Saturday, August 12, 2023: You Down with ODP? (Yeah You Know Me)
A Dunkin' in Jasper, GA made for makeshift flight planning space as we waited on fog to lift at Pickens County Airport. While I anticipated an IFR departure that morning, I wanted to see ceiling and visibility of at least 300 feet and a mile to avoid smacking into mountainous terrain around Pickens County Airport during take-off.
A pair of powered parachutes were operating low under the ceiling at Pickens County, launching and landing from a short grass strip orthogonal to the main runway.
A mere hour after departing Pickens County, we were flying the RNAV-26 approach to our Tennessee home away from home, Knoxville Downtown Island Airport. We planned an overnight visit with Dad and Carol before returning to New York. With our last visit being in 2021, we were very overdue.
With an IFR departure from the island and a climb through a low ceiling over the Tennessee River, we cruised northeastward in clear air at 7,000 feet. Our route encountered the meandering Ohio River again. Much like the trip south, the journey home was easy and I was content to let HAL fly the plane while I kicked off my shoes and gave my toes a stretch.
Lunch was good. It may have been glorified pub food, but it was good glorified pub food. Because most brewpubs showcase their brewing equipment, I was surprised not to see any evidence of the physical microbrewery on site.
Refueled and recharged from an excellent lunch, we fueled the airplane before departing Grove City. Running through the clouds on the way home, we were fortunate to earn peeks of the beautiful landscape below framed by the cumulus.
Tools available to me for terrain management included ForeFlight's Hazard Advisor, the Warrior's onboard GNS-430W terrain display page, and the airport's obstacle departure procedure (ODP). The ODP was a key element of my departure strategy, but I also filed to IPECA, the missed approach fix for the instrument approach to the runway we would use that morning. The direct route from our departure runway (34) to IPECA would also help manage terrain.
Before too long, the visibility rose to unrestricted while the ceiling remained around 300 feet. This was high enough to fly the RNAV-34 approach back into the airport if needed and meant that we were a "go" for launch.
Swift Departure
| Date | Aircraft | Route of Flight | Time (hrs) | Total (hrs) |
| 12 Aug 2023 | N21481 | JZP (Jasper, GA) - DKX (Knoxville, TN) | 1.5 | 2698.9 |
A pair of powered parachutes were operating low under the ceiling at Pickens County, launching and landing from a short grass strip orthogonal to the main runway.
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| Low clouds breaking up over Pickens County Airport. |
As we readied the Warrior for flight, holes began to appear in the cloud deck that revealed the layer to be relatively thin.
"Pickens County traffic, Execjet 123 is on the RNAV-34 approach, Pickens County." "Execjet" is the callsign used by NetJets and the pilot's intentions were broadcast across the ramp by loudspeaker. A pair of women waiting at the operations building had chartered the private jet.
As I finished loading our baggage into the Warrior, a loud roar overhead announced the jet going missed on the approach. This was puzzling because the ceiling should have been high enough for the pilot to acquire the airport visually at minimums. Either way, we never saw the jet go overhead in the clouds, we only heard it.
At the operations building, the two women were distressed by their pilot's failure to land. Kristy overheard one of the local airport bums providing an excellent layman's explanation of weather minimums and missed approaches to help the waiting passengers understand what just happened. The weather was visibly lifting and he assured them that their chartered aircraft would return.
We taxied to the end of runway 34, ran the airplane up, then called Atlanta Center on the phone to get our instrument clearance from the ground. Normally, I would have worried about blocking the entrance to the runway while waiting for IFR release, but it was still early in the morning and not particularly VFR, so I assessed the risk of being in anyone's way to be negligible. (Famous last words.) I suggested to Kristy that we might have to wait for release because the NetJets plane was still IFR and trying to get in.
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| Example of a Globe Swift photographed 11 August 2018 at the Oswego County Airport (KFZY). |
On the phone with Atlanta, I was immediately put on hold. As I waited, a pair of Globe Swift aircraft taxied up behind me for departure. Because there was no run-up area, I was on the taxiway and effectively blocking their access to the runway. The only reasonable option was for me to taxi onto the 100 foot wide runway, let the two low wing speedsters pass by, then return to the taxiway. Naturally, Atlanta Center came back to me on the phone while I was in the midst of accommodating the Swifts and I asked him to standby for a moment. The Swift pilots expressed their gratitude over the radio, zipped down the runway in formation, and quickly disappeared from view.
Despite strong cell signal, the audio quality from Atlanta Center was poor and I struggled to understand the controller. After asking him to repeat himself several times, my clearance was granted as filed for immediate release from runway 34. I was surprised by the lack of delay. Where was NetJets?
In Through the Out Door
As we climbed through the cloud layer on the ODP, Execjet 123 was being vectored north of the airport. Because I was filed to IPECA (the missed approach holding fix for runway 34 northwest of the airport), Atlanta Center kept the jet clear of our flight path and had obviously (to my utter surprise) prioritized our departure over his arrival. I wondered if the NetJets pilot had annoyed the Atlanta Center controller. I also wondered if Atlanta Center had slam dunked Execjet 123 with a steep descent from VIVIC like they did to me the day before and if that was the cause of the missed approach in the first place.
Reaching IPECA, now flying in clear air and having avoided all relevant terrain, we confirmed visual sighting of Execjet 123 with Center and turned northeast direct to Knoxville Downtown Island Airport. At this point, a series of baffling transmissions commenced between Execjet 123 and Atlanta Center.
"Execjet 123, proceed direct IPECA for the RNAV-34 approach, Pickens County Airport." The NetJet pilot read the clearance back haltingly because it didn't make any sense to him. It did not make any sense to me, either. While IPECA was an initial fix for the RNAV-16 instrument approach, it was only part of the missed approach procedure for RNAV-34, not part of the approach procedure itself. It was one of those "you can't get there from here" situations and suggested that the Atlanta controller had mixed up initial fixes for the reciprocal runways.
On reaching IPECA, the NetJets pilot was cleared for the RNAV-34 approach...from a fix that was not part of the procedure. How was that going to work? The pilot accepted the clearance, but with a similar, halting cadence betraying his inner confusion. Obviously, the pilot assumed that ATC's nonsensical instruction must eventually make sense if he thought about it long enough.
"Atlanta Center, Execjet 123 requesting a delay vector while we sort through this approach."
"Good plan!" I exclaimed to Kristy. The NetJets pilot was buying time to understand ATC's confusing directive. Eventually, he would realize that the mistake was on the controller's end.
"Execjet 123, I don't know what that means," responded Atlanta Center.
"WHAT?!" exclaimed Kristy. Even my non-pilot wife completely understood what the NetJets pilot was trying to do. Delay vectors are standard phraseology and can be requested by pilots needing ATC to send them on a safe trajectory away from conflicting terrain or traffic while they work through an issue. It is all about buying time while hurtling through the air.
After some additional back and forth, Execjet 123 was eventually cleared to VIVIC (the actual initial approach fix for the RNAV-34 approach) at 4,200 feet (better than 6,000) where they flew the holding pattern (procedure turn) to get turned back around toward the airport. Hearing them cleared for the RNAV-34 approach into Pickens County and being passed to the advisory frequency caused me to utter a sympathetic sigh of relief. All was eventually right with the world and, presumably, the two passengers waiting in Jasper eventually got to where they were going.
It was one of the most baffling exchanges with Air Traffic Control that I had ever overheard. (Except, perhaps, for the Sikorsky Incident earlier this year.) After being handed-off to Knoxville Approach and checking in, Kristy and I just looked at each other in amazement.
"Wow," we said in unison.
Swift Day
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| Emerging from the clouds north of the Smokies east of Knoxville with the French Broad River visible. |
A mere hour after departing Pickens County, we were flying the RNAV-26 approach to our Tennessee home away from home, Knoxville Downtown Island Airport. We planned an overnight visit with Dad and Carol before returning to New York. With our last visit being in 2021, we were very overdue.
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| Knoxville Downtown Island Airport photographed 17 July 2021. |
On the ramp, we were met by an enthusiastic, newly-minted pilot who had flown to Knoxville from northern Georgia to enjoy some plane spotting.
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| At the fuel farm with the skyline of Knoxville, TN in the near distance. |
"Your landing was great!" he exclaimed in greeting. Honestly, it was actually pretty good. That crazy landing at Pickens County two days earlier seemed to have broken a streak of crummy "thumper" landings from the past two months. Then he pointed to a shiny, sleek-looking low wing aircraft launching from runway 26. "What kind of airplane is that?"
"It's a Swift," I responded wryly. Swifts are not very common and it was unusual to see three in one day.
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| My awesome ground crew comprised of Dad and Kristy. |
With Dad and Carol, we explored the new house they were having built (I have lost track of how many new houses they have built since moving to Tennessee), got some cinematic closure on our last visit by watching Guardians of the Galaxy 3, and enjoyed pizza from Dad's favorite pizzeria for dinner. It was good to catch up with them.
Sunday, August 13, 2023: Grove City
| Date | Aircraft | Route of Flight | Time (hrs) | Total (hrs) |
| 13 Aug 2023 | N21481 | DKX (Knoxville, TN) - 29D (Grove City, PA) - SDC (Sodus, NY) | 4.9 | 2703.8 |
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| The meandering Ohio River separating West Virginia from Ohio. |
With an IFR departure from the island and a climb through a low ceiling over the Tennessee River, we cruised northeastward in clear air at 7,000 feet. Our route encountered the meandering Ohio River again. Much like the trip south, the journey home was easy and I was content to let HAL fly the plane while I kicked off my shoes and gave my toes a stretch.
We let down into Grove City, PA (29D) for lunch at TimberCreek Tap & Table, a brewpub adjacent to the airport. My first visit there was in June when I arrived with a group from the Williamson Flying Club to check it out. Tap & Table has a reasonably diverse menu of hearty, glorified pub food. Other attributes of Grove City include an active skydiving operation at the airport, a large outlet mall that draws shoppers from all over the region, and dreadful cellular signal. Signal was so poor at the restaurant that I could not even pull a METAR from home. It was like being back on Tangier Island.
These are not fancy designer propellers. The local skydiving outfit had a gear-up landing incident with their King Air. At least it is a turboprop and prop strikes do not automatically require an engine teardown and inspection. Regardless, the condition of those propellers probably led to a difficult conversation with the pilot.
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| TimberCreek Tap & Table photographed June 2023. |
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| TimberCreek Tap & Table photographed June 2023. |
Then I found it. Apparently, I just needed to look down.
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| A Kodiak leased to the skydiving operation while the King Air is down. |
Refueled and recharged from an excellent lunch, we fueled the airplane before departing Grove City. Running through the clouds on the way home, we were fortunate to earn peeks of the beautiful landscape below framed by the cumulus.
Sightseeing
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| The Allegheny Reservoir on the New York - Pennsylvania border. |
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| Rushford Lake in Western New York. The arrowhead always points toward home. |
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| A Finger Lake! Conesus Lake, to be specific. Almost home. |
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| Remarkably flat cumulus bottoms on the descent into Sodus. |
Recap
This year's SurnameFest expedition added 13.8 hours to the logbook, including 1.9 hours in instrument meteorological conditions with one instrument approach logged (Pickens County Airport) and two IFR departures (Pickens County and Knoxville). We added two new airports to the map (Jackson County and Pickens County) while returning to one of our most frequently visited out of state airports, Knoxville Downtown Island Airport (appearing in my logbook 12 times). We saw "tiny dinosaurs", grilled under umbrellas, cruised around in a very purple Charger, learned a valuable lesson while mitigating a hail storm, had an encounter with a ravenous bear that we did not bring with us, reconnected with Kristy's family plus my Dad and Carol, played a lot of Mario Kart, enjoyed Boston Coolers, and learned where not to stand in the Pickens County Airport operations building.
All in all, a good trip!
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