Tennessee Hospitality

Sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip...

It's a tale of intrigue, of irritation, of unforecasted ground fog, two diverts, locked gates, deserted airports, large dogs and rental car problems. So in case you get bored half-way through, that's the sum of the parts of my trip down to Tennessee this morning. ;)

I got up just after 5 a.m., plenty of time to get ready and be at the airport by 6:15, usually. However, this morning just decided to be uncooperative from the get-go. I had trouble with my contacts, which put me behind a bit, but I walked out the door in time to be at the airport by 6:20. Then I got stuck behind some trucks on the back roads on the way to the airport. I finally arrive at 6:25, my guy is already there waiting at the gate, and I still have to get the plane out. Fortunately I got it ready last night. Bottom line, we didn't end up taking off until 6:50, but he said that was no problem as he'd built in plenty of room for the time. Turns out that's a good thing, as we're starting off 20 minutes late. I detest being late.

The weather. It was beautiful when I looked at it last night, forecast for "just fine". I look at the weather this morning, and it is still forecasting "just fine". There is one weird outlier that says that right then it is fog. It is 37 miles farther away than I am going, and everything else says it's clear, it's going to be clear all day long, etc. I wonder about that outlier, figure it's in a valley, prepare an alternate airport just in case because the little voice in my head won't let me ignore the outlier regardless of all the other evidence, and I head out to the airport.

The flight over is smooth, clear and beautiful. We had the sun rising and the moon going down at the same time again, blue skies, and easy. I check the weather several times, and that one outlier says "fog" for the first hour, and then it clears off beautifully too, and everything around is calling for "clear". Perfect! Twenty-five miles out I can finally tune in Athens' ASOS (their only on-field weather reporting station, which you can't get on the computer or until you are close to them), and it comes up "Visibility less than 1/4 mile, ceiling 200' overcast." DOH! I can't get into that. I'm only 25 miles away and I can see for a very long time and I can't see any clouds at all. Bottom line, there was a wall of ground fog a few miles wide that covered our airport all right, and we got to within 5 miles of our airport and could see the ground and everything around us--just not our runway. I thought it was a little ironic that I could have shot an instrument approach, but the lowest I could go would be 800'--where it was still quite nice. I'd have shot the whole approach in severe clear and had to go "missed" because the clouds were only on the ground there. Fine. I told air traffic control I'd deviate to my alternate, and started in on that leg. But that bigger airport was pretty far away, these clouds were just right here, and I figured there had to be a better option than making this guy very late for his meeting. I found another airport only 12 miles away, canceled IFR with Atlanta, then wandered over to this other TN airport on my own. At first I couldn't see it, and it looked like it was under the fog too. And then I spotted it--the south end of the runway peeking out. The north end of the runway was still under the fog. I circled around until I had (enough of) the runway in the clear, then came on in and landed. Success! As we taxied up, I saw several nice airplanes on the ramp tied down, several cars in the parking lot, and I thought 'surely we can get a ride 10-12 miles over to Athens.' It was a strange sight, having blue sky and bright sun to your right, and the whole left side of the field covered in a fog so thick you couldn't see the wind sock or the trees/hills just on the other side of the concrete. Wish I could have taken a photo of that one. There was a gate separating the ramp from the FBO door, with a button to "open" it, so we went through the gate, over to the door, and...it was locked. Lights out, nobody's home. There's a phone on the wall, but not a single phone number posted for anybody...line guys, airport manager, police, nothing. There's a phone book by the phone, but all the pages were ripped out in between the covers. So we've got nothing.

At this point I walk back to the gate to get back to the plane to grab my cell phone, only to find the gate locked behind us. There's a number pad next to it and you have to know the code to get to the ramp. Of course said code is not posted anywhere (some places will give you a hint and say "Pilots-code is the emergency squawk" or whatever). I judge the height of the fence and consider my options on climbing it briefly. I bet the look on my face was what you would call "priceless". My guy gets on his iPhone and starts trying to get a rental car place to come out here in the middle of nowhere and get us a car. No luck. They had no idea how to get there and little inclination to try. Better and better! On a whim I decide to punch in the unicom frequency for the airport, which I just happened to remember, and it opens the gate. Thank Heavens. We wait for about ten minutes to hear back from the car place again, and while we are waiting this yellow cat comes zipping out of the grass and over to us, loving on us and meowing and so happy to see us that we couldn't sit down at the stone tables or kitty would climb all over us, head butt us, etc. Anyway, finally I note to my guy that the fog has barely moved away from us and would be moving away from our original destination too, and that we should try to get in over there. Hopping back in the plane, we make the 12-mile trip back to Athens, and find the fog has JUST left the runway there and is hovering off on the south end of the field. I come in and land asap, he jumps in the car he'd already arranged to have there, and we finally made it. His meeting started in 10 minutes and he made it with One Minute to spare. Good Grief.

Oh, the dog? He was friendly. ;) When we got to Athens, I was greeted by a Very Large Dog charging at me, which tends to make a person kind of take note, but he just wanted some loving too, and is apparently this particular airport's mascot, like the kitty was for the other one. He didn't obey very well, but he was sweet, and his name is Pancake, which is about a perfect name for an airport pet. (Pancake fly-in breakfasts are gaining ground round the country.)

The trip home was very bumpy, but uneventful and just fine, thankfully. My guy flew all the way home, and he did a great job, actually, particularly for it only being his fourth flight...

I got back late, Steve brought Kaylee to me, I picked up her new mattress, ran a few errands, worked on things like dishes and laundry, spent several hours entering time sheets for end of the month billing, and now it's 11 p.m. and I am Ready For Bed. I'm pooped! Goodnight!