AirVenture | Days 13–14

July 30–31 | I bought Sam McIntosh’s wonderful, fully-instrument equipped 182 so I could get my instrument rating, among other things. It’s like handing a neurosurgeon’s scalpel to an electrician. (I’m and electrician.) You’re probably going to die.

If you’re going to be weathered in in Hastings, Nebraska, it would be hard to find a nicer place and nicer people though. It’s where Kool Aid was invented.

Let’s go back a day.

Friday, I got up at my usual 6 o’clock, washed my face, and went to have some breakfast at the Tall Pines Café. Biscuits and gravy again, with eggs, applesauce and coffee. I then went down to flight line ops and did another two-hour shift driving the volunteer taxi, running people out to the flight line point shacks and bringing them back when their shifts ended.

I had been watching the weather because I planned on leaving for home on Saturday for the two-day flight. The forecast was for more bad weather at Oshkosh for Saturday, so I got a weather briefing, looked at the weather radar app on my phone, and planned to leave for home that afternoon to beat the storm.

I was able to get the wheels off the ground just before 1:00 and made the 1,300’ MSL flight out from the Oshkosh control area. I set a course for Lincoln, Nebraska for my first fuel stop of the day. The visibility leaving Oshkosh wasn’t too bad, so I climbed up to 8,500’ and headed off on my way.

I use an iPad and Foreflight for my charts, and have the additional advantage of weather display using ADS-B in through the Garmin transponder. The weather display is superimposed on the charts so I saw large masses of green, yellow and red, all heading east toward Oshkosh and across my flight path.

Seeing the weather means you can adjust your route while flying to go around the worst of the bad stuff. Having ADS-B in also means that I could select airports along my route and get the weather from their airport weather observation system, or AWOS, showing ceilings, solid, broken or scattered cloud, visibility and wind speed and direction.

I used all that information as I headed toward Nebraska, but was flying into denser smoke and haze blowing down from the fires in Canada. I could see the ground below me, but visibility forward was much more challenging. I thought then that having an instrument rating would be wonderful right now.

I called flight service as I got closer to Lincoln. They told me that there were severe thunderstorms and the possibility of tornados north, west and south of Lincoln. I started looking for alternatives and picked Hebron, Nebraska initially. There were those green, yellow and red displays near Hebron, so I looked around on the iPad chart and saw Hastings.

The Foreflight airport directory showed that the FBO closed at 5:00 and I was fifty miles out at 4:50. In spite of all my urging, my faithful 182 wouldn’t go any faster. I started my descent and got the speed up to 140 knots, but it was 15 minutes after five when I landed.

I was relieved to see Adam, the line attendant, out on the ramp, arms upraised, welcoming me to safe haven. The FBO closes at 5:00 on weekends, but is open until 6:00 during the week.

I taxied up and shut down and as I got out of the plane Adam asked if I needed fuel and offered me new ratcheting tie downs the FBO has just purchased. Since I had my own tie downs, I got the 182 secured while Adam topped off the tanks with nearly sixty gallons of 100 LL.

I had hoped to get through at least to Rawlins, Wyoming that evening so I could make it home the next day, but the eastern slope of the Rockies was covered in those nasty red thunderstorms and lots of convective activity. I wisely decided to stay the night and got a recommendation for a good hotel that offered a pilot discount, a bar and grill right next to it with good food, and the use of an airport courtesy car from Matt, the manager of the FBO and ag application operation on the field.

I drove to the hotel and checked in, went next door and got some good fish and chips, a salad and a beer, then went back to my room for a nice hot shower and bed.

I got a flight briefing at 6 Saturday morning, and it wasn’t hopeful. Although I saw high ceilings when I went out to get breakfast at a nearby Perkins, by the time I was done the smoke and moisture had combined to turn the whole area IFR (instrument flight rules).

I packed and checked out hoping that things would clear up, and drove back to the airport. When I went in, there was a more experienced pilot (I won’t say “old” because he is younger than I am) there with his wife, talking to Matt and Adam about ag flying. I wasn’t going to be flying anytime soon, so I leaned against the counter and just listened.

Pat has been flying aerial application, crop dusting, since he was 18. A younger pilot came in, and I learned that he had worked at Hastings in the past and had just started flying ag planes this year. He was greeted by the other pilots there and talked about his experiences as a new crop duster. During the conversation, I realized that Pat was mentoring him by relating his own experiences flying aerial application for nearly forty years, first for his own father and then with his own business.

Pat had put together notes and observations, often after having a close call or when something had gone wrong during a flight. Matt walked over to his computer and printed out Pat’s note which would be a primer on how to stay alive in the most challenging flying of any aviation profession. Matt handed the copy to Riley, the new ag pilot, and Riley thanked Pat for his concern and the good advice. Pat replied that he just wanted to see the young pilots stay alive long enough to be old pilots.

So, if I had an instrument rating, if the weather hadn’t been so rotten, and if I had been dumb enough to try skirting through the marginal conditions, I wouldn’t have had the chance to sit there in the FBO and listen to these incredible pilots talking about their craft.

I went to lunch downtown with Pat and Andy, another ag pilot there to do some spraying that day. Since the weather was bad enough that I couldn’t fly, it was also bad enough that they couldn’t, either. It was wonderful sharing stories of our lives and families over good food with good company.

I grateful that I had the chance to meet Pat, Andy, Riley, Matt and Adam, who is taking lessons so he can also be a pilot.

I’ve had similar experiences on the trips to Oshkosh and back in the past. It’s all part of Oshkosh, and especially of flying. Maybe it’s just part of the human experience.