The fall of 2024 has been very cloudy and wet in the Pacific Northwet (not a typo). As a result, I only got to fly twice in October and when I flew on 11/10 I feared it may be the only time I flew in November. As it turned out though, we got a high pressure system off the coast, the sky dried up, and things cleared up a bit. Unfortunately, these conditions also tend to bring with them lots of fog in low lying areas. While this phenomenon did affect our plans, it did not stop us from flying. In fact, I was able to fly three times this week. I can't remember the last time I got to fly three times in one week.
Due to work conditions based on when the end of the month falls this year, I really couldn't take Friday off, so I took Wednesday 11/27 instead. I hoped we could at least fly somewhere, but when that morning rolled around and we were at the airport checking on weather, it didn't look so good. The coast had low clouds and didn't look too inviting. Chehalis might have been a possibility, but it would have been a challenge to get there, and perhaps to get back.
The Spruce Goose Cafe at Jefferson County recently fell under new ownership, so we had been wanting to go there to see if it was any different. This looked like a good day to try that since it is not very far. The big risk this time of year is that it may clear up enough to get out only to fog up again a very short time later and we really didn't want to get stuck somewhere.
Foreflight showed that it should be doable, but the clouds just north of the airport looked pretty ugly. Granted, we weren't going north, but I didn't want that mess to drift south. There were also some pretty low clouds to the west. We almost decided to bag it but then chose to go take a look and see how it was.
Shortly after takeoff, it didn't look good. The low clouds were more widespread than we thought, but there were some canyons between clouds. We started picking our way between the clouds and ultimately were able to wend our west westward. This led to the meandering route that we took.
Once we got over there, getting into Jeffco and parking was no problem, but it turns out that I had developed a problem. Every now and then it seems like I forget how to land. The whole flight will go smashingly and I will ruin it at the last second. In other words, I had the yips. Again. The last time I flew I was worried about being able to land as it had been several weeks, but that landing turned out great. This time I may have been overly confident in my abilities. Anyhow, I had everything looking pretty good right up until touchdown. I managed a solid, bouncy arrival that wasn't going to impress anyone.
The landing notwithstanding, we parked and had lunch. The building looked a little funny when we first looked at it, but that is because they tented in the deck, probably to increase seating capacity. It is a very small cafe with not that many tables. The place is frequently crowded as the locals like the place and it is not at all dependent on airport traffic. It can take a while to get a table, but I theorized that since it was the day before Thanksgiving, most people would be either traveling or doing holiday related things.
As it turned out, no problem. We had a choice of tables inside or outside. Even with the heaters outside, we opted for inside. The menu appeared the same, the food seemed the same, the building looked the same. They still had all of the models that had been there before. It turned out to be a good experience.
After lunch, we decided to go through the Port Townsend Aero Museum which is right next door. It is a small museum but has some really nice aircraft and some other cool artifacts. It is designed for civil aircraft, so there aren't any military planes there. They do their own restorations on site and appear to do very good work.
Once we finished at the museum we headed home, but not directly. We went out to Pt. Angeles and then turned around and came back. It was a very nice trip and well worth the effort to go. Thankfully we didn't give in and decide to stay home.
Getting back into Arlington was a bit more of a challenge than I had expected, at least for me. As we approached the airport, I was headed in first with Carl a little bit behind me. There were a "Yellow Cub", a Gyrocopter, and a C172 doing touch and goes on 16. The AWOS was calling wind calm, several times. The preferred no wind (less than 5 knots) runway at AWO is 34. Someone asked "what's with 16?" A reply was heard "Gyrocopters can't handle any tail wind". I have never flown a Gyrocopter (or Autogiro for that matter) and can't say for sure what its limitations are, but I find it hard to believe there is any aircraft that can handle no tail wind component at all. Anyway, I didn't want to argue the point so I went to get in line.
As I approached Twin Lakes Park, I called that I was on the 45 for 16. At that moment, I heard the "Yellow Cub" call that he was turning downwind. I saw him and considered going in front of him since he is quite a bit slower. Unfortunately, anyway you look at the rules, he had the right of way. I could have asked if he minded if I went in front of him, but I don't like to do that as if I think I am more important than he is, so I made a left 360 to come in behind Carl.
Carl had enough clearance that he could stay behind the Cub. As I once again passed Twin Lakes, I looked toward the south end of the runway and saw a white aircraft coming right at me. I hadn't heard this one at all. He turned downwind close to where I was, but by flying a wider pattern and slowing down, dropping the flaps early, I was able to stay behind him. I never heard a peep from him (radios are not required at non-towered airports, but they are advised). I made a call that I was behind the white Champ and had him in sight. Since I didn't know if he had a radio or could hear me, I kept calling out that I was behind him and had him in sight.
I extended my downwind to give him space, but it turned out he was landing on the grass at the south end, so he didn't need as much room as I gave him. Unfortunately, I managed to botch the landing again. It was pretty much like the one at Jeffco, not bad, just kinda rough and bouncy.
There was a guy in a Navion waiting to take off who apparently got tired of waiting and asked if the landing aircraft, and there were a lot of them, could make some room so they could get out. The Gyrocopter said he would go around and the other aircraft on final did a 360 to make some room. The Navion took off shortly after I cleared the runway.
The pumps were a bit crowded, so I didn't get gas. By the time I got back to the hangar I saw the Navion flying over head to enter the pattern. By the time I had the airplane put away, he was back at his parking spot (not far from my hangar). So all that to get out for a 10 minute flight.
The video can be seen here.
The outbound track log is here.
The return track log is here.
Thursday 11/28/24 was a completely different ball game altogether (Thursday was a completely different ball game).
The plan, or at least the hope was to fly down to Albany Oregon for lunch. Why Albany you say. Good question. First, it is just kind of a fun trip, but more importantly, they are the only place on or near an airport that is open on Thanksgiving day. The food is good and it is a popular place. Being the Northwet, it is not often that the weather is good enough over that large an area in late November. It is a little over 200 miles away. Also, it gets dark early this time of year. I don't mind flying in the dark, but the weather can change drastically, and not for the better, after the sun goes down.
This particular T-Day, there was widespread fog over much of the west coast. It was clear and bright in the north Puget Sound area, but from about Paine Field south, to at least central Oregon, it was all fog. In fact, most of those places never did clear up, certainly not in time to get there for food. We would eventually learn that the east side of the Cascades was also buried in fog, possibly as far as Idaho.
It was too nice a day not to go somewhere, so somewhere we went. The two main choices before the committee were to go to Hoquiam and do the bird walk, or go check out the North Cascades. Since I had seen the snow in the mountains and really wanted to go have a look, that is what we decided to do.
I was actually ready before Carl, so I took off first and went a little south looking at the fog. Carl took off a few minutes later and we headed for the mountains.
Our mountain tour started with a jaunt around Mt. Pilchuck.
From there, we headed north toward Three Fingers.
After making a few turns around the fingers, we headed for Glacier Peak.
The winds aloft were generally from the west / northwest at varying intensities, but seemed to get stronger with altitude and as we got further north. The wind seemed to mostly flow around the peak instead of over it, at least close in to the mountain. Carl was at the right distance and altitude to feel no bumps at all, even on the back (lee side) of the mountain. I drifted a little lower and wanted to make a pass with the mountain off my right wing, so I ended up in an area of fairly moderate turbulence. No noticeable downdraft, just turbulence.
From there we went to look at Stevens Pass. There were a bunch of cars there, but nowhere near what you would expect if they were open. My hypothesis was that those were employees preparing for an opening on Friday 11/29. When we got back, Carl looked it up and that was most likely correct since they indeed planned to open on 11/29.
Since we were at Stevens Pass, it wasn't far to Lake Wenatchee. Not too far south of Lake Wenatchee we could see lots of fog. In fact, on all of the eastern side of the Cascades we could see, there was nothing but fog. We couldn't see the far edge of it, as far as we knew it went all the way to Idaho.
The next stop on the tour was the Mt. Baker area. In this case, before getting to Mt. Baker we wanted to go by Mt. Shuksan which is to the east of Mt. Baker.
Most people call it Mt. Shuksan, but I call it "Spike" because to me it looks like Spike from the movie "Gremlins".
Between Mt. Shuksan and Mt. Baker is the Mt. Baker ski area. There were a lot more cars here than at Stevens Pass, but my guess that it is the same and they are opening on 11/29.
I learned my lesson at Glacier Peak, and the wind at Mt. Baker was a bit stronger, but still from the West / Northwest, so I wasn't going to go along the east face of the mountain since it would likely be even bumpier than Glacier. With me to the north and the sun to the south and it being about about 1400, not to mention a high overcast, there were some interesting lighting effects around the mountain.
Since we had a lot of altitude to lose, we had been mostly between 9,500' and 10,500', we headed out over the San Juan Islands to lose said altitude. We dropped down to about 6,500' over the islands. It had been really cold at the upper altitudes, so it felt good to get down even to 6,500'.
As we descended, it became even clearer what the clouds in the area were doing.
We went over to the west side of Whidbey Island and went home from there. There was a cloud layer at about 4,500' and that made the descent into Arlington pretty interesting.
When we got back, it wasn't as busy as the day before, but it wasn't as quiet as I hoped it would be. I was also sad to learn that I hadn't yet lost the yips. My landings yesterday lacked the smooth, controlled touch down of a good landing, but at least they occurred on the center line. This time, I managed to find the smooth controlled touchdown, but I had a devil of a time finding, nae, tracking the centerline. I touched down on the centerline, but immediately started to drift to the right. It wasn't anything immediately troubling, and I remember being more amused than worried, but it took longer than I am proud of to get back to the centerline.
Fortunately, there was no line at the fuel pumps and I was able to top off to be ready for the next great adventure.
All the photos I took can be found here.
The video can be found here.
The track log can be found here.
I had to work on Friday 11/29, so that adventure didn't occur until Saturday 11/30/24.
Saturday 11/30 was kind of a cross between the previous two days. It was still quite foggy out at the coast, so Forks or Westport looked iffy at best. Without too many options we chose Chehalis. It was mostly clear all the way there, there was still some fog over Olympia, but at least we didn't have to be over the clouds the whole way. Another option that we didn't think about until the flight home was to try the new restaurant at Bremerton again.
The trip down was fairly smooth, though there was a lot of traffic. Chehalis is getting to be a pretty busy place. When we got there a number of airplanes were already at the pump and there were a few others coming and going. It isn't nearly as busy as Arlington, but not the sleepy small town airport it used to be.
Lunch was accomplished without any great problem. There was a private event going on so we didn't get to have our usual table, but they were open and we got fed, what's to complain about.
When we headed home at about 1430, Hoquiam was still calling 1,000' overcast, so it didn't look like it ever cleared up out that way. There was still a lot of fog visible to the west, so our decision was probably a good one.
The trip home was uneventful and still pretty smooth. I got there and it was a little busier at Arlington, but I was able to get in and get gas. Even better, I finally, after three days of flying, managed to pull off a fairly good landing. I was very happy to go go back to work on that one, wouldn't have wanted to go back on another stinker.
The video can be seen here.
Comments