Carolina Sojourn | Part 1, The Dread Elkin Shadow Beast

Name Recognition

"Cherokee Four Eight One is cleared to Bedford County Airport as filed, climb and maintain 8,000. Chris, is that you?"

At Rochester Approach’s question, The Bear abruptly pulled herself out of her book and stared at me, a grunt of astonishment accompanying her movement.

"Affirmative. How are you Erik?" I responded as The Bear stared at me in surprise for being recognized by local air traffic control.

"What?" I asked her. "I know people!"

New Places, Familiar Faces

During the first summer of Covid, we vacationed in Lake Placid with Mark, Dena, and Izzy as a pandemic pod of six. We enjoyed a lot of things together: the beautiful Lake Placid scenery, inexplicable discounts from Lake Placid businesses, and a kidney stone. Well, enjoyment of the kidney stone was primarily mine, but because I am always willing to share, the episode did affect the course of everyone's vacation. Nonetheless, we had so much fun that we decided to vacation with them again with hope that an ER visit will not be part of the experience this time.

Mark and Dena have an affinity for Hilton Head Island and have visited there every year since they were married. Kristy and I had never been. Thus, Hilton Head seemed like a perfect destination for both families.

False VFR

Date	Aircraft	Route of Flight	Time (hrs)	Total (hrs)
07 Aug 2021	N21481	SDC (Sodus, NY) - HMZ (Bedford, PA) - ZEF (Elkin, NC) - HXD (Hilton Head Island, SC)	6.9	2320.1

We were wheels up by 7:30 am on the morning of Saturday, August 7. We had an ambitious plan to reach Hilton Head Island in one day with fuel stops in Pennsylvania and North Carolina planned to break the journey roughly into thirds. We launched into an oddly colored sky due to excessive particles in the air scattering the morning sunlight.

Looking south over Canandaigua Lake near Rochester, NY.

It is always a good omen to be cleared as filed and a nice bonus to be acknowledged personally by the local approach controller. Per all automated weather reporting stations, atmospheric conditions were clear. But despite the distance of the California wildfires, we were nonetheless downwind of the inferno raging in the American west and air quality in the east suffered. (Granted, not nearly so much as air quality in the west.) Visibility was particularly poor and the air gray, as though the Warrior's windows were shrouded by an ashen gauze.

For The Bear, the journey was business as usual. We isolated her on the intercom, she swung her boom mic out of the way, and she dove into several books loaded on her iPad.

Windmill construction. Photo by Kristy.

Two hours of flying brought us to our first stop in southern Pennsylvania, Bedford County Airport (KHMZ, airport #229), chosen because it was in just the right spot with reasonably priced fuel despite being full service only ($4.75/gal). Serpentine ridgelines near the airport twisted through an atmosphere of gray haze that deadened an otherwise beautiful landscape.

It was a quick turn, just fuel for the airplane and bathroom breaks for all. In the end, most en route stops are all about rebalancing liquid levels for both people and machine. Airport staff were friendly and welcoming. I would stop there again.

Can I help you?

Gloomy Shenandoah

Virginia's Shenandoah Valley is well-known for its beauty, though perhaps not so much the day we traversed it. As Warrior 481 bore us along the centerline of the valley, the confluence of atmospheric haze and actual weather drained the landscape of most color. It was as if a bored deity turned down the color saturation on the region and nudged its color temperature slider toward "cool". 

While we appreciated the craggy forms of peaks defining the valley walls, they exuded an austere sort of grandeur entirely lacking in warmth.

High above the valley floor, we ate our lunches while speeding along at 130 knots. Because we expected a long day of flying, we saved time by eating at altitude as HAL dutifully toed the magenta line.

While still over the Shenandoah, we overheard Washington Center advise an airliner to expect a revised route.

“We already told DC that we cannot take a re-route,” answered the airline pilot testily. Clearly, the unpopular topic was broached by a previous controller. Center responded that the re-route was going to be necessary.

In the same impatient tone, the pilot rejoined with, "We can’t take a short cut because we’ll be too heavy to land.” 

Washington Center actually laughed. “Oh, you’re not gonna get a shortcut." The smirk was audible. Foolish mortal.

At times, the lonely pilot can enjoy some pretty good theater on frequency. And if in the mood for low brow humor, there's always the emergency frequency.

Guardian of the FBO

Just over two hours after departing Bedford County, Pennsylvania, we let down toward Elkin Municipal in North Carolina (KZEF, airport #230). The $4.35/gal fuel drew us in like Sir Galahad to the grail-shaped beacon of Castle Anthrax. ("It's not a very good name, is it?") Shutting down in front of the fuel pump, I immediately felt a good vibe about the place when I noticed a picnic lunch being wrapped up near the main hangar. Cook-outs are telltales of community.

I have always taught The Bear that any airport with an airport dog is likely to be a great airport. When we entered the main building, a sign on the door admonished against letting the cat out. I was not so sure what I thought about an airport cat. Sure, there was Orville at Aeroflex-Andover in New Jersey and Ted the Airport Cat at Steamboat Springs in Colorado. But I was still dubious.

The Bear immediately located the aforementioned FBO feline and attempted to make friends. After a few tentative scratches on the head, The Bear (wrongly) believed that she had successfully befriended the ebony grimalkin.

Without warning, the diminutive Hell Beast opened a gaping maw so impossibly wide that it resembled a python preparing to swallow a guinea pig. The Bear was visibly taken aback; I have well-timed photographic evidence.

Neither of us had ever seen anything quite like that before.

The Bear lingered, but kept her hands to herself while the Dread Elkin Shadow Beast watched her intently. I decided that we should leave before the bloodletting began.

We traded greetings with the guys firing up a small helicopter next to us. "Rochester, New York," one of them commented. "That's upstate, right?" It is always a delight when someone from outside New York does not jump to the conclusion that Rochester is just a lesser known borough of The City. (Midwesterners, I am looking at you.)

Elkin Municipal, Elkin, NC

As we launched from runway 7, the crew of the helicopter invited us to stop again on the way home. 

"Hopefully we won't miss the cook-out next time," I responded.

"We always seem to have enough!" the helicopter pilot encouraged. 

Nice place, but the jury is still out on that cat. 

(I am sure that the cat is probably a lovely creature, but wow, it certainly appeared to unhinge its jaw in anticipation of devouring my little girl whole.)

Detour

The route through South Carolina featured a restricted area that I chose to proactively bypass while flight planning. This led me to file a route right over Charlotte/Douglas International at 8,000 feet. At that altitude, it seemed like we might get that plan approved. Atlanta Center was quick to dispel that fantasy as we climbed away from Elkin.

"Cherokee Four Eight One is cleared to Hilton Head Island via FEGNO, Columbia, then as filed. Climb and maintain 8,000."

Once plotted, there was no mistaking the purpose of detouring through FEGNO. It would keep us almost entirely out of Charlotte's Bravo airspace. Perhaps that was understandable. Our traffic display showed a conga-line of aircraft landing to the north at Charlotte. While this re-route extended our flight time somewhat, the overall impact was negligible.

At some point between leaving the Shenandoah and arriving in the Carolinas, the haze finally diminished. However, as we moved into the latter half of the day, weather began to build.

ATC directed a shortcut to Hilton Head that bypassed the Columbia VOR, which I had scrupulously included in my filed route as a way to avoid the R-6001A/B restricted area east of Columbia, SC. As a result, we were cleared right through the middle of that restricted space and I surmised that it must have been inactive.

Red Carpet Treatment

(Without the Red Carpet)

Nearing the coast, uplinked radar imagery indicated that the entire area around Hilton Head was receiving a light spritzing of rain. The view from the cockpit showed a wall of clouds that we penetrated while inbound.

We found ourselves in a ragged cloud layer that periodically revealed peeks of the ground. Even without a GPS, it would have been obvious from the occasional snippets of visible landscape that we were rapidly approaching the coast.

Beaufort Approach told us to anticipate flying the RNAV approach to runway 21 at Hilton Head and cleared us direct to FUMMA to start the approach.

ForeFlight screen shot while inbound for the approach to Hilton Head

On reaching the eastern seaboard, we emerged from the clouds entirely. A shadow of Hilton Head Island could be discerned in the distance, but rain reduced the visibility just enough to obscure the runway.

While crossing Port Royal Sound, the runway at Hilton Head finally materialized out of the rain and mist.

We crossed over the northern shore of Hilton Head Island and landed Warrior 481 at our 231st airport and new home base for the coming week.

The crew at Signature was friendly and helpful. They brought our rental car to the plane with the air conditioning mercifully cranked to maximum, the perfect antidote after a sticky approach into Hilton Head. In fact, they really rolled out the red carpet for us without actually — physically — rolling out a red carpet. If my experience is any indication, Warriors only truly get the red carpet treatment in Kalamazoo.

Our rental car for the week, painted in “Rental White”, was a serviceable Kia sedan. Given the rental car shortage and resulting inflated prices, Signature did a great job procuring a car for the week at my corporate rate. I had been completely unable to book one on my own. This assistance helped take the sting out of Signature's $7.27/gal fuel price.

Exiting the Signature facility at Hilton Head Island Airport gave us our first real hint of Hilton Head Island. The parking lot was densely wooded and shaded under a thick tree canopy adorned with Spanish moss. The building itself was a departure from the sterile concrete and steel structures at most airports and fit in well with the island aesthetic. This was a pattern that we would discover repeated everywhere across Hilton Head.

Though we only suspected it at the time, we had a wonderful week ahead of us.

Ground track for southbound route to Hilton Head