Well-- it has been some time since I posted a story. Been out off line for a while with several Hospice situations to work through, and some personal down time.

One of the things that made me remember this flight, and the value of hood time during the private pilot training, was continually hearing new students in a recurring ground school class complain about their future of having to do the hood time.

This flight occurred at about four hundred hours into my logged flight time. I read once that a large portion of accidents happen to relatively newer pilots somewhere between three hundred, and four or five hundred hours.

It may not seem like much of a problem to most of you, but it sure was a wakeup call for the invulnerable juvenile I used to be. Fortunately, I had an instructor that used to have me do real Special VFR departures out of Palo Alto. The big difference being that the fog layer was always stable with no turbulence. I also never had any turbulent hood time. Big difference! Maybe something CFIs might want to consider adding.

Note: The next to last word should have been “the” instead of “a” since, as I remember, there really was only one of them available, and it was a couple of towns down the road, but it reads easier with the “a.” Huh? Hey, any pilot who has been stuck in Columbia overnight without any camp gear should understand.





Not In The Private Practical Test Standards

By Trimtab

I spent years reading reports of aviation accidents so I could learn how to avoid them. I kept seeing a high percentage of accidents that were being referred to as “Inadvertent Flight Into IFR.” I had been my relatively low time pilot position that there was no such thing as “inadvertent flight into IFR.” One just had to plan well ahead, remain situationally aware, and make early decisions on the safe side. No problems, no sweat.

Then, one early spring day, I learned a hard lesson. A friend of mine, Jim Dillon, who had never flown before, asked if I could take him for a ride. I told him sure, and that we could do a couple of things with the flight. He had never seen the old “ghost” town of Columbia California, about a thirty-minute walk from the Columbia airport to the town. The town is a state park that exists in a condition of arrested decay. Many of the buildings and businesses are still open to the public in much of the same condition and traditions as they were during the late 1800s. Makes an enjoyable day trip.

The flight started from Palo Alto on a nice spring day with modest winds and scattered cumulus around 6,000 feet off to the northwest. It was a beautiful flight from Palo Alto to Columbia with no weather forecasted to cause any concern. From Fremont we could see the snow on the Sierras over a hundred miles away. It used to be a common sight.

We landed in Columbia, tied down, ordered fuel, and walked into town for a tour and lunch. Jim enjoyed the tour. He had heard about the Gold country, but he never got to see any of it during his years at Stanford. I showed him my favorite dental museum of terror and torture. We took our time, and had a leisurely lunch. We took more time than usual, why not? There was no forecasted weather be concerned about.

However-- one cannot deny the odor of fresh rain on warm pavement. So much for forecasts! I told Jim, “I think we need to go.” As we came out of the restaurant I noticed that the clouds had not only arrived but had lowered significantly. They had closed ranks from widely scattered to barely scattered. They were not yet down to broken, but the trend appeared to be obvious. The rain was only in patchy showers at that time. I told Jim that we had best hot foot it back as best we can, just in case. We covered the mile or so of road and trail back to the Airport at a fast walk and a lot of double time where we could. By the time we got back to the airport the wind had picked up but was steady. The showers were now a steady light rain.

I went directly to the FBO office to pay for the fuel where I overheard an apparently newly minted pilot discussing his first flight as a private pilot. He had just flown in from San Carlos in a Cherokee with his wife and another couple. He was trying to decide if he should fly back to the Bay Area in the rain. I told him to just hang around here with Eagle for a while and I would report back to him if conditions improved to the west. Eagle was the owner of the FBO, Eagle Aviation. He was known as the Bald Eagle for the obvious reason. I never did know his real name.
I told Jim that we would be able to slide out under these clouds OK. We can follow the terrain over towards the New Melones Overflow as I had done before in old rag tag taildraggers while having fun dodging oak trees over the descending hills. But, we needed to hustle if we were to get far enough, soon enough, to be of any use to that new pilot this late in the day.

I did a quick preflight while Jim untied the plane. I did the checklist and run up during the taxi out to runway 17. I announced my intentions on the radio while checking for traffic, pushed in the throttle as we rolled up to the centerline, and accelerated down runway. I had left the pilot’s side window open since we had become hot and sweaty on the hike back in our damp and sweaty wool shirts. The chilling breeze felt good. As we accelerated down the runway I reached over with my right hand and closed the side window, put my hand back on the throttle, rotated, lifted off, turned slightly into the wind to track down the runway, and adjusted the trim for hands off flying. Then it happened. The entire inside of the cockpit instantly fogged up. Inadvertent flight into IFR!

We could not reach the front windshield to clear it. I immediately turned the air vents forward, and turned the cabin heat wide open. No detectable change.

Training took over. Fly the damned plane. Scan! Needle, ball, and Airspeed.
All looked stable. Hands light! Use small rudder corrections as much as possible.
I quickly reached over and re-opened the window hoping to keep the runway insight.
I might be able to return and land using the visibility out the bottom of the open side window, similar to a circle to land slip from the back of a J3. All I saw was the end of the runway as it slid out of sight. Now all I could see was grassland. Then¾ the grass disappeared! In my distraction I had forgotten to level off under the cloud base and had climbed into the clouds. Shit! It was too late for any safe low level maneuvering.
It is time to quit mucking around, I thought, and just fly the plane you stupid ass!

I closed the window and went immediately back to the old needle, ball, and airspeed.

What next?

I had flown out of Columbia a lot of times. I came up with a procedure during daytime flights that allowed me to be more comfortable with nighttime departures. I did this because I used to enjoy going for dinner at the old Stagecoach Inn. I had developed the departure procedure where I would fly just past the end of the runway and make a slight turn to the right. This would put me on a track between two potential obstacles: A second beacon on the left, and the hill on the right. I then watched the VOR needle move in on the preset 235 radial to the Manteca VOR. I would then make the right turn and follow it for a while until the light patterns of the San Joaquin valley were discernible. In those days it was still pretty dark out there for a while.

Now, habit already had the VOR tuned to Manteca. I just dialed in the 235 radial and had a “to” signal. The needle was close enough to start a very slow right turn.

Knowing that Eagle was listening, I picked up the mike and said, “Eagle, Eagle, Eagle, tell that new pilot in the Cherokee to stay on the ground, it is solid IFR up here.”

“Are you IFR qualified?” was Eagle’s only reply.

“Looks like we’re going to find out.” I said, “I will call you if we make it.”

I continued to scan the panel. Needle, ball, and airspeed. I was too busy, and too damned mad with myself to be scared. I was surprised that I was angrier than I was scared. I was now just doing what I had been trained. Pavlov knew of what he spoke.

Jim was silent.

I was no longer certain just how far we were from the hill off the right wing. I knew that 2,700 feet MSL would allow me to easily clear it.

I was getting fairly comfortable and confident with the plane when things took an ugly turn for the worse. The sky fell on us with a vengeance. It was later determined that I had flown into the bottom of an imbedded and maturing thunderstorm. I tried to lightheartedly tell Jim that it looks like Chicken Little might have been right after all.

The plane was being violently scrambled in all directions. For once I was trying to hold a reasonable attitude with the artificial horizon that I seldom used. I had learned to fly mostly by the partial panel, just in case, and because most of the planes I flew had no “panel.” This time I needed all the help I could get, and was more than willing to use it.

Fear loves time, for time allows fear to marshal your doubts and march them against you. Fortunately, fear only had one short line in this immediate melodrama, “Hey dumb ass, what will it possibly look like if the gyros tumble in this turbulence?” I was too busy at the moment to worry about that. Fuck the possibilities! Fly what ya got.

I remember wondering if this might be close to what severe turbulence is all about.
I could see occasional light grayish pulses. I assumed it was lightning. I hoped it was short gaps between clumps of cumulus. I could not hear much of the thunder because of the noise from the rain or hail pounding on the plane. The noise of the storm was so loud that I could barely hear the engine. This was before the headsets were in common use. Maybe I was hearing the blood rushing in my ears. I added the tach to my scan. Some of the sounds gave me visions of flexing sheet metal. Lightning could be heard in the radio.

I remember thinking a second Nav-Com would be a comfort.

I thought I could hear the engine changing RPM. Could it be the changes in pitch that were causing it? Could it be carburetor ice? Shit! That was the last doubt that I needed for fear drag up throw in my face. I pulled on full carburetor heat, leaned for max RPM, as best as I could judge. I tried to hold a steady speed but had to settle for a range of 55 to 65. With this much turbulence I figured that slower equals more comfort.

I was trying to reach at least 2700 feet, but I could not get the plane above 2600 before being driven down again. Just how far off to the right was that hill? Since the panel was largely a blur I concentrated my focus on the artificial horizon. The next few minutes were to become the most frenetic in my life of flying. I remember doing a mantra through tightly clenched teeth, “No fucking headlines, No fucking headlines,” over and over and over while fighting to keep the plane right side up.

A quick glance showed me the VOR needle was staying close enough. I remember thinking, just try to keep the needle a bit to the right and we would stay well clear of the hill that was haunting me somewhere off to the right.

It was all I could do to occasionally get up to 2600 feet. I was concerned about going lower because if I tried to go down out the bottom, I just might hit the bottom. Testing if the down draft would drive us into the ground was not an empirical result I needed to learn right then. I had seen the downdrafts of distant thunderstorms going to the ground and flaring out. If, I had only stayed down below the clouds, then I could have gone down and out through the New Melones overflow as planned. I had done that several times before just for the enjoyment of terrain flying. Almost landed on the overflow once but some big equipment showed up just in time to ruin the fun.

Time, being relative, made it feel like we were in that tumbling, swirling, ugly, dark mess forever, with no foreseeable hope of it getting any better. But finally, the plane began to settle down and gain a bit of altitude. Eventually the dark gray and black turned to mottled grays, then to lighter grays above. The inside appeared to have cleared up sufficiently. Suddenly! Relief as the sun returns in short, but comforting, breaks. The clouds became broken enough that I could duck down under them. We were just south of my usual checkpoint where I would look for Copperopolis and highway 4 off to my right.

I dragged the cord up off of the floor and keyed the mike. “Hey Eagle, that was ugly but we made it. Tell that new Cherokee pilot to stay the hell there until after this shit passes.” It is more broken to scattered across the valley to the west.

“Not a problem, just glad you made it.” Eagle replied, “The storm is still here, dumping torrents hail on us. His wife already called a cab.”

Ha Ha!!!!

Must reading for the "I'll never need an instrument rating" crowd.

After a few more hours of experience, it's no more a concern than CAVU on a calm day, and you will look back and wonder what all the fuss was about.

Gump

Great story. Thanks for sharing.