Sentimental Journey | Part 2, A Distant Scent of Wildfire

Unfulfilled Ambitions

A few years ago, I set a goal of returning Warrior 481 to her birthplace in Vero Beach (KVRB) Florida and touring the Piper factory there. I have visited Lock Haven many times over the years ("Sentimental Journey | Part 1, Lock Haven"), which was center of the Piper universe for legacy tube and rag designs, including various iterations of the classic Piper Cub. But the PA-28 Cherokees and their variants were designed by the legendary Fred Weick and produced at Piper's Vero Beach facility in Florida. In fact, the Cherokee was the first Piper model manufactured in Vero Beach. 

Sectional chart depiction of Vero Beach Regional (KVRB), Vero Beach, FL.

Distance, nearly 1,000 nautical miles worth of overland distance, was a significant consideration in flying Warrior 481 to Vero Beach. I needed a good excuse to position the Warrior close enough to justify an otherwise frivolous Vero Beach excursion. With Florida in-laws pulling the center of gravity for our annual family gathering toward the southeast, a future SurnameFest (not its actual name) seemed a likely opportunity.

SurnameFest 2021 was held at Braying Dock Manor (also not its actual name) in Ocala, FL, potentially a great starting point for a side trip to Vero Beach. Although we accomplished some fun flying adventures to Cedar Key (KCDK) and the Shuttle Landing Facility (KTTS), Piper had not yet resumed factory tours in the wake of the pandemic. While SurnameFest 2022 took us the wrong way to Wisconsin, the 2023 and 2024 gatherings were near Blue Ridge, GA and within a four hour striking distance (Warrior time) of Vero Beach. I was so (over)confident that I would make the trip happen in 2023 that I titled a March 2023 post about Lock Haven as "Sentimental Journey Part 1" expecting to write a second installment later that summer after visiting Vero Beach. But I could not make the logistics work out in either 2023 or 2024. In 2025, The Bear's high school graduation brought family to New York for SurnameFest and Warrior 481 flew no farther south than Washington Dulles International Airport that year.

When a house for SurnameFest 2026 was chosen in Ellijay, GA, I decided that 2026 would be the year. Based on past experience with the field from 2023, I chose to base Warrior 481 at the Pickens County Airport (KJZP) in Jasper for the week. My determination to reach Vero Beach this year was reinforced by last year's diabetes diagnosis. In recognition that my flying could come to an unexpected end any time (for any reason), there is no room for deferred aspirations. 

Finding My Way

Piper offers complimentary tours of the Vero Beach factory on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10:00 am or 1:00 pm. Advance tour reservations are required. Once the week of July 20 was set for SurnameFest, I contacted the factory and reserved a tour slot at 10:00 am on Tuesday, July 21st. I chose the earlier timeslot in hopes of flying back to to Jasper after the tour and before Florida's daily afternoon convective machine cranked up enough to make airborne passage unsafe. Fingers were definitely crossed in making that plan.

Zooming out and looking at the trip as a whole, a loose plan developed. The flight from Sodus to Jasper, GA would require roughly six hours and the flight from Jasper, GA to Vero Beach, FL roughly four hours. For the Sodus to Jasper flight, a few operating principles were in play:

• Legs no longer than four hours (for fuel), but preferably capped at three hours (for comfort). A six hour flight definitely required a fuel stop.
• Afternoon flying in the south should be minimized to avoid convective activity.
• No night flying with the family on board, especially around mountains.

We have managed these principles differently over the years. For fuel planning, we have combined fuel and lunch stops at places with on-field restaurants somewhat weather-proofed by decent instrument approaches leading to a preference for towered airports. We have also chosen quick-turn fuel stops and eaten picnic lunches at altitude. That saves time en route and removes the on-field restaurant constraint when identifying fuel stops. We have often stopped overnight to visit Dad in Knoxville, TN, but for various reasons he was not able to host us this year. Regardless of the specific plan, an early start is always essential to shoehorn most of the flying into the first half of the day.

For 2026, I decided to break up the southbound flight with an overnight stay that would also serve as a fuel stop. With SurnameFest starting on Saturday, July 18, we could fly partway there after work on Friday, July 17. In that case, only two hours of flying were practicable before dark. Two hours along the route from Sodus to Jasper put us in the vicinity of Pittsburgh, PA. In short order, I discovered that the Allegheny County Airport (KAGC, towered) immediately south of Pittsburgh's city center had a reasonably regarded FBO (Vantage) with a well-rated Holiday Inn Express right across the street. Perfect.

Departing Allegheny County the next morning, a four hour leg to Jasper could be completed by noon. However, remembering that my friends Brent and Jackie are in Knoxville, we arranged to meet them for lunch on Saturday, splitting the day into a three hour leg from Allegheny County to Knoxville's Mc Ghee Tyson Airport (KTYS) followed by a short one hour hop to Jasper.

Plan A was born.

Where There's Smoke, There's...

Um... Possibly a Fire Hundreds of Miles Away

Then the smoke came. Dense wildfire smoke from the vast Canadian wilderness blanketed Michigan and New York, leading me to scrub a flight to Michigan for an uncle's funeral on July 15. For several days, we awoke to an orange sky with a faint aroma of campfire lingering in the air. While long range weather forecasts supported Plan A, I was concerned about the effects of flying in smoke on both the health of my family and the airplane itself. After extensive reading, it became apparent that we were too far away from the source of the smoke to expect much harm to the Warrior's engine. With an asthmatic daughter, however, I wanted to minimize my family's exposure. N95 masks would help because they filter out the 2.5 micron particulate matter that contribute significantly to air quality indices (AQI) in smoke.

In planning, I spent a lot of time on the NOAA High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) Smoke Model website. The good news was that the smoke was forecast to blow out of the Rochester, NY area on our departure day. The bad news was that it was being blown southwest directly to Pittsburgh which had a predicted Friday evening AQI above 300 where "very unhealthy" transitions to "hazardous". A potential mitigating factor was that the HRRR model predicted smoke density at 6,000 feet to be significantly reduced versus 1,000 feet. This suggested that there might be a Warrior-accessible altitude where we could climb above the smoke en route.

I ruminated on other plans, but they mostly just moved the problems around or made them worse. Delaying departure to Saturday morning meant a return of smoke to Rochester, NY and six hours to Jasper in one day. While that smoke was expected to move out of the area by Saturday afternoon, further delay would create a conflict with afternoon thunderstorms forecast in Rochester and push our arrival quite late. In the end, we stuck to Plan A. It was absolutely the right choice.

Over an Aromatic Sea

Date	Aircraft	Route of Flight	Time (hrs)	Total (hrs)
17 Jul 2026	N21481	SDC (Sodus, NY) - AGC (Pittsburgh, PA)	2.3	3190.1

On Friday, July 17, I departed work at the usual time. As forecast, the smoke cleared out of Rochester throughout the day and, by departure time, we enjoyed a clear sky and a low enough AQI that deep breathing was a comfortable prospect. We packed the car and enjoyed sushi tacos for dinner at local fusion restaurant, Sendu. With a goal of landing in Pittsburgh near sunset, the clock was ticking, but we were unhurried. With a short, two hour flight for the evening, we were not attempting to cover any remarkable distance in an unreasonable amount of time. In fact, the whole itinerary was designed to make the flying portions of vacation as stress-free as possible.

We launched from Sodus just prior to 7:00 pm on an IFR flight plan to Allegheny County Airport in Pittsburgh, PA. While IFR flight plans are already my standard practice for cross country flights, Pittsburgh forecasts waffled all day about instrument conditions at our destination. Throw in the unpredictability of smoke altitudes and it was best to be in the system throughout the journey and ready to fly an instruments whenever needed.

Plan A: Sodus, NY (KSDC) to Allegheny County (KAGC) in Pittsburgh, PA

I filed for 8,000 feet, but Rochester held us at 6,000 while an IFR Cirrus at 8,000 flew overhead on a crossing trajectory. Though we were comfortably out of the smoke in the Rochester area, air to the southwest possessed a grey opacity that did not exist in any other direction. The smoke was out there and it was waiting for us.

Looking south across the top of the smoke layer from 8,000 feet.

Ultimately, the Cirrus ceased to be a factor and Rochester cleared us to 8,000 feet before we reached the effluent from those distant wildfires. The top of the layer was crisply defined with clear air above and a dirty chemical mélange of particles and aromatics below. Oblique rays from the evening sun opacified the featureless layer of fumes, screening the ground from view as completely as an overcast cloud layer. 

As we neared Pittsburgh and the sun's arc carried it closer to the horizon, I monitored weather conditions at Allegheny County. Officially IFR, the airport was reporting 1.25 mile visibility in smoke. Appropriately enough, smoke is expressed as "FU" in teletype-METAR-speak. 

Oh, did you want to fly in clear, clean air? Well, FU.

Near sunset, Pittsburgh Approach put us into the literal soup. "Cherokee Four Eight One, proceed direct GUGTE for the ILS-28 approach at County. Descend and maintain 3,000 feet."

Taken 0.1 nautical miles from the runway 28 threshold. Photo by The Bear.

We closed the outside air vents and both Kristy and The Bear masked up in N95s. We sank into the unnaturally uniform gray murk. There were zero visual references outside, though individual lights on the ground became visible as we lost altitude. I could smell the smoke, but was busy enough flying the airplane that I did not dwell on it. Despite passing Pittsburgh's city center four miles north of the airport, we never saw it. Unfortunately, the approach lighting system for runway 28 was out of service, making the airport harder to find. We passed the final approach fix (3.8 miles from the runway threshold) without any sign of the airport ahead and I began to wonder if we would make it into Allegheny County at all. Then, two lines of apparently converging lights materialized from the charcoal air: runway 28. On very short final, a recognizable airport finally appeared beyond the windscreen. 

In most of my flying, instrument conditions are set by ceiling rather than visibility. I think this was the lowest visibility approach I had ever made.

Total time from the top of descent to shutting down on the Vantage ramp was only fifteen minutes. We were immediately swarmed by three lineman who dutifully chocked the wheels, fueled the Warrior from the truck, and assisted with the cabin cover. "How was it flying through the smoke?" they all wanted to know. I shrugged. We were not in it for long and the impact to flight visibility was obvious.

When I explained to the supervisor that we planned to stay at the Holiday Inn across the street and depart first thing the next morning, he thoughtfully provided us with a crew car so that we did not have to walk in the smoke. A junior associate moved to a computer and began typing, but the supervisor stopped him. "Don't put the car on his account or they'll try to charge him for it tomorrow morning." He handed me a set of keys with a smile. 

"You're all set, have a great night."

The Overnight Cleansing

"Here in Pittsburgh, everything is built into the sides of hills. We're actually on level two now, but your room is on level one," explained the woman at the front counter of the Holiday Inn Express. She delivered a friendly check-in informed by local architectural biases critical to our effective use of the elevator. What more could we have asked for?

The hotel itself was clean and comfortable, but possessed a discernible campfire aroma from the wildfire smoke outside. The next morning, I awoke to the sound of thunder and torrential rain. All forecasts indicated that the weather would move off to the northeast by the time we returned to the airport and that the path to Knoxville would be entirely unfettered. While the precipitation may have pulled some of the particulate matter out of the air, Pittsburgh's AQI numbers that morning were still north of 200 ("very unhealthy"). We consumed (I won't go quite so far as to say "enjoyed") the complimentary hotel breakfast, checked out, and returned to Vantage.

Old Friends

Date	Aircraft	Route of Flight	Time (hrs)	Total (hrs)
18 Jul 2026	N21481	SDC (Sodus, NY) - TYS (Knoxville, TN) - JZP (Jasper, GA)	4.9	3195.0

In the shadow of a massive thunderhead to the east, Allegheny County Airport (airport # 301) had traded its charcoal complexion from the night before for one of crisp blue. It was cooler, cleaner, and definitely wetter than when we arrived.

That cleansing rain deposited a lot of atmospheric filth on Warrior 481's white wings. She would not be clean again until we returned home a week later. Better on the wings than in our lungs, I always say! Nonetheless, she weathered the storm well with a dry interior and fuel that tested free of water.

With our invoice settled, we clambered aboard and received our instrument clearance to Knoxville from Allegheny Ground. Though the sky seemed much clearer than the night before, official field visibility was still IFR at 1.25 miles in smoke.

Planned route from Allegheny County Airport (KAGC) to Mc Ghee Tyson Airport (KTYS).

We launched at 8:00 am and climbed directly to an 8,000 foot cruise altitude. A strong headwind suppressed our groundspeed to as low as 90 knots.

We proceeded southwest across West Virginia, portions of Kentucky, a sliver of Virginia, and ultimately reached Tennessee after three hours of flying. I had told Brent to expect us at Signature - Knoxville around 11:30.

I originally met Brent and Jackie in January 1999 when I interviewed for what became my first "grown up" job at "The Company" in Kalamazoo, MI. Both were part of my interview team. Jackie was the "good cop" in a tag team two-on-one interview with Brian ("bad cop" and, later, my boss at "GoodCo" until quite recently). When I finally completed my doctorate and joined the company in September, Brent was appointed as my official mentor and we shared a laboratory for my first two years there. A rigorous and thoughtful scientist, Brent was a wonderful mentor and a good friend and we have remained in contact since the 2005 Kalamazoo diaspora. I believe that a significant part of my career success is a direct result of Brent's mentorship. I also served on a project team led by Jackie and benefitted greatly from her knowledge, experience, and forthright guidance. As a pair, they embody all that I loved about my original cohort at work and I was greatly looking forward to reuniting with them after many years.

As we flew southwest, the air continued to clear until there was no hint of wildfire smoke. The transition was so striking that it was almost difficult to believe our own memories of the abysmal air quality in Pittsburgh the night before.

West of our trajectory, a line of thunderstorms towered over the landscape. An obvious worst case scenario for me was that those cells would roam eastbound and overrun Knoxville during our lunch stop and strand us there. Regretfully, I considered skipping the lunchtime rendezvous and continuing directly to Jasper. But animating the uplinked weather radar showed that the storms were more or less stationary and I decided that it was worth risking the landing.

Radio Set to "Amateur"

Knoxville lay under a marginal VFR ceiling when we arrived and Approach sent us direct to NEYLN to join the ILS procedure for runway 23R. The Mc Ghee Tyson facility consists of two parallel runways, 5L/23R and 5R/23L, but the latter was closed for repaving and all arrivals were being routed to a single runway. Knoxville controllers were talking fast enough to qualify as auctioneers.

We broke out of the clouds prior to BUZBY, the final approach fix, so I did not log the approach despite flying most of it in IMC. The real struggle came shortly after touching down on 10,000 foot long runway 23R (airport #302).

"November Four Eight One, exit Bravo 3, then Tango, cross runway 23L, Alpha 4, Alpha to Signature." This instruction came out in exactly half the amount of time needed to say all the words and, though I slept reasonably well at the Holiday Inn the night before, I evidently didn't sleep well enough because my brain felt like mush when I tried to process the information.

Uh...

"Bravo three, Tango...um...say again the rest."

The controller repeated his directive at the same excessive delivery rate as before which was profoundly unhelpful. Still rolling along the runway, I confirmed that I was not about to roll past Bravo 3 and risked going eyes down to scan the taxiway diagram for context to make sense of what the controller was telling me.

"Bravo 3, Tango, Alpha 4, Alpha, Cherokee Four Eight One" I repeated with relief when it finally made sense.

"Cross runway 23L," reminded the controller. I don't know why I did not absorb that instruction. I know that reading back all runway crossing instructions is mandatory. Maybe it was because I had lined out that runway in red on the diagram in ForeFlight because it was closed and at least half of it was obviously missing, having been taken down to dirt. Clearly, no aircraft were using runway 23L that day.

"Cross runway 23L," I repeated, feeling every bit the amateur in a professional's domain as we taxied across the commercial airport. It should not have been that hard.

Moments after arrival in Knoxville.

Not being equipped with multiple turbine engines, we were not marshalled under the nifty covered parking area at Signature. But that was OK. Sure, we paid $8.25 a gallon for fuel, but Signature waived the $30 handling fee, we were only charged an $8 facility fee, and they treated us well. For a high roller FBO at a bigger airport, it was still a best case scenario.

We had a terrific lunch at the Blackhorse Pub & Brewery with Brent and Jackie that was filled with laughter and fun reminiscences. The Bear was a toddler the last time she saw them on a visit to their New Jersey home in 2008. I am truly grateful to them for making the time to meet us. One failing of the occasion is that no one thought to get a picture, but for mutual friends wondering what they look like these days, neither one of them appears to have aged since the exodus from Kalamazoo. It's wonderfully uncanny.

Our very talkative three hour lunch was longer than I planned and I did not start the Warrior's engine until 3:17 pm. By then, cumulus were building around Knoxville in great white piles of fluffy violence. With a goal of staying below the bases, I filed an IFR flight plan to Jasper via GROSS intersection to swing our trajectory southwest around the foothills of the Smokies and allow for a lower cruise altitude. This was cleared as filed. 

"Cherokee Four Eight One, taxi runway 23R via Alpha, cross runway 23L, Sierra, Bravo."

OK, I got this.

"23R via Alpha, Sierra, Bravo, Cherokee Four Eight One."

"Four Eight One, and cross runway 23L."

Dammit!

On some days, my radio work is on fire and on others, it's just up in flames.

On departure, isolated storm cells were forming close enough to Mc Ghee Tyson that we overheard inbound airliners requesting deviations. We passed through some developing cumulus clouds, but they were not terribly bumpy. Even so, I secured permission from Knoxville Departure to deviate around them as needed.

Georgia on Our Minds

Filed route from Mc Ghee Tyson (KTYS) in Knoxville, TN to Pickens County Airport (KJZP) in Jasper, GA.

Pickens County Airport in Jasper sits on a low hilltop with manmade overruns dropping steeply away from the runway. Wind information was not available from the AWOS, but I expected that runway 34 was favored based on broadcasts from Gilmer County Airport to the north and Cherokee County Airport to the south. When prompted, I requested the RNAV-34 from Atlanta Center and was sent direct to VIVIC, an approach fix that I distinctly remembered from 2023 as part of a valuable lesson after Center slam dunked me on that very same approach in IMC ("Bears in Blue Ridge | Part 2, Slam Dunk Into Jasper"). With that lesson from three years ago firmly in mind, I set course for VIVIC.

Unfortunately, when I tried to call up the approach procedure on my iPad, it wasn't available. This was the first time since I started flying with an iPad and ForeFlight in 2014 that I had failed to update all the necessary data for flight. That moment put me into mental overload. It was 4:00 in the afternoon, I was hot and tired after flying nearly five hours, flustered by "Micro Machines Man" working the tower at Knoxville, and irked by the lack of wind information out of Jasper and the missing approach procedures from ForeFlight.

Crosswind entry to the pattern for runway 34 at Pickens County Airport in Jasper, GA.

Fortunately, I was able to call up the instrument procedure on my phone, which had been synced prior to flight. As I gathered my mental legs back under me, we broke out laterally from the clouds into a massive clearing directly over the airport. Having based at Pickens County in 2023, I immediately recognized the field and my frustration disappeared. As soon as I could get a word in edgewise with Atlanta Center, I cancelled IFR and we flew a VFR pattern to a smooth landing on runway 34.

While the ramp looked the same as it had in 2023, the ramshackle terminal building -- the one that had a couch placed at a particular spot to prevent people from falling through the floor -- was replaced by a beautiful new building set to open a few weeks later. Airport operations were being conducted from a temporary trailer.

As in 2023, Enterprise-Jasper dutifully dropped off a vehicle, another brightly colored Dodge product. Rather than the midsize car I'd requested or the purple Charger we had last time, our ground transportation for the week was a blue Durango. Clearly, the Jasper office had predilections for Dodge products with big engines.

Can We Meet on Higher Ground?

We have spent enough time in the region over multiple family gatherings that the route on highway 515 between Jasper and Ellijay was familiar.

Photo by The Bear.

For example, my favorite "refills or reloads" billboard is still up, a clear cut example of how we were no longer in New York.

Our rental house, Higher Ground, occupied the top of a mountain in a private community called Watersong.

The babbling creek for which Watersong was presumably named.

The first thing we noticed about Watersong was a very particular neighborhood speed limit. While public roads require speed limits ending in "0" or "5", private streets can declare whatever they want. Our consensus opinion is that the oddball limit is intended to catch drivers' attention. It works simply because it looks weird.

Mornings above the fog were truly glorious.

Each dawn inspired me to hum Misty Mountain Hop.

With 3.3 miles of streets and a total elevation gain of 600+ feet, I walked the entire neighborhood each morning at my normal pace in lieu of  daily hikes in the woods at home. Better cardio, fewer ticks.

Our home for the week was named Higher Ground. Despite looking like many of the other properties in the community, this one was immediately recognizable because it had my big blue Dodge Durango parked in front of it.

One day, I even made a friend. He didn't say much.

At Higher Ground, we settled in for an idyllic week of fellowship, game playing (including my first sessions of Dungeons & Dragons since college, thanks Pam!), collaborative meal prep, more thermostat disputes than usual, fun mountain hikes, home invasion by weird bugs, and a great side trip for me to Piper in Vero Beach, FL that will be the subject of the next installment.

There is always something new to learn when planning a long cross country flight. Sometimes, it comes down to negotiating challenging terrain, navigating bigger or more complex airports, or managing unusual procedures like the FRZ. In this case, planning led to a deep dive into smoke, its effects on people and airplanes, and the arcane art of predicting smoke movement through the HRRR. 

And sometimes, there are turtles!

The Long Road to Giving Back

Public Benefit Flying

I flew my first Angel Flight on July 1, 2026. It was a milestone that was a long time coming.

AOPA (Aviation Owners and Pilots Association) calls this segment of aviation "public benefit flying", which is an apt name. There are many ways that aircraft owners can use their airplanes for the greater good. Examples include flying supplies into areas struck by disaster, ferrying companion animals to new homes across state lines ("The Human Chain: How Dougall Got His Wings"), and transporting medical patients in cases where the journey is a barrier to treatment. The latter is where Angel Flight comes in.

I have been drawn to medical transport flights for as long as I have been aware of them. People suffering from rare or complicated disorders must often travel to treatment centers that specialize in managing their conditions. Sometimes, those medical centers are too far from home for the drive to be reasonable and commercial flights are financially out of reach for the patient. However, general aviation aircraft excel in providing timely regional transport. Several organizations coordinate these services, but one of the best known is Angel Flight, an umbrella organization with multiple regional "wings" operating across the country. Angel Flights are not air ambulance services for emergency transport. Instead, they support qualifying patients with non-urgent, but still important, travel needs who are sufficiently ambulatory to board a light aircraft.

Where Angels Fear to Tread

My first discussion around this kind of flying occurred circa 2005. I was an inexperienced VFR-only pilot that had just become an aircraft owner and I was unprepared when the subject of medical transport flying was raised by my barber. He had been cutting my hair since before I was a pilot, throughout my flight training, and during the process of buying Warrior 481. With clippers in hand, he had listened to stories of my progression over the years. In 2005, his wife needed treatment at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, which was not an easy commute from Kalamazoo, MI. He broached the subject with me while I was sitting in his chair and described how challenging the travel would be for her. "I know that sometimes pilots fly patients in airplanes like yours. Do you think you could fly her in your airplane?"

Moments like these are why the phrase "deer in the headlights" was coined. I was a green aircraft owner with limited cross country experience. Kristy and I had not yet undertaken our foundational "once in a lifetime" (how naive!) flight from South Haven, MI to Fort Myers, FL ("An Aerial Road Trip to Fort Myers or How Kristy Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Airplane"). And it was March in the Great Lakes region, a season fraught with unpredictable weather. I was not routinely conversant with cross country flying and not equipped to manage any significant weather along the way. Even twenty years later and as an experienced instrument rated pilot, making a flight from Kalamazoo, MI to Rochester, MN in March would give me pause. Whether he realized it or not, this was a big ask.

My desire to help was aspirational, but not practical and I realized that it was beyond my capability. There are good reasons why medical transport charities often require their volunteer pilots to hold instrument ratings. I saw such profound dismay in his face when I told him. Though I tried to explain the pitfalls from my perspective as a newbie aircraft owner, I think he was only able to process my refusal to help. His disappointment was so palpable that memory of it still stings twenty years later.

It was the right decision at the time, but I aspired to be better positioned to help someday.

Clipped Wings

In the summer of 2012, I was introduced to the founder of a regional aviation medical transport charity that I will not identify here (the Organization That Shall Not Be Named). We met beneath a scorching sun at the Greatest Show on Turf airshow in Geneseo, NY while World War II aircraft roared overhead. The introduction was made by Ed V, a mutual friend who described me as a proficient pilot and experienced aircraft owner. At this, the fellow's interest was piqued and he squinted at me with a more critical eye. 

"Are you instrument rated?"

I was exactly three lessons into training for my instrument rating and told him so. He reached out to shake my hand and looked me in the eye. "You call me when you have that instrument ticket. We're always looking for good pilots to help our patients get the treatments they need." I was excited by this meeting because it aligned exactly with my aspirations.

Months later, still toiling away on the instrument rating, still occasionally forgetting to start that damn timer on approaches, I asked Ed V how his volunteer medical transport flying was going. Never one to mince words, Ed V practically spat his response.

"Stay away from those guys." He explained that the Organization That Shall Not Be Named frequently put pressure on him to fly missions in weather conditions that he judged unsafe. After butting heads on this point too many times with the very same founder he'd introduced me to, Ed walked away from that organization and ultimately started flying for a regional airline. I knew Ed well and knew that he was someone who liked to help others; he once helped me rescue Warrior 481 after we had to abandon her in Michigan due to weather and came to the rescue again the day Darrell and I had the carburetor fire in Hudson, NY.

Disillusioned and deeply concerned by Ed V's experience, I put my aspirations aside.

Workin' Them Angels

Years passed. My friend Ed C began flying for some of the medical transport charities operating in the northeast, including a pair of Angel Flight wings. Particularly noteworthy to me was that he did not fly for the Organization That Shall Not Be Named and, from what I could see, his experiences appeared to be very positive.

So I asked him about them. It was 2024 and I specifically questioned him about how the organizations operated and their safety cultures. As background for my questioning, I shared the story of the Organization That Shall Not Be Named. Ed C explained that his experiences were not at all like what Ed V described and that there was a tremendous emphasis placed on safety and support for Pilot in Command decision making. Moreover, he validated Ed V's observations by sharing that he once flew with a patient familiar with the Organization That Shall Not Be Named. That patient echoed similar concerns to Ed V.

Over the holidays between 2024 and 2025, I applied to a pair of regional Angel Flight wings. My applications passed muster with both groups and the next step was to provide documentation, including insurance. Because my insurance renews in early March and one of the organizations wanted to be named on my insurance, I waited until I had a new insurance certificate to share.

Before that, March 4, 2025 happened. "You're diabetic. Here, take this drug," said the PA, thus disqualifying me from exercising my existing third class medical certificate for a time ("Warrior 481 Gets a Useful Load Increase"). My biggest project in 2025 was managing the condition, getting off the drug entirely, and switching from a third class medical to BasicMed. Unfortunately, I had gotten it into my head that BasicMed would not qualify me to fly for these organizations and I put the dream aside yet again.

In early 2025, I received a "Hey Chris, whatever happened to you?" query from the coordinator at Angel Flight Northeast. I explained my situation. "I completely understand," the coordinator responded. "I've been down that road myself. But if you're flying on BasicMed, you can absolutely fly for us."

Fantastic! I was in! I collected the rest of the required paperwork, did the necessary on-line training, and qualified as a command pilot for Angel Flight Northeast. As part of my welcome to the organization, I received my very own unique callsign for use when transporting a patient, Angel Flight 1096.

Matchmaker, Matchmaker

With the airplane unavailable in early 2026 for annual inspection and avionics installation, by March I was working to familiarize myself with the GTN 650 Xi. Is it still called "buttonology" when there are virtually no buttons? Finally, by April, I was ready to engage

Angel Flight Northeast notifies their volunteer pilots of missions in a website portal, providing information about the date and time, origin and destination airports, and total weight (combined for the patient, anyone accompanying the patient, and luggage). When too many missions remain pilotless too long, the organization sends an email prompt to pilots highlighting unmet needs. In more urgent cases, I receive direct texts about missions in search of pilots. While I don't know the specific algorithm used for these direct texts, they seem to target immediate needs for flights with origin or destination airports close to home.

I perused the portal, read the emails, and explored the text messages.  I struggled to find missions of reasonable distance for a Cherokee, within Warrior 481's weight limitations, or at a time that I could accommodate with my schedule. Finally, I found the perfect mission. It was on a Sunday (no work conflict) from Buffalo to Philadelphia. Both airports were in a reasonable operational geography for me and I had landed at both more than once. I bid on the mission and got it.

Once confirmed as pilot for the mission, Angel Flight NE provides an itinerary with all of the details and urges the volunteer pilot to contact the patient to confirm details and build rapport. I was unprepared for the reaction I received when I made that phone call.

When I introduced myself as a volunteer pilot, the prospective passenger interjected aggressively. "Is this one of those little airplanes?" he queried gruffly. Then, before I could answer, "Because if it is, I don't want any part of that. You tell them...you call them and you tell them that I don't want any part of that."

I am not often stunned into silence, but I was in this case. I stammered out some well wishes for him, promised to relay his concerns to Angel Flight, and ended the call. When I shared the fellow's reaction with Angel Flight, they were also taken aback because all new patients are counseled on how the organization works and what types of aircraft are involved. "But we'll talk to him." Within a day, both the outgoing and return missions for that patient disappeared from the portal. I guess he really did not want any part of that.

Undaunted, I found another mission that met the same sorting criteria, applied for it, and received confirmation that I was assigned as the pilot. But when I attempted calling the patient, only a nine digit phone number was provided. When I reported this to Angel Flight, they verified that the same number was in their intake paperwork and reached out to the patient to correct the error.

"Well, here it is," responded the patient by email, "but when I didn't hear anything back from you right away, I scheduled my flight with PALS." PALS is another organization that operates in our region. Angel Flight NE sent "never mind" emails to me and the pilot attached to fly the return leg.

This was not going at all the way I envisioned.

Next, I signed up to pilot a flight on July 1 from Burke Lakefront (BKL) in Cleveland, OH to Essex County Airport (CDW) in Caldwell, NJ. The mission would describe a massive triangle from New York to Ohio to New Jersey. It would be a long day of flying, but I was familiar with both airports and it was scheduled on a day when my work calendar was generally open. I am not fond of cold calling people I do not know and still harbored some residual anxiety from my experience with the "I don't want any part of that" guy, but this patient -- I'll call her RF -- was delightful. She was an experienced Angel Flight flyer, absolutely understood how everything worked, and exercised a sharp sense of humor and optimistic enthusiasm that belied her ongoing battle with a chronic malady.

In the interim, I received an urgent text for a flight from Rochester to Baltimore on Saturday, June 27. I studied up on Baltimore, decided that it was a Bravo I was willing to tackle, and called Angel Flight about taking it. "Oh, sorry, another pilot called a minute before you did." It was Ed C. Small world, eh? For future reference, he gave Baltimore a thumbs up.

In the runup to July 1, I exchanged a few texts with RF. She was trying to manage multiple appointments during her time in Cleveland (our flight together would return her to home) and the schedule was dynamic. I had taken the entire day off as vacation, so I was flexible. My only concern was a late enough arrival at Caldwell that the solo flight home to Sodus would happen at night. I am fully capable of flying in the dark, but doing so significantly reduces options in an emergency. While there are several airports along the direct route to Sodus that would provide an "out" if needed, flying that route at night was not my preference.

Ready To Rock

Date	Aircraft	Route of Flight	Time (hrs)	Total (hrs)
01 Jul 2026	N21481	SDC (Sodus, NY) - BKL (Cleveland, OH)	2.3	3177.8

Warrior 481 powered smoothly through clear air above the haze and clouds in which I'd spent my only 0.1 hour of IMC time that day clearing. Surface temperatures in the mid 90 °F range seemed enough to physically melt the asphalt runway I departed from, but above the haze layer at 8,000 feet, 68 °F air blasted at me through the wide open vents. I brought (and drank) plenty of water to fend off the combined dehydrating effects of heat, elevation, and high cockpit airflow. I took no pictures inbound to Cleveland, the world below was drab and shrouded in haze.

Burke Lakefront Airport, photographed June 12, 2026.

"I hope you have comfortable traveling clothes, it's going to be a hot one," I cautioned RF during one of our text exchanges.

"I sure do!" she responded. As an experienced Angel Flight flyer, I wondered if she had prior experience with Piper Cherokee "air conditioning" (i.e., an open door during ground operations). We would find out.

Inbound, I contemplated the political challenges faced by Burke Lakefront Airport. The unique downtown lakeside facility is under threat from Cleveland's mayor, Justin Bibb, who claims that the facility is unused. My mission that day underscored exactly why Burke Lakefront is important; it is a mere three miles from the Cleveland Clinic.

Despite VFR conditions, I did not get a visual on massive runway 24R until about 12 miles out due to haze. When Cleveland Approach sent me direct to BOGGE to fly the ILS-24R approach, I was ready. I shared the airspace and frequency with multiple other aircraft inbound to Burke Lakefront. 

An airport that nobody uses, eh?

When I arrived on the Signature ramp, I was stunned by how full it was, from multiengine piston twins, turboprops, and light jets to a full on American Airlines airliner (a 737, I think). Inside, the FBO was bustling and the harried woman running the front desk took great care of me despite wearing many hats that afternoon. Because I was there for an Angel Flight mission, she waived all of the fees, including the local government $7 landing fee, and provided a $1/gallon fuel discount. I had plugged my iPad into a brick to recharge and she tucked it safely behind the counter while I ventured into the city for lunch.

Signature Aviation, Burke Lakefront.

Someone tell me daughter that I had an encounter with the ship that "hates" me.

I walked a half mile in the heat for a late lunch/early dinner at the Winking Lizard, but in spite of everything that their website claimed, the restaurant was closed. I did an about face, walked past the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame undergoing renovation, and had lunch at Nuevo Modern Mexican. My chimichanga looked fantastic, but if I'm being honest, it was a little bland.

While eating, I received a text from RF that she had been delayed further in her appointments. I've never had a medical appointment that wrapped up on time and did not expect that she would, either. "No problem! See you when you get here."

Back at the FBO, I recovered my iPad and brick, noting that the brick was starting to swell slightly. Time to stop using that. I checked email while waiting for RF. When I received her "I'm almost there" text, I responded, "Look for the nerd with the Wright Flyer blueprint t-shirt, that will be me." She laughed in response, but it worked and she knew me right off.

Warrior 481 can deliver, but this little guy might have been more capable.

I procured some bottled water for her from the Signature refrigerator and escorted her to the airplane. She seemed tired, which became more apparent when she described a grueling three days of visiting with different doctors in different offices while lugging her baggage from place to place. As I worked the 3D Tetris problem to fit her luggage into the baggage compartment, she marveled. "Oh, you've done that before!"

"A time or two, yes."

Chock & Roll Hall of Fame

I did the preflight inspection of the airplane before her arrival to expedite departure and minimize time in the heat. I explained Piper "air conditioning" and, while she gave me a dubious look, she was game. With baggage packed, seat belts fastened, and passenger briefing done, it was time to crank the engine.

Then I remembered. I had not removed the chocks from the main wheels, something that I normally attend to during preflight. Because I did the preflight early, I had left the airplane chocked.

Don't forget the chocks!

Facepalm. Well, might as well rip the Band-Aid right off.

"I'm sorry, I forgot to remove the wheel chocks and I have to ask you to get out again."

"The what?" responded my non-aviator passenger.

"I'll show you, but I have to ask you to get back out. I'm really sorry." I felt like such a goober. RF gamely extricated herself from the airplane and watched as I smoothly emerged and stepped lightly to the ground. 

"That's what twenty years of experience gets you!" she noted good naturedly, referring to my well practiced exit from the cockpit. With some embarrassment, I pulled the wheel chocks while trying to convince myself that it was not all bad because I discovered the lapse before starting the engine.

Once back in the airplane, RF had her book -- Sally Hepworth's The Things We Keep -- ready to go on her lap. I explained that the choice was hers. If she wanted to chat, we could do that. If she preferred to read, I could isolate her at the audio panel so that she did not have to listen to all the radio chatter. Once again, I noticed how tired she appeared to be and was unsurprised when she took to the idea of some quiet time.

Insert Awkward Call Sign Here

With RF isolated and the engine running, I listened to Burke Lakefront's ATIS before contacting ground. I knew that I was in a positive groove when the initial call up rolled out smoothly and professionally. "Lakefront Ground, Cherokee Two One Four Eight One at Signature with kilo, we have an IFR filed to Caldwell, Charlie Delta Whiskey."

"Cherokee Four Eight One, Lakefront Ground, standby while I look for that." With those words, my heart sank. I'd already blathered my tail number instead of my filed call sign, despite the fact that it was written directly at the top of my kneeboard in a place where I supposedly could not have missed it.

NGF1096

"Apologies, that flight plan will be under Angel Flight One Zero Niner Six." The syllables of the unfamiliar call sign tumbled out with awkward unfamiliarity. In that moment, I was glad that RF was isolated.

Lakefront Ground did not miss a beat, most likely because the strip was sitting directly in front of her. "Angel Flight Ten Ninety-Six, you're cleared to Caldwell as filed, climb and maintain 2,000 feet, expect 7,000 feet one zero minutes after departure..."

Ten Ninety-Six? That sounds way cooler than how I said it. Every controller I talked with, from Cleveland to New York and all points in between called me Ten Ninety-Six. 

I like it.

A Meditative State

 

Date	Aircraft	Route of Flight	Time (hrs)	Total (hrs)
01 Jul 2026	N21481	BKL (Cleveland, OH) - CDW (Caldwell, NJ)	3.4	3181.2

Taxi, run-up, and take off were all perfunctory. I coached RF through latching the door before the engine runup. On departure, Lakefront Tower put us on a heading toward the middle of Lake Erie and we rose skyward, atmospheric haze smudging water and sky into an undifferentiated azure vista. The view was suggestive of being confined within a ball. There were no ships, no clouds, no land, no horizon...just blue. Cleveland Departure took over from Tower, vectored us back toward shore, then cleared us direct to the Stillwater VOR, the only fix in my filed route to Caldwell. As noted in an earlier post, there is a dearth of airways between Cleveland and western New York/Pennsylvania. Going more or less direct was really the only viable way to go.

At 7,000 feet, we skimmed the top of the haze layer sped along by a 25 knot tailwind. In the days leading up to the flight, I worried that some forecast models predicted thunderstorms over Caldwell, but that risk diminished significantly by the day of the flight. I selected RF's position at the audio panel, explained that we were at our cruise altitude, provided an updated ETA into Caldwell, and expressed some relief at the lack of thunderstorms along our trajectory. I pointed out the massive anvil-shaped thunderhead far off of our left wing as an example of what I hoped to avoid that evening. Had I not been so focused on her comfort and this leg of the journey, I might have recognized that the thunderhead was in the direction of Buffalo and likely to impact my flight home that night.

To ensure a smooth ride, I engaged HAL and fell into a routine of monitoring systems, switching fuel tanks every thirty minutes, and making minor power adjustments as needed. We flew past many familiar airports, each having made an impact on my personal aviation story. Despite the familiarity of those landing sites, their order of appearance was definitively unfamiliar because of our eastbound heading. As a New York based pilot, Pennsylvania naturally seems like a state meant to be transited along a north-south axis. Traversing the Keystone state in an orthogonal direction just felt weird.

RF switched between reading and dozing. While she slept, I experienced the same sense of singular responsibility that I once felt when The Bear slept in flight as an infant. 

Later in the flight, once over eastern PA, I could see evidence of three thunderstorms ahead. One north of our trajectory, one south of our trajectory, and one seemingly straight ahead, but dissipating rapidly and not likely to be a factor. When Allentown descended us to 5,000 feet, RF awoke and wanted to chat. I pointed to the clouds and explained where the weather was relative our flight path. 

"I like this." She commented. "The engine sound is almost like white noise." She peered out the window at the passing Earth. "It's all very...meditative." "Meditative" was a lovely word that truly fit the moment.

I asked how she learned about Angel Flight. "A friend. Angel Flight has been such a blessing."

We descended into the damp embrace of heat and haze permeating New Jersey. New York Approach vectored us onto the RNAV-22 approach into Caldwell. I was grateful for this because it meant that I did not need to play the "where's the airport?" game in the haze with RF on board.

On the Air Bound ramp at Essex County Airport in Caldwell, NJ.

The landing was smooth and moments later we were marshalled to parking on the Air Bound Aviation ramp. I needed to wait for fuel because the FBO was fueling the fuel truck when we arrived. I unloaded RF's luggage from the back of the Warrior and escorted her inside where she requested an Uber. While we waited, we chatted further on the topics of being nerds, kids taking after their parents (and also being nerds), and healthcare.

"I have a surgery scheduled next week back in Cleveland," she disclosed. 

I did not want to pry and struggled to parse my next question. "Will it take care of you going forward?"

"Actually, it's to fix a mistake from an earlier surgery."

"Oh," I said, putting as much sympathetic weight into the word as I could. "That's the worst reason for surgery."

RF shrugged. "Doctors are human, too." Then she made a genuinely funny self deprecating joke. I complimented her on keeping a sense of humor in the face of a daunting chronic condition. She nodded.

"You have to. I've seen what happens when you don't." She paused. "It's not good." I knew from experience that she was absolutely right and could only nod quietly in response.

Her phone buzzed, announcing the arrival of her Uber. She thanked me again for the flight and for being flexible, offering that maybe we would fly together again sometime. I took that to mean I had done well by her. It was the most important bit of indirect feedback I received all day. She gathered her things and was gone.

Say! What's that cloud formation in the distance?

Act Three: Solo Again

Date	Aircraft	Route of Flight	Time (hrs)	Total (hrs)
01 July 2026	N21481	CDW (Caldwell, NJ) - SDC (Sodus, NY)	2.2	3183.4

It was not my intention to make the flight home after dark, but there I was, barreling down Caldwell's  runway 22 at 8:50 pm, about 20 minutes after sunset. The original plan was to be en route home by 6:30 pm, but between RF's morphing schedule, the delays in Cleveland, and the wait for fuel at Caldwell, I either needed to fly home in the dark or stay the night in New Jersey. I had foolishly planned to work the next day and was not prepared to stay the night anywhere.

I listened to the Caldwell ATIS more than once to fully understand that VFR departures to the northwest (like me) were advised to remain at or below 1,500 feet to avoid conflicting with arrivals on Morristown's RNAV-23 approach, which was in use at the time. Though it took me a couple of listens to parse the rapid-fire delivery of the recommendation, I was genuinely impressed with the level of coordination between towers at the airports situated seven miles apart.

Once past the final approach course to Morristown's runway 23, I climbed to 6,500 feet, hand flying in smooth air. Ahead loomed two thunderstorms topped by anvil-shaped heads, still backlit by residual twilight. What followed this sight was an unfortunate cascade of realizations.

I had been so focused on getting RF home safely that I had put very little effort into planning for the  final third flight leg home. I was VFR, not on flight following yet, aloft after sunset, and there was at least one storm cell between me and home. Moreover, a quick review of uplinked weather revealed multiple cells in New York, one of which was likely the thunderhead I saw off the wingtip on departure from Cleveland.

TYYLR was located right between these two well-separated storms.

I switched the autopilot back on and animated the storm depictions in ForeFlight to understand how they were tracking. Everything was generally moving to the southeast. I compared what I saw on the screen versus what towered over the countryside in my windshield. Then, I identified a fix north of Wilkes-Barre (TYYLR) that would carry me between the well-spaced cells and inserted it into the flight plan. As HAL turned the airplane westward toward TYYLR, I contacted Wilkes-Barre for flight following. Apparent against the twilight sky ahead was a layer of clouds at my altitude. I checked ceilings along the route and saw that 4,500 feet would be an adequate cruise altitude for both cloud and terrain clearance, so I descended to remain VFR.

The iPad had worked long and hard that day and was low on battery again. I plugged it into ship's power, which is incapable of actually charging it, but prevents the battery level from dropping. Moments later, the Sentry -- my portable ADS-B weather and traffic receiver -- gave a low battery indication, too. Crap! I spent a brief moment contemplating being adrift at night without any big picture weather guidance. I plugged the Sentry into my slightly convex power bank / brick, the same one that I had decided to retire earlier that day due to swelling, and hoped that it was not so far gone that it posed a fire hazard. After many years of dutiful service, that was the last time I used it before it was safely recycled.

Darkness, weather, battery issues... See how these risks stack right up?

Pyrotechnics

With the plan in place, I perched in the pilot seat and waited and monitored the situation while everything played out painstakingly slowly.

Thunderheads rose on either side with just enough daylight remaining to silhouette their towering profiles. Then there was a flash and an entire towering cumulus cloud was suddenly lit from within, every element of its popcorn texture highlighted in crisp detail. Only lasting a fleeting moment, the flash persists as an afterimage in memory. More instances of lightning followed, sometimes as brilliant but diffuse illumination within the storm itself, sometimes as infinitely thin lightning bolts arcing from the base of the weather to the ground. Resembling cracks in reality, it was a mesmerizing natural display of special effects and I was happy to be observing the entire show from a distance. I have ample experience flying at night or navigating around isolated thunderstorms, but this was the first time I had ever done both simultaneously. Fortunately, all the cells in my path were well isolated.

Before reaching TYYLR, Wilkes-Barre passed me to Binghamton Approach. Unlike the relatively hands-off Wilkes controller, the Binghamton controller actively helped me navigate around the cells using real time radar. While uplinked weather is valuable for developing a strategy, its inherent delay makes it a poor tactical tool. This is where ATC radar and the pilot's own eyes excel. Binghamton provided a series of vectors that I accepted while cross checking with what I saw floating outside above an increasingly darkened world. A cell south of Binghamton was particularly active with lightning, a stunning display rendered on such a vast natural canvas that a nearby local fireworks show was pitifully insignificant by comparison. I gaped at the storm cell as I cruised past at a safe distance, reminded of a scene in a science fiction movie where the plucky heroes surreptitiously fly their tiny ship alongside a massive interstellar leviathan crewed by the bad guys.

Image from FlightAware showing the path through the weather from Caldwell to Sodus.

"Cherokee Four Eight One, it looks like you can turn back on course to Sodus at your discretion. You're past all the cells," the Binghamton controller broke through my reverie. Hints of a rain shaft highlighted by the lights of a nearby town led me to disagree with his assessment and I continued the westward deviation until I was certain that I was past the weather.

"The tower guys say there's a lot of lighting in that cell," offered the Approach controller, puncturing the fragile silence again. With a sky largely devoid of local traffic, we only had each other and a radio wave connection.

Since he had broken from standard phraseology, I did too in my acknowledgement. "Ahh...yep."

Still at 4,500 feet, I turned direct to Sodus. I never departed visual conditions or experienced any turbulence. Though the cells were very active with lightning, they were well isolated and relatively small. In the end, it was all fine. The real problem with the whole thing was that I had run myself out of options.

Warrior 481 delivered me to a well-lit runway in Sodus. Weather moved out shortly before my arrival and standing water steamed on pavement that was still hot from the heat dome. Parked in front of my hangar, I raised the door and drove my car out to make room for the airplane. I normally only park the car in the hangar when gone overnight, but given the intense heat of the day, I thought it would be better to park beneath the reflective white roof of the hangar and out of the sun. I did not realize at the time that I dodged a bullet. The airport had experienced a power outage and was running on a backup generator when I returned. It ultimately gave up some hours after I left the airport. Without the generator, I would not have been able to raise the hangar door to retrieve my car and would have been stuck at the airport late at night.

The Final Tally

When I reached home around 11:00 pm, I dutifully submitted my mission report. Total Hobbs time for the day was 7.9 hours with 3.4 hours operating under the Angel Flight call sign while RF was on board. From an Angel Flight perspective, all went as well as I had hoped. I was happy to have made a difference for someone and looked forward to the next opportunity to help out.

A big lesson for me was the danger of mission focus. I was so intent on the mission itself that I emphasized flight planning for the first two legs, but spent inadequate attention on the third post-mission leg home. I have the ability to fly at night and I am well experienced in avoiding isolated thunderstorm cells. Nothing ever rose to the level of a harried "there I was" kind of tale and everything worked out fine in the end. It was not that I put myself in an especially precarious position, but rather that I allowed my safety margins to erode. This was the true sin. Had anything gone wrong, my flight profile left few options.