Chapter Eight

July 6th.

Sioux City, Iowa.

I do have a good aviation radio. It allows me to talk to people I don't want to talk to. I prefer little airports that don't have a control tower but today there was a high wind predicted in front of a weather front so I decided to fly up to the front of the front and wait it out. I picked Sioux City airport because they have two runways that are in different directions. They are one hundred fifty feet wide and more than six thousand feet long. Actually one of them is nine thousand feet long. One runway should be very close to the current wind direction so I can land my kite into a head wind and stagger around on the runway without ending up out in the weeds.

I don't like to talk to control tower people for a whole bunch of reasons but the one that sticks out in my mind first is that they aren't flying the plane. I am. They are incredibly helpful at times and have saved my butt but more often than not I get some disapproval for being way to slow. Don't forget they are used to dealing with jets that have a landing speed about a hundred and twenty miles an hour. I land at about forty miles an hour. My taxi speed is just a little faster than a brisk walk. They would like me off the runway NOW. If I get behind one of those airplanes with huge blowtorches for engines I can get blown up into a wad out in the weeds. I have a fear of being in the weeds. I don't want my airplane to look like the chart wad I have inside my shirt again.

Folks, I didn't make this up.

All airports have a three letter identifier. Los Angeles, LAX. Seattle, SEA. Dallas Fort Worth, DFW. I'm sure you can think of a bunch more. Sioux City is SUX.

I was about ten miles from SUX and called the tower to tell them who I am and where I am and that I want to land at their airport. They called back and said that the runway that I wanted was closed for repairs. They don't fool around at airports. The runway I needed really was closed and had working crews out pouring new cement. I was going to have to use the runway with the crosswind. They clear me to land second, right after the Piper. I'm flying along and see the Piper cross the big numbers at the end of the runway on his final approach so I look ahead to see where I am going to make my left turn and I hear the tower say, "Do you need assistance"? My first thought is that the last airport called ahead and warned them about me. The next call is preceded with my tail number. "Six Zero Yankee your landing clearance is canceled. Make right one hundred eighty degree turn and re-enter the pattern on down wind". This is really unusual as I'm supposed to turn left. I make a right turn and head back to the starting point. About half way back up the runway I look down and there is the Piper just after the big numbers at the beginning of the runway. He' in the center of the runway with his right landing gear collapsed. No one is hurt. The tower guy calls me. "Six Zero Yankee the airport is now closed. Would  you like a diversion to another airport ?". SUX for me. I ask if I can land on the part of the other runway that the guys aren't pouring cement on. There is six thousand feed of unoccupied runway there. No deal. Flying and thinking quickly I ask if I can land on the last eight thousand feet that the Piper isn't on. He only takes up the first thousand feet or so. I can land five or six times on eight thousand feet of runway. No deal. "How about I land on the grass"? Unless I declare an emergency the airport is closed. SUX isn't for me.

The tower guy suggests I go to a small field that is two miles to the North. He watches me and tells me to follow the road that is under me and I should see the field ahead and gives me the common traffic frequency for my radio. I see the field and the runway is fifty feet wide and short. It also has a crosswind. It's right next to a huge wrecking yard full of junk scrap metal.  I quickly drive that thought out of my mind. I have to fly.

I'm going to give it a shot. I can always go around and try again. I call on the radio to see if someone can tell me how fast the wind is blowing. There might be someone near a radio. I get Gene. He tells me to hang on a second and he'll walk out there by the runway. He sees my airplane and tells me to land on the grass next to the paved runway. He is constantly on the radio and tells me to keep my left wing tip over the paved runway so I don't hit the runway lights and land in the grass. I make the quintessential biplane three point landing. Straight, slow and very short. I'm down with room to spare. Grass landings are good in a biplane. The winds are eight gusting to twelve. By the early afternoon they are eighteen gusting to twenty-four. I'm down for the next couple of days. Landing in the weeds is good. Ending up out in the weeds is bad.

I take Gene to lunch. Lunch is at the greasy spoon next to the Golf course that is giving lessons. See the picture.

Gene is an old crop duster. He's about sixty and a bunch years and has been crop dusting since he was twenty two. He invites me to join him and a few other guys in a fly-by salute over the funeral of a friend about six in the evening on Friday. I respectfully declined and asked what happened to his friend. He said, "We really don't know. Last Monday he just woke up dead." I had coffee coming out my nose.  I am NOT making this up. Gene is one of those "salt of the earth" guys. I know that if I gave him a bag of money to hold for me, ten years later he'd hand me back the same bag with the same money in it.

See the video “Windmills”. I saw several windmill farms on the way here. I love the look. I love flying down next to them. They are like a stationary airplane with a huge propeller. We’re kinda related. I think of them as friends.

In Chapter Seven I described what a rag airplane wing looked like inside. Here is a picture of a wing without the cloth covering.

Here is a picture of how easy it is to store a yellow Piper Cub in a hangar. It's a perfectly serviceable Cub. It's just put out of the way while they work on other airplanes. This was Gene’s father’s Cub. It’s a 1938 and until I arrived it was the oldest airplane on the field.

Gene and his crop-duster

Tomorrow is Sunday July 8th and I will make a run North West to Pierre South Dakota. It is also a test day to see how high my biplane will fly. If I can get to nine thousand feet I feel I will be able to fly over the Rockies on Interstate Ninety when I get there. If not I'll go North to Glacier Park where there is a pass at a lower elevation.

I took lots of mountain flying lessons and I have flown in the mountains often since. Mountain flying has its own tricks to it. Altitude is your friend. Having an Interstate Highway under you is another friend. If you have to you can land on the highway. Then you only have to worry about getting hit by a truck.

Air temperature goes down two and a half degrees for every thousand feet you go up. At ten thousand feet it is twenty-five degrees cooler than at sea level. It's cold up there.

Saturday evening.

I spoke with the weather service and Pierre, South Dakota has a front moving into it with high winds so I may have to wait until afternoon to fly. I hate it. I really what to fly but the darn cross winds are beyond my expertise. The runways at Pierre are almost directly sideways with the wind. Maybe they'll come around by afternoon.

Sunday Morning.

NOW I'm frustrated. I have been saying bad words all morning. The weather here at SUX doesn't suck. After the morning mist burned off it is a perfectly flyable day. Light winds right down the runway. Pierre, where I have to go next, has an East West runway and the wind is out of the North. It's 18 gusting to 24. That's Knots. About 22 miles an hour gusting to 27 or 28 miles an hour. There is a weather front moving south out of Canada.

I spent hours looking at charts and talking to the aviation weather guys trying to figure an alternate route. The problem is that the airports are so far apart out here that if I pick one I'm committed to that airport with no alternate. When I get there I have to land there. I don't have the reserve fuel to try for another. I can run due West but then I'll be right up against the Rocky Mountains on the down wind side. Then I would end up having to fly North along the base of the mountains for a few hundred miles. On a good day at the base of the Rockies it's windy as hell so I want to fly North West out here in the Plains States and then run directly West to Billings, Montana and the base of the Rockies. Interstate Ninety and Mullen pass start there.

I keep thinking of all the pilots I know and wonder how they would be handling this. Craig comes to mind often. I'm not making this guy up either. Actually he's on this mailing list and will be reading along with the rest of you.

Craig was an air-show pilot for years. He built a biplane with landing gear on the top of the top wing and the top tip of the tail along with the regular landing gear on the bottom of the airplane. Part of his show, along with extreme aerobatics, was to land upside down and right side up and upside down and right side up in one landing. When upside down and on the ground the cockpit and his head were too close to the ground for him to crawl out of the plane. Craig is now one of the top aerial coordinators and camera ship pilots in Hollywood. Not that I'd like to land my airplane upside down, I'd just like the confidence to land in a high crosswind. It's such a kite. Sitting in heavy rain and a thick overcast was easy. Clear skies and high winds are frustrating. I booked my room for another day.

After the morning mist burns off I'm off to Pierre, South Dakota.