Bears in Blue Ridge | Part 2, Slam Dunk into Jasper

Personal Growth

For me, part of aviation's appeal comes in the form of opportunities to challenge myself, experience new things, and grow. Sometimes, growth comes in the form of critically evaluating performance, learning a new lesson, and finding a better way. Our vacation in Georgia this summer offered a memorable example of such a growth opportunity.

Monday, August 7, 2023: "Oh, Hail..."

When it comes to light aircraft, there are few things that strike fear in the hearts of owners quite like the threat of hail. Shy of a hurricane or tornado, the Warrior can easily tolerate most weather phenomena experienced while parked outdoors in her cabin cover. But hail is in a league all its own and only a hangar can protect against that. The Warrior was already subjected to hail on my watch during a stop in Kennesaw, GA in 2011 when I watched helplessly as tiny chunks of ice pummeled my airplane. Fortunately, the hail was small and the damage minor. No one wants the skin of their airplane to resemble a dimpled golf ball, Pollyanna commentary about drag reduction aside.

Two days into SurnameFest, a credible hail risk was forecast for the entire area. Starting with Pickens County, I called every small airport in the region looking for hangar space. Nothing was available. Finally, I called Hawthorne Aviation at the Cobb County Airport in Kennesaw, GA, a towered general aviation airport on the northwest quadrant of metropolitan Atlanta. I learned that I could overnight there in a hangar for $65. Sold! I told them to expect me within a couple of hours.

Warrior 481 (seen between the pillars) caught out in a massive thunderstorm that eventually led to hail on 15 June 2011 ay KRYY.

Ironically, Cobb County Airport is the very place where Warrior 481 experienced her last hail storm. At least this time, she would be under roof.

Repositioning Flight

In the end, repositioning the airplane became an activity for half the family. Terry, Nate, Kristy and I departed together from our mountain abode on a mission of preemptive airplane rescue. Kristy and Nate dropped me and Terry at Pickens County Airport, then continued southbound to retrieve us from Cobb County Airport. 

Inside the Pickens County operations building, Terry and I encountered Randy, boisterous airport manager extraordinaire. We caught him in the midst of a discussion about the deteriorating structure.

"Well, we moved the couch under the bulletin board so that no one reading it could stand where they would fall through the floor," Randy said. Noticing my grimace, Randy pointed to a nearby door with a no-admittance sign on it. "The floor is even worse in there. No one goes in there."

I introduced myself and reminded Randy of our conversation about rental cars from a few weeks before. He asked how Enterprise did and I gave them high marks. I explained that we were relocating the Warrior due to the coming storm, but that we would be back later in the week.

Though only two days elapsed since arriving in Georgia, the Warrior had already weathered multiple rainstorms. I discovered evidence of this in the right fuel tank, which contained a significant volume of water. I spent several tedious minutes removing water from that tank, silently thanking the inventor of the GATS jar for making it possible. Happily, fuel in the left tank was completely dry. Though I was confident that my efforts with the right tank had removed all water, I planned to launch on the left tank just in case.

 

Date	Aircraft	Route of Flight	Time (hrs)	Total (hrs)
07 Aug 2023	N21481	JZP (Jasper, GA) - RYY (Kennesaw, GA)	0.5	2696.7

As the crow (or airplane) flies, Cobb County Airport is only 27 nautical miles from Pickens County. Terry joined me for the repositioning flight because he was intrigued by the Warrior's new(ish) avionics and wanted to see them in action. Unfortunately, it was going to be a short hop that would not allow for much of a demonstration. Within moments of departing Pickens County, we were on with Atlanta Approach and, shortly thereafter, handed off to McCollum Tower at Cobb County.

Cobb County was moderately busy and the controller capably sequenced us in for landing. Terry commented that it was the most ATC chatter he had ever heard while flying with me. The line crew from Hawthorne marshalled us to parking at what appeared to be the exact spot where Warrior 481 rode out her last hail encounter. My agreement with Hawthorne was that the Warrior would spend the rest of that day and night in their hangar, but that they could tie her down outside afterward until I returned. To that end, I bundled the airplane back up in her pajamas.

Emerging from the FBO, I received a vivid reminder of our 2011 visit by returning to where we took shelter under the overhang at the Elevation Chophouse. We waited an hour for a ride to the hotel that night, The Bear cowering against me as the thunderstorm raged around us, thunder roaring, lightning searing the bruised sky, and ultimately hail pelting downward from the heavens. Despite a beautiful clear day in 2023, strong visual memories of that storm readily overlaid contemporary reality.

Content that the airplane was in good hands, we returned to Blue Ridge. That afternoon, severe storms swept through northern Georgia as forecast. I do not know whether Jasper actually received hail or not, but that is a moot point. (And a bit of a Schrodinger's cat scenario.) $65 was money well-spent for peace of mind.

Friday, August 11, 2023: Logistics

At the end of SurnameFest, our purple Charger would have to go back to the Pickens County Airport and, once without a car, we would need access to the Warrior to fly home. This meant that the airplane had to return to Jasper before our vacation was over.

On Friday morning, we departed Blue Ridge in the Charger and drove two hours south through the rain to deliver Izzy to Hartsfield International for her flight home. Returning north, we stopped for lunch at a Kennesaw Mediterranean restaurant before Kristy and The Bear dropped me at Cobb County Airport to fly the Warrior back to Pickens County. It was the perfect opportunity to reposition the plane considering that we were already driving through the area.

At Hawthorne Aviation, the FBO staffer noted that I had been parked there four nights with one of those in the hangar due to the storm. Kindly, she waived the $65 hangar charge and I was only billed for four nights of tie-down at $25/night. That was a pleasant surprise from a big corporate kind of FBO at a big corporate kind of airport.

I walked to where the Warrior was tied down on the edge of the ramp with mild apprehension. The entire route to Pickens County was under IFR conditions with low ceilings. While I have become quite comfortable flying instrument approaches, I am not used to doing so in mountainous regions where the stakes are much higher. I had spent much of lunchtime obsessively reviewing details of the short IFR flight to Pickens County.

I removed the cabin cover, stowed the chocks, pitot cover, and cowl plugs, then set about inspecting the airplane. Though Monday's storm was the only one forecast to pose a significant hail threat, it was not the only example of severe weather that week. Sumping the right fuel tank -- the one contaminated with water at Pickens County -- I was relieved to recover only dry fuel. Moving to the left tank, I discovered significant water contamination in the formerly dry tank. How did that happen? With sweat running into my eyes, I repeated the tedious exercise of removing all water from the fuel.

IMC in the Mountains

 

Date	Aircraft	Route of Flight	Time (hrs)	Total (hrs)
11 Aug 2023	N21481	RYY (Kennesaw, GA) - JZP (Jasper, GA)	0.7	2697.4

Still dripping in sweat from the humid Georgia air, I was swallowed up into the bottom of the clouds within moments of departing Cobb County Airport. In cruise, I enjoyed a few brief glimpses of blue sky while among the ragged cloud tops. After the switch from McCollum Tower to Atlanta Approach, I was prompted for my approach preference at Pickens County and requested the RNAV-34.

"Cherokee 481 is cleared direct VIVIC, climb and maintain 6,000 feet."

RNAV-34 approach procedure at Pickens County Airport.

Closer to VIVIC: "Cherokee 481 is cleared for the RNAV-34 approach at Pickens County. Maintain 6,000 until crossing VIVIC."

Herein lay the problem: a mere 5.9 nautical miles were available to descend from 6,000 feet to the 3,200 foot glidepath intercept altitude at CICCA (note the procedure, above). I established a more aggressive descent rate than the usual 500 feet per minute, but was still too high upon reaching CICCA. A back of the envelope calculation shows that I required a descent rate of nearly 900 feet per minute to meet the altitude target at CICCA. Despite subjectively plummeting among the mountains relative to my usual flight envelope, the descent I flew was still not steep enough.

ForeFlight track log from Cobb County Airport to Pickens County Airport.

Passing CICCA, still in IMC, I pulled the throttle back farther to increase vertical descent rate and decrease forward airspeed toward a runway lurking somewhere ahead and beneath the clouds. It was to no avail and I watched the glideslope indicator slide gradually toward the bottom of the instrument.

This meant that I needed to abort the approach and try again. 

Dammit. 

Before I could advance the throttle for a missed approach, there was a flicker through the windscreen and I emerged from the cloud deck into clear air with the runway directly ahead. I was roughly 900 feet above the runway surface and far too close to make a normal approach and landing. 

Now returned to VFR conditions in clear air, old instincts took over. I twisted the airplane into a power-off full forward slip and dropped toward the runway. It was the kind of steep, slipping approach I routinely used to land short on the grass behind the tree line at South Haven. As the asphalt expanded to fill my peripheral vision, I kicked the rudder, leveled the wings, and pitched the nose toward the horizon. Suddenly, the wheels were rolling without any bump announcing ground contact. It was the best landing I had made in months and I used less than a third of the total runway length to accomplish it.

Pickens County Airport was hosting a social event when I arrived. The operations building porch was lined with people in rocking chairs who gawked at the aircraft that had just dropped into their midst from the clouds. I topped off the fuel and dressed the Warrior in her pajamas. My clothes were soaked anew from a combination of climate and stress. 

Inside, the conference table overflowed with food. Randy was very intent on sharing this bounty with me, but I had no appetite. I was too full of falafel and adrenalin. "I ate before flying over," I offered weakly in an effort to fend him off. 

"But I just saw you out there working! Surely you have room now!" Pickens County Airport and its gracious manager cannot be faulted for a lack of hospitality.

One Good Turn

Even before touching down at Pickens County Airport, it was obvious to me how I should have handled this approach differently. As shown on the approach procedure, charted crossing altitudes for VIVIC range from 4,200 to 6,000 feet. VIVIC is also the fix for a holding pattern. Although I was not required to fly that hold (I arrived from the "NoPT" or "no procedure turn" direction), requesting it would have provided an opportunity to descend to 4,200 while negotiating the racetrack. This would have set me up for success by crossing VIVIC at 4,200 feet instead of 6,000 feet, allowing a comfortable descent rate of just over 300 feet per minute to reach the glidepath intercept altitude at CICCA. There is no guarantee that Atlanta Center would have granted this request, but because it is a charted portion of the procedure, the likelihood seems high. With five mile legs in the published holding pattern, a single turn would have sufficed.

As a student instrument pilot, the notion of intentionally requesting a hold would have made me blanch. In this case, the hold would have allowed me to lose altitude in protected airspace to set up for a safer approach flown with a normal descent profile. During instrument training, pilots learn that they can request the hold (or additional turns in the hold) to lose altitude. I should have made use of this tool to avoid that slam dunk approach into Pickens County.