Round About

Steve took Kaylee to school for me Tuesday morning so I could sleep in an extra hour and a half, as it was "Long Tuesday". :) I flew out of Kokomo in the morning, tried to hit the post office to pick up something, but the line was out the door for some reason, so I ran home to grab what I'd forgotten, filed flight plans, went out to Kokomo and picked up Steve C, flew him to Sheridan to pick up another airplane, then departed for my trip to St. Louis. It was an atypical day, as I had a nice little almost 30 knot tailwind headed west--the wrong way. That also meant I got to St. Louis in like an hour and 15 minutes, which was just impressive. We won't talk about the way home. ;)

After I dropped off the gentlemen in Logansport, I flew back to Kokomo, topped off with fuel, filed more flight plans, recharged the iPad, rechecked the weather, and ran to eat something, getting back in time to watch the sun go down. Kaylee called me, and I went over her vocabulary and sentence structure homework with her over the phone, and then it was time to go again.

This leg was to Logansport, to pick up the gentlemen. This leg takes me ten minutes, I take off, talk to Grissom tower, pass right over their runway, enter the pattern and land at Logansport. It's not even a "real" leg. Except it is. It's dark now, so I click up the runway lights, look around, and see...nothing. I look at my GPS, and the airport is right in front of me, 2 miles away, but I can't see it. I double-check the radio frequency, and it's still the same. I try again, and no lights. I look down and see the runway right below me, and it won't light up. So. I can either fly back to Kokomo and these guys will have to find a ride over there, or I can land on the unlit runway. I can see the runway all the way up at pattern altitude thanks to the bright moon and clear sky, so I flipped on my landing/taxi lights and came on in, being particularly careful for stray animals. The Bellanca has a particularly bright landing light, you know it? I thought back--I'd checked NOTAMS...for OKK & St. Louis, but I didn't know for sure that I checked NOTAMS for Logansport this time. Usually I do. It takes a second, nothing is ever there, but at least you know. So when I got home, I looked again, and sure enough, the runway lights were NOTAMed (Notice to Airman) inoperative until further notice as of two days prior. So, boys and girls, one of the reminders for the day--never assume, always check, and every leg of a trip is real no matter how short it is.

The flight back to St. Louis was really beautiful. I was on top of a cloud deck, with that bright moon and clear skies above. The tailwinds pushed us there in an hour and eight minutes, and the tower at Downtown St. Louis closed for the night right as I was on base and had just been cleared to land. I dropped off the fellows, turned around and left, and when I took off, I took off towards the arch and all the lit-up downtown buildings. It's just a stunning view at night. The city lights, the colorful downtown, the arch glowing (you can see it in this bad, blurry photo if you look in the right spot), and airplanes all over the sky. It's so busy, even at 11:30 at night, that it's hard to have the time to look around that you'd like, but it really is a beautiful backdrop.

The headwinds slowed me down for the trip home, but whether the Viking is my favorite airplane or not, it was just as fast with a 25+ knot headwind as the RG would be with no wind at all, so it really went pretty well. I ended up with 8.6 hours of flight time total for the day, some actual IFR, some night flying, a pretty sunset, a moon view, a no-runway-light landing, a view of St. Louis, and a mission safely accomplished. I got back on the ground around 1:30 a.m. or so, and this time instead of taking the time to put everything back where it was supposed to be, iPads, seatbelts buckled, etc., I just pushed the plane away, closed the hangar door and drove straight home. I had a full day Wednesday, starting 10 a.m. and going until 6:30 p.m. or so, so I wanted to get in bed asap and get as much sleep as possible...