So on this day, the fog is hanging in heavy over AVL and there is no chance that I’m going to get off the ground before
noon. However, being the annoyingly persistent guy that I am, I get
Jordan to agree to call me the minute the sky begins to clear and we will get aloft. I hang out in downtown
Asheville doing some client research and having a second cup of morning java. As
11:30 rolls around, the skies in downtown are clear, but I haven’t heard a peep from
Jordan. I know this is because
AVL Regional is in a valley southwest of town and that most of the city’s moisture slips downhill, along the
French Broad river and down to the airport. This means that
AVL (Fletcher, NC) is one of the last places where fog lifts from the area.
I have to apologize here to Jordan...he was waiting patiently in the WNC Aviation office to see if the fog would lift. He has another appointment later in the day after me. We had left it at - “If we cannot get aloft by noon, we’ll shoot for another day”. At this point, it’s looking less and less like he has to worry about me, and can relax a bit before his afternoon instruction would have to begin. I’m sure he was enjoying his second cup of coffee unaware of my scheme.
See, I’ve been bitten by this bug. I ache if I’m not in the air. Altitude is the only salve for this disease. These days, when I’m earth-bound, I’m admittedly grumpy - a curmudgeon. Especially now that I’m jacked up on two cups of coffee, and I’ve been visualizing all week how well I’m going to do on the rudders, the radios, the procedures and the maneuvers! DAMN THE GALE FORCE WINDS - TO HELL WITH THE FOG - I”M GOING FLYING TODAY!
So you should have seen Jordan’s face when I POP INTO THE OFFICE unannounced, ALL GLEEFUL with reports of clearing skies over downtown, and all the way southbound on I-26 toward the airfield. I point out the window, “See! The fog is lifting!” I proclaim
with a great big grin.
Jordan cannot even see the flagpole, which on a normal day is right outside the window. He rolls his eyes kindly...
“No really! It is just about to blow away. I could almost make out the exit sign on the highway here at the airport exit. We better get started on pre-flight!” I wasn’t taking no for an answer. (Ask me one day about Carole’s great example of positive thinking).
Jordan isn’t much amused, but being a hopeful chap like me (and also having been bitten early in life by the flight bug as well), he says “Let’s do some ground schooling and maybe it’ll clear up.”
So we chat about s-turns, turns around a point, winds impact on these turns, and how w e need to practice some touch-n-gos. I’m listening, but I glance sidelong at the RJs outside as they disappear into the clouds even before their rear wheels part with the pavement of the runway. C’mon sun – break that temperature away from that dew point!
Jordan completes a great ground school lesson, and quizzes me as - LO AND BEHOLD - the clouds lift up and follow the jets into a clear, silent, still blue sky. In the matter of a few minutes the skies are painfully azure and there are only little puffs of mist lofting skyward. We’ll see those clouds again to be sure, but for now – IT’S FLIGHT TIME!
I pre-flight the plane, and we jump in - as I call “CLEAR” and turn the key, nothing happens except an electrical hum. Jordan says the “Bendix (apparently something tht spins the prop) isn’t engaged” and asks me to pull the key out and turn off the master electrical switch. He bounds from the plane and walks around to the prop...After a few jockeying spins of the blade - he comes back and says “Try it again.” I power back up, turn the key and....nothing.
A few more tries at this (key out, power down so the engines doesn’t inadvertently engage and send his severed hands flying across the airfield) and the Bendix engages properly. We get a successful start and little Five-five-romeo sputters to life. Poor Jordan - he’s sweating and clearly not happy with the entire situation, but he keeps his good humor and chortles “No problem man, that’s just a day in the life of a CFI”. What a great guy.
After getting clearance from ground, we start our taxi run up A to Runway 34 and draft in behind an RJ. We pull off to do our runup checks, and are listening to the tower. A “unit” - a flight service truck that zip around the airfield, is talking to the tower about something on the runway. The tower cannot see it but the “Unit” driver says it’s a COYOTE!
Great, I say to Jordan, it’s like the ABC’s.
- First A - The “Arse” (I point to me) shows up and makes you fly, then
- B - the Bendix doesn’t engage, then
- C - there are COYOTE on the runway!
I said “Let’s not go through anymore of the alphabet”. Jordan agrees.
Hey....wait a minute....does that mean he agreed with my “A” statement?!
Anyway, we taxi without hitting any coyote (I guess the RJ scared him off), and we’re airborne to the SW practice area, roughly over Hendersonville Airport. The sky is still. I pick out a water tower as my “point” on the ground, and begin a long slow left turn. Since the winds are calm now, I easily keep the tower to my left and just under my lowered left wingtip. Nothing to this when there is no wind.
We do a few more rotations then turn for the power lines that crease the nearby mountain range with a arrow straight swath that is clear-cut and easily visible. I set up for my first S-turn.
Now we know from the tower’s weather report that there is supposed to be some gusty winds coming a bit later in the day, but we hear another WNC Aviation student pilot calling into Asheville approach for winds so they can do some touch and go’s. Funny, but winds seem pretty calm where we are flying, just a few miles SE of the field. However, the report from AVL approach is sobering.
“Winds now 070 at eight - gusting to twenty seven” the controller replies.
This time the CFI in the plane “next door” to us over the southeast practice area calls again - it’s my friend Joey Maxwell - “Asheville tower - say again - winds gusting to TWENTY SEVEN – that’s two-seven?” He sounds incredulous.
Roger - winds zero-seven-zero degrees (meaning out of the east) at eight with gusts to two-seven. You could almost hear Joey’s student pilot jamming the throttle to the metal. They were beating it for the field, pronto!
I look at Jordan - he looks at me. We’re both thinking the same thing. How has a gentle morning like this turned into a sudden wind-tunnel?” The skies where we are, just a few miles away, are serene and blue. More critically, how are we going to get this little light-as-a-feather plane on the ground with a 90 degree cross wind that is gusting between eight and twenty-seven miles per hour across the runway?
Jordan decisively says “Let’s head for home.” I agree, pushing the throttle in and turning directly for the field. I call approach, and he puts us into a right pattern (meaning we’re going to be making right turns on our rectangular route to runway 16).
Once we get into the downwind leg (which is now a crosswind really), we start to feel the buffeting of the crosswinds. We’re blowing away from the airstrip towards Cold Mountain and some of the higher mountaintops near the Blue Ridge Parkway. Some quick crabbing adjustments and we get back on the downwind with the plane working hard to counteract the winds that are building FAST.
The tower calls to say “Cessna five-five-Romeo, I’ll call your crosswind” - this means that he will tell us when to make the right turn to put us on the “crosswind” leg of the approach. He tells us to watch for a twin prop plane on final from the north. We’ll be turning in behind him for our landing. We see the twin descending toward the field to our 2 o’clock. The tower calls us and instructs us to turn right for crosswind once the twin is out of the sky and on the runway. We make that right turn with hard yoke inputs to overcome the wind that is blowing from our right.
We’re now turned almost directly into the wind and the plane is working hard to counteract the headwind. Our groundspeed, Jordan points out, on the GPS has slowed drastically to lower than 50 KIAS – proof that we’re “swimming upstream” in a raging current of wind from the east.
The tower knows that we should be landing soonest, and he directs us to “head straight for the numbers” which means to expedite our landing. The tower is talking to about a half dozen aircraft in the pattern, most of which are full of instructional pilots or passengers, and all of which need to be getting on the ground before the winds worsen.
We aim directly for the numbers but the wind current has slowed our descent and our final approach to a crawl. We go full power and Jordan says, “If it’s OK with you, I’ll do this landing. That crosswind is a beast and with the variability, we’re likely to get blown around quite a bit”.
I couldn’t agree more. Now I’ve read about how to land in a crosswind and watched the Cessna training videos about this, but the procedure is not something I’m comfortable with just yet. A side-slipping, crabbing descent, followed by whipping the plane from a sideways, tilted crawl to “straight down the runway” just a few feet above the pavement is NOT something that comes naturally on the first time. It would be like trying to deliver a tantric experience during those first, fumbling, sweaty trysts in the back seat of a car in high school.” Not that I would know anything about that. ‘Nuf said.
“Jordan, you have the controls.”
“I have the controls.”
“You have the controls (thank GOD!).”
The tower calls again “Cessna Five-five-Romeo, please expedite final and head straight for the numbers”. He has other planes he needs to sequence in and they’re able to fly a lot faster than we can in a headwind.
We check to ensure we’re using all the juice the little Cessna can muster. We’re “all in”.
We creep down towards the giant 16 now, coming in from a bit of an angle instead of the usual straight in.
Jordan puts in ten degrees of flaps to minimize the impact on the planes slippery profile and prevent the wind from floating us around too much. We’re both cool and quiet, but Jordan is starting to get a feel that this is going to be one rough trip to the tarmac.
We float in over the runway, nose pointing almost directly at the terminal on the side of the runway. Jordan deftly dips the left wing and points the plane straighter down the runway, reducing the crab angle and counteracting the turn with hard right rudder - a classic side slip approach. In this “dirty” configuration, we drop altitude fast (We’ve got some extra since the wind is blowing under our wings and supplying more lift than our direct course needs. You can also get too slow very quickly, stalling and dropping to the ground - or worse, stalling, yawing and spinning prop first into the pavement. Instead, Jordan counteracts the wind expertly with skilled control inputs, and we float down towards the pavement for what looks like a smooth landing. At the last second, the plane bounds up on a gust of air, and we bounce around like a feather just feet above the surface. Jordan keeps his steely eyes on the runway, does some quick countering maneuvers, and the tires seem to reach out and grab the pavement like our lives depended on it (and they did!). We waver and skip over the pavement a bit, while the wind and tire friction fights an epic battle beneath us, using our little plane as their weapons.
As our speed decreases, the plane sighs relief as we sink into the ground and slow to taxi speed. I look over at Jordan and silently give him a “high five”, for he has safely and cleanly brought us back down to earth. Jordan grins and wipes a bit of sweat from his forehead.
“You can do a million of those, and they never cease to be a little stressful” he musters.
The radio crackles as the tower sequences in other planes behind us. We taxi to the ramp and park little 55R - who has done her job for the day. They’ll be no more take offs in VFR aircraft today.
Jordan apologizes for the rough landing a time or two, but he doesn’t realize that I’m blown away by his cool, calm controls during the event. He probably is thinking that he should have been able to show me how to “grease it in” during a tough crosswind, but I’m just impressed that we got on the ground in one piece. THANKS JORDAN! I’m not worried about a little skipping around on our tippy-tire-toes!
Now the lesson is obvious. Weather changes. Blue skies in town may no be so blue on the runway (remember the morning fog?). Even if you’re flying in blue skies just a few miles away, you might find that those skies are full of wind currents down on that airfield where you and your tiny, insignificant plane (filled with your tiny, significant and hopefully valuable little lives) are going to have to land.
Thank goodness for those men and women in the towers, on the weather radars and updating weather across the country so we all know what to expect and can plan ahead. This little “front” caught everyone by surprise, but I’m so glad to know that there are layers and layers of experts watching out for us in the sky every day!
with a great big grin.
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