Well, March was almost over, and it was such a nice day - My first breath of the fresh Oregon air this morning was a better wake-up than any caffeine-laden substance could possibly muster. I saw a Cessna in the pattern of some field near Forest Grove. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and I decided that I simply had to fly today!
After making some calls, I found a flight school at Hillsboro that had plenty of openings on their schedule, and a selection of airplanes: 152, 172, Arrow, and Twin Comanche. It took me about a microsecond to decide on the Twinkie. I was going to have to have a CFI along anyway even if I took a single, and I've always loved the Twin Comanche. I have a thing for efficient airplanes.
N7652Y is an "A model" PA-30, with four seats and only two side windows on each side. It looked to be well cared for, with a nice interior, a pair of KX-155 digital flip-flop radios, and some speed mods: Flap and aileron gap seals and LoPresti cowls. Several other modernizations were present as well.
The insurance requirements for the Twinkie didn't allow for any sort of real training (No touch and goes, no engine cuts, etc.) but that was OK with me as I just wanted to see the area by air and take some pictures. After preflight and some seat time to find all of the switches and ask the CFI about emergency gear extension, we fired up (Starting two engines is cool) and taxied to runway 2. After a quick takeoff briefing, I added full power. (A handful of throttles is cool too!)
Now, I've been very impressed with the Pacific northwest in my limited experience with it (a week at Lake Chelan in WA in 04, a brief trip to Spokane in Aug 05, and a couple days in Oregon last week), but nothing prepared me for the view shortly after takeoff. I was instantly glad I rented the twin (with its sloping nose) so I could fully appreciate the view...
...of Mount Saint Helens appearing from behind the nearby ridge. Only 600 feet off the ground and I was already turning the controls back to the CFI to grab my camera!
We stayed just outside the West edge of Portland's class C airspace and began following the Columbia River downstream. I climbed up to 8500 to get out of the bumps and stay above the few white puffies. Since this was a sightseeing flight, I relied on pure pilotage. The first good-sized city past Portland was Kelso, WA:
"Ocian in view! O! The joy!" --William Clark, November 7, 1805
We continued down the Columbia River towards the Pacific, just as Lewis and Clark did just over two hundred years earlier, several thousand feet below, and probably just a tad slower than the 175 knots that I was getting. While I share their spirit for exploration, I'm certainly glad that I have modern tools to do so! Lewis and Clark never got to see waves crashing quite like this:
The clouds were getting a bit thicker near the shoreline, but I could see that there weren't any shadows out over the water, so I continued about three miles out over the water before turning southbound and descending to 4500. I paralleled the shoreline for a ways, and then turned to fly up the Tillamook Valley:
That looks like a little slice of heaven to me! I will have to visit there someday. Unfortunately, it also signaled that we were nearing the end of the trip. Another left turn and we were headed directly back to Hillsboro, passing over mountains, a couple of lakes, and finally back to relatively flat ground near the cities. Pilotage was a lot more difficult in the mountains on this last leg, there's not a whole lot of room between the fuselage and the left engine nacelle to spot the tiny rivers.
The plane was actually pretty easy to land. I've heard lots of stories about it, and it's enough of a problem that there is a "small nosewheel" mod to make it less nose-heavy on landing, but I didn't have any problems.
And that was my flying adventure of the month for March... I can't wait to see what comes next!