Sunday, April 25, 1999
Journey from Rome to Washington, as told my Steven C. Smith, in his Challenger 2 CWS
It was one cold foggy morning and ceiling is 2000 / 200 fog and haze - Rome, GA with mountains in front of me to my destination to Washington Wilkes Airport. As luck would have it the winds were in favor of the return trip, but we weren't going to make that one. One hand held KX99, one GPS - handheld and one handheld scanner with ground crew brother in tow (thank God). At least you can count on brother the batteries you can't. Now to the grits.....
First leg: Rome to Cherokee County airport on initial climb out I remembered I was suppose to have long damn pants (which my wife reminded me before I left) frozen fingers on the stick, could not release to punch button on the GPS while battery on the KX99 failed completely and things get better....
After the decision was made because of high fuel consumption, probably due to fifteen mile an hour head winds and having to climb to 2000 ft. . Due to mountains with winds as high as they were, the excitement grew after landing and watching touch and goes by 172's and 150 Cessna's were exhilarating due to 90 degree 15 mile an hour cross winds. Now, taken in to account the featherlight Challenger (450pounds) made me remember flight training days long, long ago. All brought back in a rush with certain expedience.
After leaving Cherokee, three one half life on battery for GPS, dead Navcom, very hungry 503 engine (rotax), straight ahead haze with an outline of mountains sprinkled with high strobed radio towers the pucker factor going up while batteries going down. While brother ground crew making much better time than myself, using the two meter ham simplex, barking out questions and suggestions due to erratic fuel flow, decision was made, aircraft and one soul could make it to Jackson County airport with a half gallon or less fuel left, good to see some things never change, 90 degree 15 miles per hour cross winds. Although there was a dead straight ahead landing runway into the wind, but guess what, a very large methodically painted X on the no. 27-9.
While the ground crew in route to get more fuel, chit chatted with fellow flying person wondering where I had flown this featherbed from. I said, "Rome and he sort of scratched his head, said he use to fly ultra lights years ago and thought it was a little bit windy but told me some very good information and wished me well, while my brother chit chatted on his two meter while getting fuel. God its great to have ground crew. While standing and talking and fueling the plane low and behold (no wind), so scratching the head and checking the GPS battery level and emptying my level the decision made to persevere to home base area and on to Washington. Second leg: Taxi out to runway 27 because the good information from the elderly gentlemen was that those run ways were good to use. Damn good information! Taking off was almost uneventful short nap was in progress, ground crew woke me up with GPS operating correctly made it to home base area were family, friends, ground crew and a few unwanted pests called neighbors nosed around. Fifteen hundred feet a few fly bys and with cows on home runway, with ground crew ineffective with moving them, the command decision to go on to Washington Wilkes was made.
Half a tank of gas dead KX, GPS working a ok, damn I love that GPS the bacon is safe. The ground crew following very close with visual sighting with the compass rose, pin point accuracy, uneventful flight to Washington Wilkes Airport. The worse landing came with the least amount of wind on the last leg. It is amazing what you can do under some stressful situations it all turned out ok. The moral to the story is if I had only listened to my wife as I walked out the door at 3:45 AM when she told me to take your coat and long pants. Damn it was cold...... I will sleep tight tonight after the Epson salts takes place to remove the vinyl seat cover from my back side as I had a pretty tight grip. Pucker factor was 3 to the tenth power. Morse code tests have nothing on this day.
Did the Challenger make the challenge or was it our decisions that made the challenge today.
Steve and Ruff Smith, pilot and ground crew in that order
And Pam had just as much fun monitoring the whole event and reporting back to Brenda as they checked in the home base from Rome to Washington.
