Heading Back Home, And Dealing With The Ides Of March

by ANN Managing Editor Rob Finfrock

The skies looked gloomy overhead as I sat in the small pilots lounge Sunday morning at Charlotte County Regional Airport in Punta Gorda, FL. According to weather information obtained through AOPA's Flight Planner, things looked even gloomier to the north, right over the area where Jim and I planned to be flying through within the next couple hours.

The six-hour forecast showed low-ish clouds and rain showers were expected to dominate the route up to Lakeland, and over towards Crystal Lake (CGC) where we planned to stop.

From that point, the plan was to either turn northeast towards Green Cove Springs, or -- if time and weather allowed -- take a short side jaunt over the Gulf to Cedar Key (CDK), where the combination of a picturesque setting and the promise of good seafood were beckoning.

A New Sensation... And Another Lesson

Conditions this Sunday morning, March 30, were a marked difference from the day before. Bright sun, high puffy clouds and muggy temperatures were the name of the game on Saturday, and promised fine conditions to get some additional training in. I'd met Jim at PGD that afternoon, after he'd wrapped up his last flight lesson for the day. A number of other planes were overhead, also taking advantage of the beautiful, if warm, weather, and I looked forward to joining them.

I also sensed my solo was looming... and there was no particular reason why we had to wait to return to Palatka to get that out of the way. I felt ready, and eager to get it out of the way after Jim and I did some more dual work.

But, alas, it wasn't meant to be that way. The first sign of trouble came during my preflight, when I noticed my necklace -- a small gold pendant set on a thin chain, that my good friend Jen had given me a few years back -- was missing. I'd apparently forgotten to put it on that morning, in my haste to meet Jim at the airport.

This is where superstition kicked in. Jen had given me this necklace about four years ago. The inscription on the pendant -- "Pray for us who fly" -- referred at the time to my ongoing flight training efforts, and I'd made it a point to wear it on every lesson since then; following my cancer diagnosis in early 2006, though, I'd taken to wearing it every day.

I'd be lying if I said I brushed off its absence as not a big deal. I even told Jim that it gave me some pause about the lesson. Still, I didn't feel it should be a reason not to fly -- the plane was in perfect health, we had a full tank of gas, and beautiful days aren't a resource to be ignored.

I shoved my missing necklace from my mind as we taxied out for departure on runway 3, and held for landing traffic. Immediately after we called our takeoff roll for closed traffic, a new voice joined the cacophony on the CTAF -- a Skybus pilot, calling 10 miles out to land at PGD from the southeast.

Of course, the Airbus wasn't a factor for us as we took off... but the fact the pilot planned to land on 33 -- the runway nearest the terminal, of course -- meant our left traffic pattern for 21 would be impacted.

My takeoff was passable, but I unintentionally turned a shallower crosswind leg than I'd meant to. A combination of factors was at work here -- an unfamiliar airport, lots of other planes in the pattern and an overly-frantic search on my part for sight of a large orange airliner careening towards us. In simple terms... that approaching Airbus had moved my cheese, and left me discombobulated.

Jim pointed out my shallow turn -- the proper heading was 300, mine was closer to 320 -- and noted I was flying us out of the traffic pattern. Fortunately, there was no other traffic behind us, so Jim suggested I turn back onto the proper heading and fly a wide pattern, to keep the approach path of the airliner inside our track. (In hindsight, I should have taken a picture of one of the last Skybus planes to ever land in Punta Gorda, before the airline folded six days later. It's a bittersweet memory.)

By the time we were at midfield on the downwind, though, it became clear we'd conflict with the Airbus on our base leg. The plane ahead of us in the pattern saw this, too, and decided not to play chicken with an A319. I followed his lead, and announced we'd also exit the pattern until the airliner was on the ground.

"Let's fly over the bay, and I'll show you what Rotonda looks like from above," Jim told me, referring to the community laid out in a concentric circular pattern (shown at right, thanks to Google Maps) across the bay from PGD. "It's pretty neat."

As I banked us over the water, heading west, Jim consulted his checklist for maneuvers we still needed to cover. Since we'd made considerable progress over the last two days -- getting takeoffs and landings down had done wonders for my learning curve -- the list was short. "Let's practice some accelerated stalls," Jim said.

I climbed to 3,000 feet, and scanned for nearby traffic. Jim then took over the controls; before starting the demonstration, I took the opportunity to take some pictures.

And then... things got weird. As the Gobosh slowed to 60 knots, I felt my stomach gurgle ever-so-slightly, and I realized I felt flush. Though it was a warm day, things were fairly comfortable in the cockpit; the 700S has ample ventilation, not only through two small sliding panels in the canopy (seen on most like-equipped LSA) but also via four eyeball vents that run along the instrument panel combing, right where they're needed the most.

I wasn't sweating... nor did I feel "sick," per se. I'll add here that I have NEVER gotten airsick, whether flying commercially or in smaller planes. I had somewhat expected to when I flew aerobatics for the first time ever, last year... but even those fears had proven to be unfounded.

Since I wasn't nauseous, I kept quiet... figuring the sensation would pass. As Jim then performed a cross-controlled stall to the left, however, my stomach jumped. I still was not queasy... but I sensed that was the path I was heading towards. What the...?

"Um, I feel strange," I told Jim, as I instinctively grabbed the IP to steady myself (a meaningless gesture, of course.)

By that point, Jim had already recovered and brought us to wings level. "You sick?" I nodded, sort of. "There's a strip near Rotonda we can land at," he said. "I can have us on the ground in about five minutes."

I reassured him I wasn't in danger of hurling. "Let's fly level for a bit," I said. "Can I have the controls?" I thought perhaps flying the plane myself would help calm my stomach.

After puttering over the bay for about five minutes, though -- heading back in the general direction of PGD -- I realized trying to salvage a lesson from this would be a lost cause. "Let's head back to Charlotte County," I told Jim, resigned.

I stayed on the controls for the next two minutes, before relinquishing the plane to Jim. "If I had to -- if I was alone -- I think could land safely without a problem," I said. "But since you're here..."

Back on the ground in Punta Gorda, Jim and I discussed what may have happened. After landing the evening before, we'd gone out for dinner... and I'd had a beer. I have a fairly low tolerance for alcohol (again, ONE beer)... but I hadn't felt hungover at all the next morning, and besides, our short flight was easily 15 hours after that.

But I also hadn't drank any water afterwards; all I'd had since was coffee, and a glass of iced tea at the restaurant at PGD. Near as I can figure, I was probably dehydrated. By Sunday morning, I felt great again.

It will always be a mystery, I guess... but there's another possibility, too. I now double-check to make sure I have my prized necklace on before leaving to go fly... just in case my mind had played tricks on me.

Rain, Clouds, Scud... Go Away!

Back to Sunday now. Jim walked into the pilot lounge at around 1 pm, after his last lesson. "Check the weather?" he asked me. "Things are great around here, but it looks a little darker to the north."

I had just checked the weather again online. "Ceilings around 5,000 feet, light rain showers but no convective activity anywhere close from here to Crystal River," I said. "Though it's looking pretty socked in anywhere east of there."

Jim nodded. "Well, call Flight Service to make sure, but assuming they say it's fine let's head to Crystal River and go from there," he said. "Maybe things will clear up towards the east as we head to Cedar Key."

Within a minute, Flight Service confirmed the weather was indeed fine, with only a report of "marginal" VFR conditions closer to Tampa. Over Orlando, however, things were socked in. "You should be clear all the way to Crystal River," the briefer told me. "And there's an airport about every 10 miles if things change" the briefer reminded me -- another benefit of flying over Florida.

We took off after 2 pm. The first portion of our route essentially retraced the path we'd taken heading down to PGD on Friday, so I used the same landmarks. Shortly after we leveled off at 3,000 feet, the rain started -- light showers, that turned a bit heavier the closer we got to Lakeland. Still, the overcast cloud ceiling remained comfortably above us, and visibility was easily greater than 15 miles; looking off to the west, I could even see the outline of downtown Tampa, distinct even through the clouds in the area.

The remainder of our trip to CGC was uneventful. The skies cleared a bit once we turned northwest past Lakeland, though we also picked up a sizable easterly breeze. By the time we entered the pattern at Crystal River, the wind on the ground was blowing at a steady 15 knots, gusting to 20... but it was also straight down runway 9. My landing was one of my best yet, a true greaser.

By now it was close to 3:30 pm... and the skies looked increasingly ominous to the east. After commiserating a bit, Jim and I opted to stay on the ground in Crystal River for lunch, rather than heading off for Cedar Key. Instead, we borrowed the FBO truck to head to Chili's.

One hour later, back at the airport, not much appeared to have changed. The winds were still blowing on the ground, and it was still cloudy off to the east. I called FSS for an updated forecast -- this time, I had to wait over 10 minutes before getting through to a local briefer, though this was the ONLY time during my training I had to wait so long.

Once I got through, the briefer didn't paint an optimistic picture. "Ceilings around 2,000 feet reported east of Ocala, and it only gets worse the further in you go."

Going around the clouds wasn't an option; the cell extended north well past Jacksonville, south of Orlando, and all the way to the Atlantic Coast. A call to Jim Campbell also confirmed what I'd feared: a very low cloud deck had hung over Haller since early that morning, and showed no signs of lifting.

Decision time. It looked pretty obvious we weren't going to make it back to Haller. Still, the path from Crystal River to Ocala seemed more-or-less clear... and the closer we could get towards our destination, the better. After fueling up, Jim and I taxied out for departure. With the wind, it seemed we hardly had any ground roll at all before we were airborne.

From the moment we climbed past 500 feet, we were in for a bumpy ride. By definition, light sport aircraft aren't ideal planes to fly in turbulent conditions, even near their gross weights. Even at the maximum of 1,320 lbs, the Gobosh has relatively light wing loading -- the result of all the wing area (including the 700S's distinctive winglets) added to the Aero AT-3 to slow it down to LSA standards, and to reduce its stall speed.

We were being tossed around pretty good -- but I didn't feel sick at all, further reinforcing the opinion I only had myself to blame for feeling ill the day before (I ruminated on this while taking a sip from the water bottle I had since started carrying with me.)

As we drew closer to Ocala, it became clear we wouldn't make it much farther on this leg. The ceiling had progressively lowered as we'd flown further from Crystal River, requiring us to descend to 1,500 feet to maintain adequate clearance. The clouds looked even lower straight ahead.

"Looks like we're spending the night in Ocala," Jim said. We consulted the chart, which showed OCF just five miles ahead, easily within sight once I knew where to look. My landing was decent, too... especially considering the rather heady crosswind on final.

That's the thing about strictly day-VFR flying... sometimes, you simply must concede the victory to the weather gods. I considered this truism from the ramp at Landmark Aviation, as I unpacked the Gobosh... and watched an SR22 take off into the clouds.

Coming Thursday: Solo Time!

FMI: www.sportpilot.org, www.gobosh.aero