Carhartts

I just decided I'm going to Fleet Farm when I get home and get me a couple pair of Carhartt pants, and a pair of quality, waterproof work boots.  That seems to be the dress of all the Bush and Float Plane pilots I've met so far.

I'm siting in the Roadhouse, having my (almost daily) cup of coffee and a Frosty.  Swear I've gained at least 5 pounds since I've been here.  No gym here, however, I have walked and ran the 3 mile trail near the B&B twice.  Not enough to negate the extra calories I'm taking in.

Coffee and Frosty, very addicting!

It's 12:00 Noon.  I was up early, had breakfast with Bill and 4 other guests. They weren't up early enough to see the Moose return, this time with her calf.

Moose......................Calf

I met John at the PATK at 9:00.  Rain,  Overcast.  Clouds.  We walked over the the FSS (Flight Service) building at the airport.  This FSS is staffed by real FAA people at PATK, who are intimately familiar with the area and have their own take on the weather and the longer term Terminal Aerodrome Forecasts, which traditionally come out of US Weather service centers and are informational for larger airports, like Anchorage.

FSS Building at PATK

Before I take off from the airport I fly out of at home, I always call FSS for a weather briefing and to get other pertinent information about weather in route and any Airmets or Notams (precautionary advisories). I usually talk to someone in Grand Rapids, MI who works for Lockheed Martin, sbcontracted by the FAA.  Here in Talkeetna, you can walk right into the building and talk directly to the person others would call, and debate whether flight in any direction are advisable.  While we were in FSS this AM, a Cherokee took off toward the mountain.  It was a scout plane that flies out to assess the weather on different Glaciers so the various Scenic Aviation companies can determine if their going to send flights up there.  That's how they make their money.  The Cherokee was back withing 15 minutes, apparently getting turned away by the weather.  With the weather being as bad as it was, we just hung around the shop.  I checked e-mails and called in briefly to the GM meeting at Tax-Air Milwaukee.  Shortly after calling into the meeting, John said we should give a flight a try.  We'd take off and assess the weather ourselves.

We taxied out and took off to the north.  We were going to stay in the pattern at PTKA for a bit so I could practice landings on the gravel there.  Normally, after take-off, I would climb to 800 feet, turn right, fly out a bit until I was at a good distance from the runway, turn right on downwind, continue to climb to 1,100 feet, then level off and set up for right base and decent for landing on the other end of the runway.  After take-off, it was obvious that 800' was going to put us into the clouds to the right.  Also, looking back at the other end of the runway, which was supposed to be our approach end, the clouds were even lower.  I opted to level off at 600', only about 300' above the ground, fly straight out, where the clouds over the Susitna River were higher.  There was like a window above which allowed me the opportunity to climb to 2,500' and circle within that opening so we could decide what to do. There were no easy options, with clouds pretty much surrounding us.  We could go out over the tops of the clouds, but there was no guarantee, especially with the weather the way it was, that if we would fly away from our visual reference, we would have the opportunity to later descend back for a landing.  I did several 360 degree turns, then settled in for an approach back to the runway I had taken off from, only in the opposite direction, in order to avoid the clouds at the other end.  We had very little wind so direction of landing was not critical.  After landing, we filed a pilot weather report (Pirep) for any other pilots seeking information that FSS might not have.  It's always better to get recent weather information from the pilots that have been up in the weather.  All other FSS reports, except for Radar, are based on ground observations, which can be deceiving.

So now I'm killing time till 4 pm, our next window of opportunity.  The weather has to clear-up, either tonight or tomorrow AM.  I'm heading for Anchorage tomorrow at noon and I still need around 2 more hours of instruction to get my Bush endorsement.  Hate to come all this way and miss that one.