The Wright Stuff | Part 1, Fuzzy Minimums

Fabled Halls

May 29, 2022.

In my earliest days as a volunteer docent at the Kalamazoo Air Zoo, I learned that the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, OH is a quintessential destination for aviation history buffs. Its storied halls are so vast that multiple days are reputedly necessary to absorb it all properly. Those fortunate enough to make the pilgrimage always return speaking of it with unabashed awe.

The four massive Quonset-style hangars of the National Museum of the USAF on May 29, 2022.

My first plan to go, concocted circa 2003 (almost 20 years ago!), involved Dave and I flying from Kalamazoo to Dayton, he in his Super Decathlon and me with a pair of like-minded aviation museum junkies in Cherokee N3470R from Conrad Aero. Poor weather summarily scuttled the plans crafted by two enthusiastic VFR-only pilots. Somehow, nearly twenty years slipped by without a single successful foray to Dayton for me. Talk about precedent-setting. 

Years later, we set goals within the Williamson Flying Club Activities Committee to go, but they were always derailed for various reasons. There was always interest, but not any follow-through. Distance, weather, and the need for overnight accommodations always seemed to add up to an insurmountable hurdle. But in 2022, we realized that we had a critical mass of instrument rated pilots and aircraft owners interested in going to Dayton. We realized that we could finally make it work. In May 2022, we would launch for the home of the Brothers Wright who gave humanity such a significant boost skyward

What Are Your Minimums?

As of the morning of departure, the fluctuating number of interested participants finally settled on five. Real time weather in combination with forecast trends over the preceding days clearly suggested that flying on instruments would be necessary to reach Dayton at a reasonable time that day.

It was here that our plan was pressure tested, pulled in different directions by a triumvirate of participating aviators; the VFR-only pilot determined to fly himself, the newly-certificated instrument pilot appropriately grappling with comfort level in newfound ability, and the experienced instrument pilot accustomed to being the sole decision maker. 

Full disclosure, the third pilot was me, though describing myself as an “experienced instrument pilot” sounds inappropriately clunky to my ear. Since earning my instrument rating in 2013, I have consistently viewed myself as a novice instrument pilot. But our discussions leading up to that morning caused me to realize that I have accumulated experience and comfort with instrument flying that I did not consciously realize I possessed. 

Remembering my own early anxiety around launching into the clouds — especially with passengers on board and the added responsibility that comes along for the ride with them — I was careful not to put pressure on Gilead whose IFR ticket was barely a month old. I did not want peer pressure to influence his decision making and, while I was happy to explain my thinking on the weather conditions and opinion on flying in them, I had no interest in pushing Gilead outside of his comfort zone.

Warrior 481 and Eight Five X-Ray staged on the KSDC ramp and ready to go.

And so we pulled from three different directions, engaged in a lopsided, ideological drawing-and-quartering of our plan. I wanted to launch at 8:00 am while Sodus was under better-than-forecast marginal VFR conditions (1200' overcast), but Gilead was concerned about the 800' ceiling at our destination and along the route. He wanted to delay for some assurance that the weather would lift during our estimated 3.5 hour flight. Fair. Bogdan — the VFR pilot — hoped to delay even longer so that he could make the journey VFR in the club's Bold Warrior, N32816. Until Bogdan abandoned his VFR aspirations and agreed to ride with one of the instrument rated pilots, we were unable to finalize instrument flight plans with known numbers of passengers in each airplane. Thus deadlocked, our weather window closed.

Around 8:15 am that morning, the ceiling came down to 400', rain began to fall, and the visibility dropped to just above a mile. Trees on the other side of the field became significantly obscured in mist. No one was going to take off in those conditions.

Instrument flying is regulated by a concept called "minimums" that establish definitive legal low bars for many operations. For example, there are minimum safe altitudes for terrain and obstacle clearance, minimum climb rates required on certain departure procedures to avoid colliding with obstacles, and minimum ceiling and visibility requirements for every instrument approach procedure that must be satisfied for landing to commence. For example, when the ceiling or visibility are below the minimums listed for a specific approach procedure, pilots are required to abort the landing and do something different. 

While commercial aviation also has mandated take-off minimums, private aviation does not. Legally, we can depart in so-called zero-zero (zero ceiling, zero visibility) conditions. I have yet to meet a pilot who thinks that zero-zero take offs are smart or worthwhile; they simply leave no margin for error. Performing a few simulated zero-zero take-offs with my instrument instructor was enough to instill in me a strong aversion to the idea.

This leaves pilots to crafting their own "personal minimums". A common benchmark for take-off minimums are conditions that would allow flying a return approach procedure back into the departure airport should anything go amiss. Thus, landing minimums for those procedures may be translated into take-off minimums. There have been times when even this was not enough for me and I waited on the ground for better conditions, particularly when departing from an unfamiliar airport surrounded by mountains. But this rule of thumb is still a good starting point for decision making. Due to obstructions (trees) on the approach to runway 28 at Sodus, the LPV minimums of 284' AGL (above ground level) are currently not authorized, requiring use of the higher LNAV minimums of 558' AGL. This suggests a take-off minimum of at least 500' of ceiling. As the morning continued, the ceiling stubbornly remained at 400' and later came down to a reported 200'. Gloom lay thickly over the airport and our collective mood.

But there are other risk factors that might affect a take-off decision such as the presence or lack of obstructions, visibility under the layer, thickness of the layer, and consistency of the layer. That morning, the wind favored runway 28. There are no significant obstructions when departing on 28. This is in contrast to the reciprocal runway that requires a higher than standard climb gradient when departing on instruments due to terrain east of the airport. Warrior 481 is not an awesome climber and I tend be very circumspect of nonstandard climb gradients. Departing on 28 lowers that risk. Over the course of the morning, visibility rose to 7 miles and treetops surrounding the field once again became crisp and distinct. By late morning, flashes of sunshine broke through the layer, indicating that it was thin and of variable consistency. It is one thing to launch and briefly transit a layer and quite something else to spend several minutes climbing blindly through thousands of feet of murk. From the bottom, the cloud layer was no longer a monolithic barrier hanging over the airport, but had become ragged and irregular. With these additional factors in our favor, I was willing to compromise on my desired 500' minimum ceiling for departure.

Bogdan, conceding that the forecast for VFR weather was steadily moving later in the day, gave up on flying himself visually and agreed to ride right seat with me. Gilead offered  that he might be comfortable departing with the low ceiling given the improved visibility and verified evidence that the layer was relatively thin. To gather that evidence, I volunteered to launch first and report on cloud bases and tops in real time as we climbed through them. 

Per the AWOS, the ceiling was still in the 200' range, but this report was not visually credible given the very uneven bases hovering over the field. However, the issue with that ceiling was that it was too low to fly an approach back into Sodus in the event of a problem. Instead, Plan B was to land at nearby Rochester where the ceilings were much higher, about 700' (500' above the minimums there). It would take just as long to fly an approach into Rochester (SDC - MAPES - ROC runway 22) as it would to fly a full approach back into runway 28 at Sodus (SDC - JORAX - WALCO - SDC runway 28), with the distance to get into Rochester about a mile shorter and requiring less maneuvering.

With this consensus plan, Bogdan and I boarded Warrior 481 for departure nearly four hours later than originally planned.

Climbing through 2,000', about 1,600' above the ground.

Obtaining our instrument clearance on the ground was interrupted by my headset dropping its Bluetooth connection with the iPhone as I read our clearance back to the controller in Rochester. I called back and re-ran the clearance exercise. Rochester confirmed with “read back correct”, ended the phone call with "talk to you soon", and Bogdan and I launched toward the brightening ceiling. We reached the altitude of the lowest bases around 300' AGL but actually remained visual until 400-500’AGL -- which was exactly what I was looking for in the first place. We broke out around 1,600' AGL though there were other layers higher above. Our read of the conditions from the ground verified, we radioed the information back to the others, clear communication hampered by my sudden inability to read an altimeter properly. With data in hand, Gilead et al made their go decision, launching in N1185X about twenty minutes later.

No Plan Survives Contact with the Weather

Date	Aircraft	Route of Flight	Time (hrs)	Total (hrs)
28 May 2022	N21481	SDC (Sodus, NY) - TSO (Carrollton, OH) - SGH (Springfield, OH)	4.1	2452.8

Climbing through an intermediate cloud layer.

We encountered some additional cloud layers in the climb, all of them spotty and ragged like the bottom layer we initially entered.

Leveling at 8,000'.

I filed for 8,000' and found this to be just right. We leveled slightly above the white stuff while remaining comfortably below the freezing altitudes.

Bogdan and me in Warrior 481. When did my head get so damn big?

The original plan was to depart at 8:00 am and fly direct from Sodus to Springfield-Beckley Municipal Airport (KSGH) east of Dayton, about a 3.5 hour flight. We would have arrived before noon in Springfield and ventured off airport for food while en route to the museum. This would have given us 1.5 days to spend in the museum with a planned Monday return.

By delaying departure to 11:45 am, we needed to reconsider this plan. Instead, we filed direct to Carroll County Airport (KTSO, #238) in Carrollton, OH about 2/3 of the way to Dayton for lunch at the creatively monikered Carroll County Airport Restaurant. With the delay, we felt that a lunch stop was essential. We also knew that our plan to spend half the day at the museum was forfeit, but that we would be well-positioned to spend the entire next day there.

En route, Bogdan and I got caught up since our last flight together to Lycoming in 2019. Topics of airplanes and flying were obvious ones, but as a Ukrainian immigrant, Bogdan also had an interesting perspective on the conflict with Russia.

Gilead, Jason, and Dan in Eight Five X-Ray. Photo by Dan.

Cruising southwest of Rochester, we heard Gilead's voice broadcasting from Eight Five X-Ray as they ascended through the clag over Sodus. In the end, I think the departure debate resulted in a plan that satisfied everyone’s risk tolerance and I am certain that the easy flying in light IMC boosted Gilead's overall confidence in IFR flying. In total, we logged about 1 hour of non-continuous IMC time between Sodus and Springfield that day.

Obligatory Pie

Despite flying a track only 10° off runway heading, Bogdan and I both struggled to find the Carroll County Airport. We eventually spotted it, cancelled IFR with Cleveland Approach, and maneuvered for landing on runway 25. We landed a little long owing to some unexpectedly high terrain on the approach end of the runway. This part of Ohio clearly lacked the pancake-flat character of the I-75 corridor region where I have more familiarity.

Bogdan with Warrior 481 at Carroll County Airport.

Me with Warrior 481 at Carroll County Airport. Photo by Bogdan.

In the middle of the ramp, we encountered a pair working on a homebuilt biplane. One of their friends hollered from a nearby hangar, "You'd have less trouble if you put the little wheel in the front!" Inflammatory statements like that are sure to earn a contemptuous response from any taildragger pilot.

Entering the traffic pattern at KTSO. Photo by Dan from Eight Five X-Ray.

Gilead lands Eight Five X-Ray on runway 25 at Carroll County Airport.

Parking Eight Five X-Ray at Carroll County Airport.

Once the others disembarked from Eight Five X-Ray, we briefly commiserated on the unexpected challenge of locating the airport before setting our sights on food. It was already 2:00 pm.

Carroll County Airport Restaurant

The Carroll County Airport Restaurant is renowned for its pie. In fact, several fine specimens were on display just inside the main entrance, each one thicker than the cloud layer we climbed though on departure from Sodus. Despite significant aspirational discussions about pie, I was surprised that no one in our group purchased any. Overall, the restaurant was surprisingly full of customers for 2:00 on a Saturday. Lunch was reasonably prompt and good. I think all of us would recommend the restaurant as a reasonable destination but, sadly, no one can critique the pie.

Departure preparations. Photo by Dan.

It was Bogdan who noted the low right main tire on Eight Five X-Ray. Fortunately, the same guy who mocked the tailwheel pilots earlier was able to provide compressed air and a new valve stem, happy to assist fellow aviators in need. After a very brief delay, we were all ready to launch.

Traffic Jam

Carroll County Airport does not have a parallel taxiway. This always complicates things when there is any amount of traffic entering or exiting the runway. While a Cessna practicing touch and go landings was flying downwind, Bogdan and I back taxied to a runup pad on the departure end of 25 that I had noticed earlier while landing. There we did our runup and waited for the Cessna to do his next touch and go before launching. Back on the ramp, Gilead was chastised over the radio by another pilot for taxiing too close to the runway hold line while the touch and go Cessna was still rolling for take-off. Once the Cessna was airborne, the other pilot declared a back taxi as I was getting ready to launch, leading me to chastise him to avoid a head-on collision. Radio karma back in balance, we managed to escape Carroll County without bending any metal.

Due to a possibility for low clouds in Springfield, we filed IFR for 4,000'. We picked up our instrument clearances in the air with Cleveland and skimmed just below the cloud bases until west of Columbus when the clouds descended into our flight path.

Disappointing PIZZA

“Four Eight One and Eight Five X-Ray, you’re cleared direct to PIZZA to remain clear of the Columbus arrival corridor.” Usually the controller will spell-out the five letter intersections because they are not always spelled in an intuitive way. In this case, the controller did not disappoint. “Uh, it’s spelled like, um, pizza.”

As we approached the outskirts of Columbus, OH, I was surprised to see that the Polaris Fashion Place Mall was doing brisk business. Whoever said that malls are dying clearly never clued-in the enthusiastic shoppers of greater Columbus, OH.

JP Morgan Chase McCoy Center. The large black and white panels appear to be covered parking.

Spotting the Ohio State University Airport from the air (shouldn't that be The Ohio State University Airport?), I briefly fantasized about playing "Hail to the Victors" on Tower frequency and wondered what kind of response that might garner. Fortunately, good sense prevailed and the hypothetical remained untested.

Columbus Approach invited us to fly the RNAV 24 approach into Springfield-Beckley and we accepted. Subsequently cleared directly to an initial approach fix, we never reached PIZZA. But that was fine. No one goes to Ohio for pizza anyway.

Popping in and out of the cloud bases, I programmed HAL to fly the approach. Just a few minutes in trail, Gilead was advised that he would need to fly a hold until I cancelled IFR. Fortunately, I was able to cancel early enough to avoid relegating Gilead and his crew to aeronautical purgatory.

We greased the landing on a 9,010' long runway that once hosted Air National Guard F-16s (airport #239). We had the good fortune of arriving before the FBO closed for the day. The lineman brought our underpowered Hyundai Elantra out to the ramp while we bundled the airplanes up for a couple of nights outdoors in Ohio. A relatively new control tower stood empty nearby, abandoned since the National Guard relocated to Arizona.

Buttoning up the airplanes. Photo by Dan.

Arrived! Jason, Gilead, Dan, and Bogdan with Eight Five X-Ray.

With me at the wheel of our dubious steed, drawn up uncomfortably close against the steering wheel to give more space to the back seaters, we managed to find our hotel near Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Fairborn, OH. The Quality Inn looked a little sketchy from the outside, but had been remodeled and was clean inside (mostly). Bogdan arranged different lodging in another part of town and, because we arrived too late for him to pick up his rental car, I shuttled him over to his place while the others checked into the hotel.

Wing Warping

After generously buying the first round, Jason held our table at Warped Wing Brewing while the rest of us ordered food. Photo by Dan.

That night, we met Steve from “A Mile of Runway Will Take You Anywhere” at Warped Wing Brewing Company in post-industrial downtown Dayton. Yes, even the beer in Dayton has a Wright Brothers "twist" to it. The beer was excellent and the food, prepared by a beleaguered kitchen staff, tasty. Conversation flowed smoothly late into the night as the staff cleaned up the place around us. After twenty years, part of me found it hard to believe that I was finally in Dayton.

Final Analysis

As we enjoyed our beverages, I was once again reminded of why I am glad to be a member of the Williamson Flying Club and how rewarding it is to meet so many great people with mutual interests. As an aviator, it has also provided an opportunity to both learn from and coach other pilots. Our debate that morning about what constituted an appropriate departure risk serves as a good example. As I reflect on it, I feel that we made an reasonable choice, though it was absolutely not the lowest risk option. I was also pleased that we arrived at our choice through consensus rather than one pilot (particularly me) strong-arming the others. 

Would we make the same departure choice again given similar circumstances? I have certainly rejected perfectly legal IFR flights in the past. As with that morning, I think the specifics make all the difference. Had I been poorly rested, had the departure been from the reciprocal runway, had the visibility been low enough to mask the trees surrounding the field, or had any other alternative permutations on that morning's conditions existed, our decision may have been quite different.