Well, best laid plans of mice and men and all that... I spent a good chunk of the day running around doing last-minute stuff, and when I finally got to the airport and loaded the plane, my preflight discovered a pair of issues: One, the GPS database was out of date by two cycles
, and the ELT antenna (which I'd squawked a week earlier) was broken. So, I called the MX officer and vented, and he promised to update the database first thing Wednesday morning and get Avionics to put a new antenna on. I grabbed my flight bag and went back home and began adjusting my plans.And now... On to The Grand Adventure, Day 1.
Well, I started with another false start. I'd left the plane loaded Tuesday night, and after I got the call that the plane was ready, I headed out to the airport. As I was about to punch my code into the lock, I realized that I'd been carrying a lot more than just my laptop when I left last night... Remember how I took my flight bag home to adjust my plans? Yeah... Left it there. Doh! So I turned around and drove back home for it.
Three-quarters of the way home, I realized that I should have just hopped in the plane and flown to C29, thus turning the hour-long round trip driving into ten minutes of driving and six minutes of flying. Doh! again!
Finally, I made it back to the airport with all of my stuff, got situated, and fired up the engine at 2:47 PM. I'd originally filed for a 1:30 PM departure, so at least my flight plan was still in the system.
I was a little shocked at my clearance. My first stop, Blaine (KANE) is on the north side of the Twin Cities, and coming from the southeast I expected to get a STAR, or something added to what I filed (Direct). But, it went like this:
"Madison Clearance, Skylane 271G, IFR to Blaine."
"Skylane 271G, cleared to the Anoka-Blaine airport as filed, climb and maintain 5,000, expect 6,000 ten minutes after departure, squawk six two seven zero."
Well, OK... Works for me! I read it back, taxied to the north end of the ramp, did my runup, called for taxi clearance, taxied to 21, double-checked all the checklists, and it was go time.
"Madison Tower, Skylane 271G short of 21 ready for departure."
"Skylane 71G, hold short, traffic on a mile and a half final is a Cherokee."
Sheesh... I can get out before a Cherokee gets a mile and a half... But I'm in no rush. Turns out it was the Archer belonging to another club we're hoping to merge with soon.
The voice on the radio changed - Previously one of the veteran male controllers, now one of the veteran female controllers (I'm pretty sure there's two of 'em anyway!)
"Skylane 271G, climb and maintain 3,000, fly heading 270, Runway 21, Cleared for takeoff."
"Climb three thousand, Two seven zero, cleared for takeoff runway 21, 271G."
"Tower, Eagle Flight 688, ready to go, 18."
"Eagle Flight 688, Hold short for about one minute, traffic departing 21."
I normally fly runway heading to 400 AGL as that's standard IFR procedure and that's a habit I want to keep. However, weather at the airport was VMC and my favorite bird happily jumped off the runway with an excellent rate of climb, so when I hit 200 AGL and looked westward and saw that an early turn would not only put me in line with a large grassy field should the engine quit, it'd also keep me pretty close to the north shore of Lake Mendota, I went ahead and made the turn. That also meant that I crossed over runway 18 pretty quickly.
"Eagle Flight 688, runway 18, cleared for takeoff."
"Cleared for takeoff, Eagle Flight 188."
"Skylane 71G, thanks for the early turn, contact departure, have a good day."
"Contact departure, 71G, g'day."
Departure cleared me to turn on course and subsequently cleared me to 6,000, I punched through a cloud, and climbed into the cool, clear air above. Finally, after all the planning, all of the second-guessing over whether I should take this trip with no current source of income, the false starts, I was back at my second home in the sky!
I was handed off to Volk Approach. My route paralleled the edge of the Volk South and Falls 1 MOA's, and the only thing hot today was R-6901A. The frequency was relatively quiet, and I spent a lot of time enjoying the view - I was above some scattered cumulus clouds, and the vast expanse of green fields and trees with all the white puffy clouds above was beautiful - I'm sure I'm in for a lot more of nature's beauty on this trip, but for now the lush green-ness of my home state is still exciting.
Eventually, I was handed off to Minneapolis Center. I heard another club member in one of our Archers who was en route from KONA to KISP. I heard another plane call in 8 miles north of KLSE, which was not too far from my position, but I never saw him (I think there was a cloud in between us).
There was some weather up near the Minneapolis area. I was watching it on the 496, and I began seeing it out the window as well. At one point the controller asked if I had on-board weather. I told him I had datalink and that I was watching the storms out the window as well. There was a small cell south of KLUM that was just north of my route, and then a big mass of thunderstorms off to the west. The controller said that several planes had deviated north of the first cell, but I elected to stay on course which put me south of it. As it turned out, I went south of the first cell and north of the big mass and stayed on my direct course the entire time. In fact, the north end of the mass looked a lot better out the window than it did on the NEXRAD.
I loaded the ILS 27 into KANE just in case. It paid off too, but not in the usual way - After being handed off to Minneapolis Approach, the controller cleared me direct to BOKYA, the FAF on that approach. Having the approach already loaded saved me from having to ask what the spelling of the fix was, and from having to twist a bunch of knobs to put it in the GPS - Push, twist, push, push, and Otto turned about 3 degrees right. Prior to reaching the final approach course, I called field in sight and was cleared for the visual to 27, contact tower, g'day.
I was on my game today - It seems that when the start of a trip is bad for me, the rest of it turns out really well! I contacted tower and was cleared to land a couple minutes later. I zoomed down the final approach course. I didn't keep it fast as close in as possible, just did a more leisurely slow-down and ended up with a great landing.
The folks at Cirrus Flight Operations, the FBO I went to, were excellent. I was feeling kind of hungry when I got there, and Ashley at the front desk said that Jimmy John's could deliver in less than 10 minutes (I was trying to minimize ground time today). There was apparently a new person working at JJ's, and she said they wouldn't deliver to the airport. Ashley ended up calling them back three times, and finally the delivery driver (who had been to Cirrus before) fixed the mix-up. Helpful, friendly, and very reasonable fuel prices - $4.79, and this in a major metro area (under class
. I know where to go next time I'm up there.It rained for a bit while I was on the ground at KANE, and I left after it stopped. I left behind a nice airplane-shaped dry spot on the ramp:
With the late start, my originally-planned fuel stop was going to be closed by the time I got there. So, I looked at airnav for a bit, and chose 14Y as my next stop. It was listed as self-serve, but when I got there, the pump was locked and there was no credit card reader and nobody around. I called the number listed inside for the manager, and got a pleasant surprise from small-town America - Inside the unlocked terminal building (which has bathrooms, couch, TV, and a really odd soda machine), there's a key hidden that opens a door behind which lies another key with a clipboard. Write your name, tail number, address, number of gallons you pumped and the price and they'll send you a bill. Cool!
Well, once I was tanked up again, I figured that since I was much farther north than I'd originally planned, I would go ahead and make a landing in North Dakota just because. In fact, I found TWO airports near the southeast corner of ND that hadn't been claimed for the ConUS challenge, so I drew a quick line on the chart and off I went.
Yes, that's right. A line on the chart. Yeah, so I have a 430W, a two-axis autopilot, and a 496 sitting on the yoke... But that's no excuse to not exercise the grand old skill of pilotage now and then. I left the gadgets out this time. Oh, they were on just in case of an emergency (NRST is a wonderful thing, even when you are looking at the chart) but the 430 was zoomed way in so the screen was just black, the 496 was on the terrain page and zoomed way in, and the autopilot was off.
Okay, I should be over the end of this little peninsula in this lake, and the edge of that lake, and I can see these lakes lining up nicely, now here's the road I want to follow for a bit, here's the tracks that I'll parallel to the airport. Whee! I spotted the field quite a ways out and landed on runway 33 at KBWP, Wahpeton, ND. And I hope "Wahpeton" is pronounced just like the computer voice on the AWOS says it.
Wahpeton has a small terminal building with a locked door on it and a 1-5 combo lock. It won't take pilots too many tries to figure out the combo.
Inside there's a couch, flight planning room, soda machine, and bathrooms. Pretty standard.What wasn't standard was the Air Tractor that landed not long after me. (Traffic Pattern Altitude: Heavy aircraft 1500', Light aircraft 1000', crop dusters 100'.
) There's an ag operation based at KBWP, and they have an interesting setup - Their hangars have doors on both sides, so they taxi in the back door, leave the engine running, refill, taxi out the front door and head back out to the field. I followed the yellow Air Tractor out, and a blue-winged one landed right afterwards. I followed the yellow one to his field, and from a couple thousand feet up and a couple miles away, videotaped him doing a couple of passes down the field. Cool. Crop duster hangar:
Next, I headed toward Lidgerwood, 4N4. This is a grass field with nothing present - Just a grass strip with a grass "ramp" off to one side on one end of it, with a gravel road along the edge of the ramp and perpendicular to the runway. It must be a duster strip, it'd be perfect for them but not much use to the rest of us. I did a low pass and made the decision not to land - Major ruts, bumps, and standing water in several areas. Not safe to land.
I had already programmed 6V4, my next planned stop, into the 430.However, with the late start, I was not going to be able to make it to WYS as I'd originally hoped tonight, and so I had no hotel room reserved. The sun was setting and I had about 240nm to go, and I don't know how big of a town Wall, SD really is. I started looking for larger towns along the route. I saw the beacon for Britton, SD nearby, but I noticed that Aberdeen was right along the route a bit further up. Kate stayed in Aberdeen on her Ercoupe adventure and she had offered to tell me info about lodging and transportation if I ended up there, so it was pretty much a no-brainer.
Two things added to the adventure after I was on the ground. The first was a Columbia 400 that came in shortly after me. He landed on runway 17, then taxied up near the ramp. Then, he took a right onto runway 13, calling it 12 on the radio. He taxied most of the way down the runway, (despite the parallel taxiway), then turned around and once again taxied back to where the runways meet. He got on a taxiway once again, and finally found the GA ramp (I'd found it by following the yellow "GA RAMP" sign near where the runways meet, figuring that I wasn't supposed to go to the building with the jetways...). Just after he finally parked, an SUV drove onto the ramp and over to his airplane. It was someone from Aberdeen Flying Service who had gotten a call from Minneapolis Center wondering what happened to the Columbia. There had also been a Mesaba Saab 340 holding somewhere waiting for him to cancel IFR the entire time! (I heard them a while earlier asking if the Columbia could hear them.) As it turns out, the pilot has only had the Columbia for a week, moving up from an A36 Bonanza.
Both of us were looking for a hotel, and the FBO guy dropped us off at the Ramada Inn. After we'd grabbed all of our bags and such, we went inside, only to find that the Ramada was completely booked! Who knew Aberdeen was such a hoppin' place? As it turns out, the county fair is in town. They knew of another place that had a room available, and took us over there with a stop at the Taco Bell drive-through along the way.
Here's the second extra adventure on the ground: The Innkeeper Motel.
It's, well, very old. I had a good laugh when I got into my bathroom, though... One of the towels says "Hampton Inn and Suites" on it!
But, it has a bed, air conditioning, and wireless internet so I can live with it. 
Tomorrow, the adventure continues.
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