2017. Photo by Kristy. |
In recent years, we have routinely flown the Warrior to Knoxville, TN around Easter to visit Dad. With the rise of the pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns, that did not happen in 2020. As a result, we found ourselves in the middle of 2021 with nearly two years having passed since our last visit with Dad. With vaccinations administered, restrictions lifting, and the ability to see the bottom half of people's faces again (a privilege that I have clearly underappreciated for much of my lifetime), the Memorial Day weekend seemed to be an ideal time for a reunion in Knoxville. We were long overdue.
Something else that was overdue: I had not logged any significant actual instrument time in the clouds (pilot jargon for the day: IMC) since October 2019. Flying to Knoxville on Memorial Day weekend would rectify that lapse as well.
Archimedes' Bane
As the weekend approached, weather forecasts suggested that some strategy would be required to reach Knoxville safely and efficiently. There were two significant issues to manage. The most obvious issue was a low pressure system tracking eastward across the middle of the country that was expected to stimulate dreadful weather along the leading edge of its path. That is unsurprising, it's what low pressure systems do.
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| This cartoon of "Li'l 481" demonstrates the weather situation on the morning of our departure. |
When planning flights at normal Cherokee cruise altitudes, icing is not often a concern on the cusp of June. However, unseasonably cool temperatures signaled potential icing at 4,000 feet and above. Per various tools including AIRMETs and CIP/FIP plots, icing risk appeared to be most significant over New York and Pennsylvania and particularly strong at our departure point on the Lake Ontario shore. South of Pennsylvania, the freezing level was expected to rise above any cruise altitude we would realistically use. By diverting westward toward Erie, we stayed over lower terrain, allowing us to comfortably fly at a relatively low 4,000 feet to mitigate the icing risk. Over Ohio, the icing risk was negligible and would allow for a climb to six or eight thousand feet as desired. By delaying our departure to mid-morning, we took advantage of slightly warmer air that further minimized the potential for icing.
On reflection, it seems unusual for the same route to manage both weather concerns so effectively. Often, different weather challenges place opposing constraints on a flight. Those usually become "no go" days.
Duck and Cover
| Date | Aircraft | Route of Flight | Time (hrs) | Total (hrs) |
| 29 May 2021 | N21481 | SDC (Sodus, NY) - HTS (Huntington, WV) - DKX (Knoxville, TN) | 5.2 | 2260.1 |
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| Over western NY, looking south, where clouds created an icing thread for the direct flight. |
Strategic flying of the pressure map caused us to zip across New York State with a 20+ knot tailwind at 4,000 feet while staying low to remain in clear, slightly warmer air. To the south, clouds floated lazily at our altitude, each one a potential icing threat.
I alternated between hand flying and allowing HAL to fly. Kristy declared that she did not like it when HAL maneuvered the Warrior. Pointing out that HAL flies more precisely than I do seemed to be of little comfort.
For this trip, The Bear cloaked herself in the trappings of adolescence and was thus required to give the camera her best stink eye any time I tried to capture her likeness. To misquote metropolitan Detroit's Count Scary, "Ooooh...that's [stiiiiiinky]!"
Encapsulated
South of Buffalo, we climbed to 6,000 feet in air that was warmer than forecast. Clouds began to fill in below as we skirted the Lake Erie shore bound for the Erie VOR.
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| The Lake Erie shore |
Isn't It Grape To Be Flying?
A delayed departure of 10:00 am meant that we would be airborne during lunchtime. We packed lots of snacks for grazing to tide us over until our arrival at Dad's.
We broke out the snacks just prior to crossing the Akron VOR (ACO). Grapes are the ultimate airplane treat. Delicious, convenient, crumb-free, and full of moisture to combat dehydration at altitude. Along those lines, I always fly with water and have become much more conscientious about staying hydrated.
After Erie, we were engulfed by the clouds completely and I stopped taking photos because a featureless white void beyond the windows does not make for interesting photographs. As an instrument student, no one warned me how the diffuse reflectance of scattered sunlight in the cloud tops can create a nearly debilitating glare. I donned some clip-on sunglasses while Kristy buried her head in her jacket to combat the intense brilliance coming through the windows from all directions at once.
As though reading my mind, Indy Center prompted, "I have reports of the tops being near 8,000 in your area. Let me know if you want a climb to 8,000." I have always thought of hand flying while IMC as akin to herding cats, a task of making sure that all the needles on the panel stay where they are supposed to. I welcomed the opportunity to practice hand flying while IMC and the ride was smooth in the stratus layer, but the glare was truly obnoxious. As I considered my wife with her jacket pulled over her head, I accepted the offered altitude. Fortunately, the outside air temperature was warm enough at this point in the journey that icing was no longer a factor.
Just before we got there, another aircraft reported the tops at 8,500. Center offered a block altitude clearance between eight and nine thousand feet, which I accepted. We continued the climb and broke out near 8,400 feet. Skimming the cloud tops, I chose to level there for the simple reason that I love the look of the clouds streaming by just below our wings. Unfortunately, the new altitude resulted in a 20 knot loss of ground speed, but our retinas were grateful for the relief.
"It'll Take a Few Moments To Get the Coordinates from the Navicomputer!"
We spent a mere twelve minutes at the new altitude before being switched to Huntington Approach and instructed to descend back into the molten light of the cloud tops. Huntington cleared us direct to KIRRK in anticipation of flying the ILS-30 approach into Tri-State Airport. With the navigator updated to fly the ILS, HAL rolled Warrior 481 in a left turn direct to KIRRK, an intermediate fix for the procedure. It was my first time flying an autopilot-coupled approach in actual IMC.
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| Final approach on the ILS to runway 30 at Tri-State Airport. |
At lower altitudes, sunlight did not penetrate the vapor so deeply and the intense glare was replaced by a shade of gray reminiscent of dirty snow. We broke out just inside the final approach fix in light rain with Tri-State Airport's 7,000 foot long runway directly ahead.
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| ForeFlight ground track from Sodus to Tri-State Airport in Huntington, WV |
Calling Dr. Doofenshmirtz
Tri-State Airport is situated in Huntington, WV. (Not Danville, much to my surprise and disappointment.) The commercial field sits at the nexus of Ohio, West Virginia, and Kentucky. I disengaged the "autopilot-inator" and brought the Warrior to ground, shutting down on the Huntington Jet Center ramp. We had arrived at my 220th unique airport.
Because of instrument conditions prevailing in Ohio and West Virginia, I intentionally chose a towered airport for our fuel stop to better manage instrument clearances on arrival and departure.
It was quiet at Tri-State and the FBO staff was friendly and chatty. ("A customer! Wait, what's your rush? What's your hurry?"). They indicated that they had been following us on FlightAware for hours. There must not have been much on TV that day. The fuel at Tri-State was $5.45/gal and not unreasonably priced for a commercial airport. While paying the bill, I learned about the "weekend special": an additional 25% discount that saved $45 dollars.
With the Warrior fully fueled, we departed skyward for the final leg of the trip to Knoxville.
The Alabaster Sea
We left the gray doldrums of earth-bound Huntington, WV and climbed above the clouds for a serene cruise at 8,000 feet.
Beneath our wings passed the featureless surface of an alabaster sea.
Even above the clouds, the layer imparted the equivalent of snow blindness and I was more than a little squinty. Maybe it is time to finally buy those overpriced Rosen sun visors for the airplane?
Interestingly, we encountered a single feature running northeast to southwest through the cloud tops; a single ripple, many miles long. Having flown through the area many times, I suspected a correlation with Pine Mountain, a lengthy ridge in Kentucky near the Virginia border. Consultation with the sectional chart confirmed it. The ripple was a disturbance in the undercast caused by the flow of air across the ridge. I suspected that there must have been quite an updraft down below.
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| Pine Mountain is a prominent Appalachian ridge in Kentucky |
It may seem like the clouds are aloof and disconnected from the Earth, but like everything else, they are influenced by what lies beneath.
Gust Factor
Knoxville Downtown Island Airport reported a variety of ceilings throughout the morning, but on arrival, the field had gone VFR and I requested a visual approach. However, the high terrain and towers around downtown Knoxville require a high minimum vectoring altitude in the region. Knoxville Approach was unable to authorize a descent below the ceiling for a visual landing. Still, the controller hesitated, hunting for a way to make it work.
"That's OK, we can fly the RNAV-26," I suggested. Audibly relieved, the controller cleared us direct to JISIT, the nearest initial approach fix on the instrument approach procedure.
Descending, bouncing, through the broken layer, fragments of the Tennessee countryside appeared and vanished. I switched HAL back on and the autopilot doggedly made roll corrections to keep Warrior 481 pointed at JISIT through the bumps. I suspect that the rough air was not purely thermal. Knoxville Downtown Island Airport was reporting a 40° crosswind at four knots gusting to twelve. While the magnitude was not high, the wind velocity was highly variable and probably lent a mechanical component to the turbulence.
We broke out well before the final approach fix (I did not log this one as an approach flown), cancelled IFR in the air with Knoxville Approach, and fought the chaotic wind all the way down to the surface of the tiny island airport. While fueling, I watched a Cessna 150 tossed around on the same approach to the point where the pilot aborted his landing.
Dad and Carol met us on the ramp and assisted with the unloading and weatherization of the airplane. We spent the next day and a half renewing our family bonds.
"Far Over Wood and Mountain Tall"
| Date | Aircraft | Route of Flight | Time (hrs) | Total (hrs) |
| 31 May 2021 | N21481 | DKX (Knoxville, TN) - W22 (Buckhannon, WV) - SDC (Sodus, NY) | 5.5 | 2265.6 |
The synoptic weather forecast for the flight home was very different from the southbound journey. After two days, warmer air had moved in and high pressure dominated. I did not expect significant weather along the route. This was generally true everywhere except West Virginia; the entire state was socked in.
The Bear harkened back to her days as a toddler speaking only "caveman English" and left me a message in the dew on Warrior 481 that she has not uttered in a very long time. She wrote "me fly in the Daddy airplane?" Dad and Carol helped us prepare the Warrior for flight and we said our goodbyes.
While taxiing for departure, the pilot of another aircraft tried to ask me a question. "Uh, Cherokee four one two...uh...two eight four...uh...two one eight..." I congratulated him on a valiant effort and assured him that he was not alone in struggling to parse our tongue-twister tail number.
We counted ourselves lucky on arriving early at the airport to find clear air. The island airport is often inundated in fog on cool mornings. When we launched, we saw that we were truly lucky because areas of fog were scattered around the region.
We received our IFR clearance in the air, climbed to 7,000 feet, and marveled at the interplay of fog and terrain below.
I dubbed this the "huge freakin' tower that I would not want anywhere near my home airport." It seemed like a cumbersome name, but not inappropriate.
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| This is my favorite photo from the trip. I cannot say why that is the case. It just is. |
"Life Is Old There, Older than the Trees"
In the distance, we observed visual confirmation of all the uplinked weather data: an overcast floated over the entire state of West Virginia.
The Bear read while pretending to be a unicorn. I flew the plane and took surreptitious photos of her. Kristy was amused. Or was that quirky vexation? She can be inscrutable at times.
As we crossed into West Virginia, the clouds eventually overwhelmed even the highest terrain.
Gaps in cloud cover framed hilly, wooded terrain with bits of civilization shoehorned into the valleys. In this case, a small town with a coal-fired power plant occupied a narrow vale below.
At one point, The Bear looked up from her book and announced, "The king just got stabbed in his eye. That's politics in fantasy for you..." She returned to her book without supplying any additional context.
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| Kristy and The Bear worked through a logic puzzle. |
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| Braxton County Airport in West Virginia. |
There is an uneasiness that comes with navigating above clouds that hide forested desolation below. Occasional peaks of safe harbors, like Braxton County Airport (48I, above) provide valuable contingency planning. Clarksburg Approach cleared us directly to JEKOT in anticipation of flying the RNAV-29 approach procedure to our fuel stop at Upshur County Regional Airport (W22, airport #221). Because I expected good weather for the return flight, I chose a non-towered airport along the route with inexpensive fuel ($4.50/gal). I decided not to change that plan despite the atmospheric reality of the day.
Three miles from JEKOT, our controller cleared us for the RNAV-29 approach into Buckhannon. The clearance was immediately rescinded by the supervising controller, who instructed us to turn right 20° and explained that he did not like our intercept angle at JEKOT.
We flew the vector for a few more minutes, then Clarksburg turned us direct to JEKOT and cleared us for the approach for the second time. With HAL flying, I divided my attention between ensuring that the autopilot was doing what it was supposed to be doing and snapping a few photos as we descended through the clouds.
As in Huntington, we broke out just within the final approach fix and lined up on the newly resurfaced runway at Upshur County. The field occupied an oddly shaped mesa that dictated the layout of the airport.
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| Our ForeFlight-logged ground track on approach to Buckhannon (W22) |
Mesa Verde
Noticing how the terrain dropped away from the runway on both sides, The Bear commented, "Um...I don't like this."
She was even less happy taxiing to a fuel farm perched on the mesa's edge. The fuel tanks themselves were set below grade on the edge of the steep slope. I do not always chock the airplane while refueling, but I did at Buckhannon.
I took a moment to explore the otherwise deserted airport and search for a restroom. The beautiful new terminal building (not pictured) was locked for the holiday, but the emergency medical helicopter was open. I wondered if there was a bathroom inside of it.
I picked up our instrument clearance out of Upshur County / Buckhannon by cell phone and was approved for an immediate departure. Lack of an IFR release delay was unsurprising. As far as I could tell, there was virtually no other air traffic in the area. The departure from runway 29 requires a steeper climb gradient than standard. Although we cleared the ridge just beyond the departure end of the runway, it was not by as large a margin as I prefer and I was grateful that the wind was light enough not to produce a downdraft on the leeward side from which we approached.
Endgame
Flying over northern West Virginia with Pennsylvania and New York yet to be covered, I realized that this was the most any of us had flown in a long time. Even our trip home from Maine in 2020 was only three hours. Circumstances, however, made that flight seem longer than it actually was.
I engaged HAL so that I could indulge in some snacking while enjoying the clouds rolling past. With HAL active and the snacks plentiful, I felt like one of those YouTube pilots (minus all the GoPro cameras, of course).
We flew over Morgantown, WV, home to one of my graduate school friends who is a professor of Chemistry at West Virginia University.
Through the clouds, we spotted the runway at Morgantown Municipal, home to an excellent Mediterranean restaurant (Ali Baba) and a well-positioned port in a storm during our return from the solar eclipse adventure of 2017.
As I clicked the shutter, there was a loud outburst from behind me. Due to microphone mismanagement, I was unable to hear exactly what The Bear said. Perhaps I had taken one too many surreptitious photos of her that morning.
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| Is the airport in Punxsutawney, PA getting a new runway? |
As the day's temperature rose, so did the haze layer, eventually engulfing our cruise altitude and bringing with it some uncomfortable turbulence. Out of deference to the comfort of my passengers, I amended my clearance from 7,000 feet to 9,000 feet to climb above the unsettled air. We reached an altitude that necessitated running the heat in full-on winter flying mode, but at least the ride was smooth.
Downer
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| Hemlock Lake, one of the smaller Finger Lakes south of Rochester, NY |
After a comfortable flight both ways, the let down into the Rochester area was...well...a let down. There are few things that make me grumpier than a turbulent end to an otherwise flawless flight. I was further annoyed by a discourteous airport tenant at Sodus who parked his truck right on the only taxiway to my hangar. My 35 foot wingspan barely passed between it and the hangar itself. The geometry of the situation was so marginal that I shut the Warrior down and asked Kristy to get out and marshal us through. This is not exactly the kind of welcome home that anyone wants after five and half hours in the air.
Recap
Our primary goal of visiting with Dad and Carol was well-met, but there were a number of other aviation milestones achieved on this trip.
- We visited two new airports (Tri-State, KHTS and Upshur County, W22) for a total of 221.
- I have been aware of pressure map navigation for some time (thanks, Barry Schiff), but this was the first time that I really had a suitable opportunity to implement it and I am pleased by the outcome.
- It was our first long family trip using an autopilot.
- We flew our first two autopilot-coupled instrument approach procedures in actual IMC. The third, at Knoxville, broke out early enough that it really did not count.
- We utilized a block altitude clearance for the first time.
Furthermore, while flying on instruments is not new for us, this flight represented our first extended time in IMC since 2019 (3.0 hours total) and nicely demonstrated the utility of an instrument rating. Without the rating, weather conditions on this journey would have been far too marginal to attempt the flight. The real value in something always boils down to the human element. In this case, the real value in the rating was being able to deliver on my promise to visit Dad.