Flying December 2011

I had four nice flights in three days after Christmas. On Boxing Day, I went for a quick ride with my friend Mark. He has a classic Cessna 172, a 1957 model, I think. It has nothing in the way of modern features, though he has redone the upholstery, and it looks pretty nice inside.

Before we could fly, Mark had to clear the snow from in front of his hangar. I installed the battery while he did that. By the time we were done, weather was starting to approach, and we figured we'd better hurry up and fly, or we wouldn't be flying at all. The wind was blowing about fifteen knots, but only twenty degrees off the runway. We taxied out, took off, and flew a circuit. As we climbed out from the touch and go, we noticed that the city was shrouded in rain. Considering the temperature was close to freezing, it was an easy decision to make the second circuit the last. We landed, taxied back to the hangar, and just as we started to push the airplane in, the rain started.

I had a five hour credit on the Winnipeg Flying Club's Cessna 182, that I had to use by the end of the year. Mark had a buddy, Derick, who wanted to go to Cross Lake. I'd never been to Cross Lake, but it seemed like a pretty easy flight, about 250 nm straight north. It would be the farthest north I've flown, though.

The forecast suggested the possibility of a front coming through Winnipeg by early evening, so we wanted to get back by 7 pm. We met at the flying club shortly after ten, packed up, and took off just before 11 am.

The flight up was unremarkable. Mark took control shortly after take off, and proved adept at precisely following the track demanded by the aircraft GPS. As we approached Cross Lake, we tried calling the UNICOM, but got no answer. Because of that, we flew an inspection pass of the runway, and then joined the circuit for landing. The runway was a bit icy, but not bad.

Derick's brother came to the airport to pick us up, and then gave us a nice tour of the town, and the neighbouring reserve. Not exactly the prettiest place in Manitoba, it seems like fishing might be about the only thing to do. There is no obvious industry, only a Northern store, a couple of hotels, police and fire stations, and quite a few churches.

We returned to the airport, and I called the weather briefer to find out that the front I was concerned about was not going to arrive until after midnight. We packed up and departed just after 4 pm. The flight back to St Andrews was a bit longer due to the headwind. The most noticeable feature of the return trip was the near absence of lights on the ground. There are only a few towns along the route, and most are quite small. There were fairly long stretches where only one town's lights were visible, and sometimes none at all.

We landed in St Andrews just after 6:30 pm, fuelled the airplane, and put it back in the hangar.

I had started installing the skis on my Challenger II, but hadn't finished because I needed to replace a spacer. In the time it took to make one, the snow had mostly melted, and I was beginning to wonder if I should take the skis off again. The night after the flight to Cross Lake, though, the front came through, and dropped an inch of snow, good enough for me. I finished the ski installation, and then took the Challenger for the first flight in three months.

I was concerned, again, about the weather, as the cloud seemed a bit low. I took off, flew a couple of circuits, and everything seemed good. I let the airplane climb a bit more on the next circuit, and ran into cloud at about 600 feet above ground. Hmm, lower than I thought. I decided to stay in the circuit, and fly until I ran out of ceiling or daylight. It cleared a bit after a while, and I ran out of daylight after an hour's flight.

With that flight, I passed 200 hours pilot-in-command in the Challenger. About sixty of those hours have been on skis.

There are more photos from the three days' flights here: http://bit.ly/rptuJV.