A Long Flight Home
Article and
pictures by Evan "Crash" Wright
I had been planning this trip for a long time, about 2 years in fact, which not by coincidence is same length of time I had owned my Cessna 152. Ever since I bought that airplane, I have been chomping at the bit to take it on a marathon trek to visit my family in Connecticut. This August I was finally entitled to a week of vacation, so I blocked off my calendar and started laying maps out all over the apartment. Preparations were not just limited to flight planning, but included the pilot and aircraft. I had the marker beacons in my plane fixed, and did some hood work with an instructor to get current on instrument flying in case that was required. It turned out to be money well spent.
I had originally hoped to fly to Fort Wayne after work on Thursday, spend the night with my father-in-law, and continue on in the morning, but a front passing through made that impossible. I departed Clow airport at 6:30 am on Friday, August 19, and flew SE over Lewis until I was over I-80, then turned east. When out of Chicago airspace, I climbed up to 5000. Nearing Route 30, a solid undercast was forming. No longer able to follow landmarks, and needing a clearance to descend to land at Smith Field in any case, I decided to file an IFR flight plan from the air, which I had previously never done (just from the ground). I triangulated my position using the 2 VOR receivers, then contacted Flight Watch with my position and information. Flight watch gave me the frequency for South Bend approach, which I then called to get my clearance. I was cleared “direct Wolf Lake, then Smith Field.” After crossing the Wolf Lake VOR I followed the procedure for the VOR-14 approach, and for a while I was in the clouds with water beading up on windshield. After the final approach fix, I started descending and pretty soon, I was below the ceiling with the airport in sight. When I reported to Fort Wayne approach that I had visual contact with the field, they asked me to cancel IFR with them or on the ground. Being just a little bit busy, I replied I would cancel on the Ground. Since the winds were from the South West, I circled for runway 24, landed, and ran inside to use the facilities. While asking for gasoline, the phone rang. The airport attendant handed me the receiver….not a good sign. “Evan Wright speaking.”, I said. “This is Fort Wayne approach, is this the pilot of 5492B?” “Yes” I answered. “And you are safely on the ground at Smith Field?” “Yes….uh….I forgot to cancel my clearance…I’m really, really sorry”, I lamely offered. “No problem, thanks.” Damn! I swore I would never do that.
After refueling at Smith Field, I checked the weather and plotted the next leg. The weather was pretty much the same, low ceilings and marginal visibilities. The next stop would be Mansfield-Lahm in Ohio, just over an hour away. I filed a flight plan, and departed. Once airborne, I contacted Fort Wayne approach, and picked up my clearance to Mansfield. Again, the flight was on top of a broken to solid overcast, making visual navigation impossible. I followed my assigned routing to Mansfield. The ATIS information indicated that the ILS was in use, but by the time ATC stepped me down through the clouds, the visibility had improved enough for visual landings. I landed on runway 24 taxied to Richland Aviation for fuel.
At Richland, I plotted out the next leg and called flight services for another briefing - VFR flight not recommended. I filed an IFR flight plan to Youngstown, Ohio, just short of the Pennsylvania border, requesting an altitude that would get me on top of the clouds. Pretty soon after take-off, I was in the soup again, followed by a break out on top. I followed the airways to Youngstown, only seeing the ground once, when I flew over Canton. Near Youngstown, approach cleared me to descend into the clouds to set up for an ILS approach. The clouds this time weren’t the white puffy ones I had been dealing with before. They were now grey, turbulent, and water was streaking across my windshield. On the localizer, outside the outer marker, I realized I was not receiving the glide-slope. I contacted the tower, who reported that the KC-315 tanker behind me was receiving it just fine. Great, I’ll be a bug on this guy’s windshield. I told the tower I would fly the localizer approach instead, which does not use the glide-slope, but does not let you descend as far either. All this was happening in the clouds, and the winds, variable at 13 knots, made it difficult to hold the localizer accurately. Eventually, I broke out of the clouds and was rewarded with a wide, long, and extremely beautiful runway in front of me. Safely on the ground, but slightly rattled, I taxied to the FBO and shut down the engine.
Youngstown, OH, is a large airport with commercial jet traffic, and a heavy Air Force Reserve presence. Consequently, the facilities were very good. Since there was an avionics shop on the field, and the forecast was now calling for Isolated but severe thunderstorms, so I decided to pack it in for the day. The technicians soon found the problem with my glide-slope. Here is the bloody saga: Each localizer frequency is paired to a corresponding glide-slope frequency. The frequencies are grouped together, and for each group of localizer frequencies, a wire leading to the glide-slope receiver must be connected to the appropriate pin in the NAV/COM. Several of the pins had been incorrectly matched. The problems had been lurking in the airplane every since the glide-slope receiver had been installed, but no one had ever noticed it because no one had ever used a localizer frequency from the miswired group.
The FBO recommended a hotel called the Avalon, at which they could get me a room for $60. When the shuttle dropped me off, I felt decidedly underdressed. The hotel turned out to be a 4 star golf resort with 2 courses, an Olympic size pool, a fitness center, and a fancy steak house. One great meal, and an injudicious number of beers later, I packed it for the night.
The next morning, I got my plane out of hock at the avionics shop, and prepared for the next leg to Philipsburg, PA. The weather was forecast to be more of the same. 700 to 1400 foot ceilings, visibility 3 to 5 miles. I filed another IFR flight plan, and pretty soon I was back on top of the clouds over OH.
I followed the airways to the Philipsburg VOR, and was cleared for the ILS approach. The approach went smoothly, and I started following the glide-slope down to the decision altitude. I started to get a little uneasy when the airport didn’t materialize. As the descent progressed I could see trees below me but had poor forward visibility, and could not pick out the airport. 200ft above the DA, I leveled off. I wasn’t sure enough of my skills enough to go down to the minimum of 200 ft AGL without the airport in sight. I leveled off at about 400 ft AGL, and kept flying the localizer. Again, more beads water formed on the windshield. Finally, I saw the runway about 2 miles ahead, lost it, then saw it again. It was covered with puddles from storms the previous day. Once again a happy man, I landed and refueled. Since there was no tower at the field, I needed to find a phone ASAP and cancel my clearance. I ran inside the FBO, and found, to my consternation, that the public phone was very well hidden. While hunting from room to room, the airport office phone rang. Damn! Too Slow! I sheepishly picked up the phone and answered “…uh….this is the…uh... airport”. In my nervous haste, I blanked on the airport name, which I’m sure impressed, the guy on the other end of the line. An FSS operator with a heavy New York accent spoke up, and inquired about a Cessna, 5492B. I explained that I was the pilot, now safely on the ground, and burst into appology “I swear to God, I was just trying to call you guys, I looked everywhere and just couldn’t find the public phone in this FBO.” Amused by my sincere pleas for mercy, the voice on the other end, started laughing a deep belly laugh, said “No problem”, and hung up.
The next leg of the flight was to Stewart International on the Hudson River. The current weather at the destination was poor: 2 miles visibility, haze, 700 ft ceilings, described as ragged by a PIREP, but forecast to improve. While, getting ready to depart, I noticed the weather actually seemed halfway decent. A low cumulus cloud was sitting right on the approach course.
I departed for Stuart International on another IFR flight plan, and was on top again for another round of Victor airways. By now the cloud tops were edging higher than 5,000, so I was repeatedly plowing through cloud tops. It was fun the first few times, but rapidly become tiresome. I asked center for, and received, a VFR On-Top clearance, which is still and IFR clearance, but permits the pilot to fly any VFR altitude so long as he remains clear of clouds. I climbed up another 500 ft, and had smooth sailing. Enroute, I called flight watch on 122.0 and got the latest weather at Stuart. It had not improved. On the chart I could see I was close to Williamsport, PA, when purely by chance, I flew over the outer marker for their ILS. Getting those marker beacons fixed, was really paying off. Being within a few miles, and not wanting to press on into bad weather, I asked center for vectors to the ILS into Williamsport. By chance, it used the same frequency as Youngstown. Now I was really glad I had had my glide-slope wiring fixed, too. The landing at Williamsport was uneventful, and I decided to eat lunch at the airport restaurant. On the TV everyone was watching Japanese kids play baseball. Later, I learned the little league World Series was in town.
After a 2 hour wait, I filed another flight plan to Stuart. Enroute, I checked the weather and it was no better than before. About at the half way point I decided to divert to Sterling, a small airport near Wilkes Barre. Wilkes Barre approach started giving me vectors to the VOR approach into Sterling, and then handed me off to New York approach as I left their airspace. After a while, I stopped receiving vectors, but the frequency was so busy it was hard to contact approach. Finally I was able to ask them if they were vectoring me to Sterling and they said my flight listed Stuart as the final destination. When Wilkes Barre handed me off, they didn’t tell New York I had a new destination! By this time I had overshot my destination by at least 20 miles. ‘Pissed Off’ goes about half way toward describing how angry I was.
While receiving vectors to Sterling I noticed a large lake through a hole in the clouds. I located it on the Sectional chart, and noticed an airport with fuel, Cherry Ridge, was nearby. I spotted it, cancelled my clearance, and started descending through the hole. I landed on runway 18, and refueled at the self serve pumps. On the way there, a ground hog, skulked across the taxiway and disappeared into the undergrowth. By now, New Haven was within easy range, so I refueled, and filed yet another IFR flight plan with New Haven as the final destination.
I departed runway 18 and contacted Wilkes Barre departure to get my clearance. The route I received was completely different from the one I had requested. I scrambled to figure out my new routing, but managed to get everything sorted out. The clouds were still topping 5,000 feet, so I tried the VFR-On top clearance again. I was curtly told that that was impossible due to traffic heading to New York.
By this time in the trip, the familiar drone of the engine had been permanently etched into my brain. So, when the engine hiccuped, it damn near cost me a pair of pants. I pushed the mixture to full rich, and pulled out the carb heat. All indications from the gauges indicated the engine was running fine, so I turned the key to the left mag position. Immediately, the engine started missing, and the whole plane started shaking. I put the key in the right mag position, and the engine started to run smoothly again. Since the mixture had been leaned out, I figured the problem probably wasn’t carbon fouling. In any case, there wasn’t much I could do except run on both mags, and have it checked out after landing. Occasionally I could look down through the undecast, but saw only trees: no where you’d want to land a sick airplane if things got worse. A mechanic later determined that the top spark plug on the front right cylinder had failed.
I could barely make out the Hudson River as I passed over it, and followed my assigned route to the Kingston VOR. Once there, I received vectors to New Haven. I was stepped down to 3000 feet, which put me in the clouds, then eventually down to 2500. At 2500 ft, I looked down and realized I was just a few miles from my mother’s house. I could see the golf course next door, my mom’s neighborhood, and my old high school! I flew right over them, and managed to get a few photos in:
As I neared New Haven airport, I could see Long Island across the Sound, freighters sailing into New Haven Harbor, scores of sailboats, and the Thimble Islands. It was all absolutely gorgeous.
The tower operator was particularly low-key, and cleared me for a visual approach to runway 20. After landing I received taxi instructions to the FBO where I tied down. I almost taxied the wrong way because the FBO is on the opposite side of the field from where it was in 1987, when I soloed. I opened the windows to get some fresh air in the cabin, and proceeded to a tie-down spot. Two days, 750 nautical miles, 7 landings, 4 instrument approaches, 2 diversions, and a trip to the avionics shop later, I was in New Haven. Mission Accomplished.
Where To Now?
Not Your Typical Ultralight Cross-Country:
Evan Goes IFR All the Way to Connecticut!
We Made It to Tommy George's This Year!