Printing to Santa Rosa

[The Old Man]

He had finished his cup of tea and carefully washed the small bone china cup and saucer and placed it gently back into his bag. He stood up, stretched then yawned and made a long slow sighing sound as he breathed out.

He looked around and again visually took in his surroundings, some people were moving around over on the far side of the airport and a small aircraft, a Stinson he thought, was flying a tight right hand circuit. He could hear in the distance the very gentle hum of traffic, but where he was at the PGA FBO all was still and silent.

He walked over to the Nomad, stepped up onto the left hand foot transom and reached up and unfastened the fuel cap and raised the dip stick marker. He looked and noted the mark, he then lowered it again and stepped down, and walking around to the right of the aircraft he did the same with the other fuel dip stick, this he noticed was slightly lower than the first. Plenty of fuel left after his flight from 48 however he would need to refuel at he next stop. He also suddenly realised that he was hungry as well so hopefully his next stop would also provide a place to eat.

Walking back into the FBO he blew gently on the telephone and a small cloud of dust rose up, he coughed as the dust caught the back of his throat. Picking up the receiver he dialled the number…….ring ring, ring ring …”Hello Junior speaking”

“Hello” said The Old Man, “Right yes, is there? how much? What all of it, it will take me ages to load that lot, Oh is there?, the rest is in the other hanger, it might be dark by the time I get there, well I know you don’t care, Oh yes I know she does not care either, but I care….I see I don’t matter?, well I’m glad to see everything seems to be the same. Okay, yes I know the longer I’m talking to you the longer it will take…alright…..yes I will ring when I get there, bye”.

South County to Santa Rosa
Aircraft, Nomad
Cargo, Printing
Distance 103nm
$10 pnm
Total $1030
Senior Captain
Very Strong
Dice 3

The Old Man returned to the Nomad and opens the large side door and for good measure the two cargo holds in the nose, he slowly walks to the hanger to collect the first bundle of printing to be loaded……….

[The Old Man]

Pirep: Printing to Santa Rosa
South County to Santa Rosa
Nomad
Senior Captain
Total Cost $1030
Time Taken 1.0
It had taken just as long as The Old Man had thought it would to load every package and carton of the printing. It had been a long and tedious task, bending, picking up, walking, bending, putting down, but at last the aircraft was loaded. He looked up at the sky, the wind was freshening from the north and the cloud base seemed lower than it had some hours ago, he sniffed the air like a hunting dog trying to pick up a scent, he could smell, well he was never sure what it was he could smell ever since he had learned the trick from an old prospector somewhere near Dietrich Camp north of Big Lake on the James Dalton Highway, but it was a distinctive sort of smell, a mixture of apples, heather and wet bear. Well he thought to himself whatever description he tried to put on the smell it meant rain, low cloud, winds in short it meant trouble.

He looked at his watch and sighed, it was later than he thought and he had been right earlier when he told Junior it would be dark by the time he got there. Quickly he closed and secured the doors to the store and the FBO, giving the door a last good shake. He walked briskly to the Nomad and did a quick walk around running his hand along the surfaces, checking the odd fixture and fitting and making sure the catches were firmly closed and locked on both the large side door and the two nose cargo lockers. He was satisfied and climbed aboard and closed the door.

He had soon started the engines and was talking to the tower; they gave him runway 32 and cleared him for take off. It was not long before he was increasing speed as the Nomad moved along the runway and slowly climbed into the air with a slight wobble and bounce. He cleaned up the aircraft, trimmed off and set the course, by the time he had reached 1500ft he was out of sight in the clouds and the turbulence started, slowly at first and then gathering momentum, the aircraft shook violently as The Old Man fixed his grip, one hand on the controls one on the twin power levers. He stared ahead at the instruments and watched as the RPM started to drop, he flicked on the prop anti-ice and listened as the engines revs dropped a little and then picked up again and he watched as the RPM started to raise again, ice he mused, colder than I thought.

It was at about 9800ft that he noticed the shaking started to subside then as soon as it had started it stopped, he relaxed his grip a little, then at 10250ft the nose of the Nomad peeped out of the dark angry cloud into bright sunshine and a clear blue sky followed by the rest of the aircraft and the cockpit became bathed in sun. The Old Man sighed he swept his head around first one way then the other and twisted around in the seat to look backwards as much as he could. He saw a couple of aircraft, one about 4 miles at his three o` clock and one a long way off much higher than him making vapour trails which he reckoned even in this cold air must be about 45000ft. he settled down a little and checked around the cockpit, everything seemed okay.

The flight went well; he was passed from Bay to Travis to Sacramento and back to Travis as his journey progressed.

He tuned to Sonoma ATIS and listened, winds 23 at 150, clouds at 900, visibility 1 mile in rain, landing and departing visual on 14. He sighed, not even a bloody ILS he thought, and retuning the Comms 1 to Tower he made the call.

And so down he went into the dark black cloud and the shaking started again he gripped the controls hard. As he was passing 6400ft he heard a loud bang from behind him and he felt the aircraft lurch slightly to the right, he quickly corrected with opposite rudder and reduced the power on the left engine, and he twisted around in his seat as much as he could but he could not see anything unusual behind him. He fought the aircraft down being shaken around in the seat adding the extra left rudder all the way. It was at 1000ft that the shaking stopped and he heard first the rain on the fuselage then saw it appear on the windscreen and he broke out from the clouds at 850ft into the gloom. He quickly looked behind himself again but could still not see anything out of the ordinary. He levelled the aircraft at 800ft and found that it wanted to tilt in a right wing down attitude, he added more left rudder and reduced the power on the left engine even more, and the aircraft levelled a little then started to lean again over to the right.

He thought for a moment of calling an emergency then decided not to, he had control of the aircraft it was just leaning right wing down but he was able to correct it. He saw the lights of 14 ahead of him at about half a mile and he lowered the gear, he was going to keep the speed up as much as he could crab into the wind as he flared and adjust the tilt of the aircraft. He slightly increased power on the right engine and he felt the aircraft straighten up. He flared and heard the wheels squeal as they touched and he forcibly pushed the nose forward rather than let the speed bleed off, he wanted this on the ground and not to bounce. He pulled the power levers fully to the rear and stamped on the toe brakes, the nose bowed, there was a humming noise as the brakes slowed the wheels the aircraft slewed to the right slightly and that he corrected with a kick of the rudder and the Nomad stopped, he breathed out a large sigh.

Applying very little power to the engines he taxied very slowly to the PGA FBO and stopped, he flicked all the switches to the up position and switched off the fuel to the two engines. Right he thought to himself lets see what this is all about, he climbed down from the aircraft and walked along the right hand side of the aircraft and switched his torch on, there was no signs of any damage, walking around the aircraft there was nothing he could see to have caused the problem.

He walked to the large side door in the fuselage and undid the locking catch and as he sharply pulled the handles outwards two things happened simultaneously……the large door opened and he finally realised what the bang had been and what had caused the problem…..the cargo retaining straps had snapped in the turbulence and had hit the side of the fuselage that had caused the loud bang and the cargo had shifted causing the aircraft to lean right wing down. As he worked this out he tried to step back but was not quick enough and 478 packages and cartons of printing fell out of the door knocking him to the wet ground. Bloody hell was his first thought then he started to laugh slowly at first then louder and louder. He let his head lay back on the ground and it rested in a large puddle and the long white hair became wet. He looked up and saw two figures standing over him he stopped laughing. One of figures asked if he was okay, The Old Man replied he was just fine thank you and he lay back again in the puddle with cartons of printing lying on top of him and started to laugh. As the two figures started to walk off and he heard one say to the other “PGA Pilots, mad as hatters the lot of them”……… The Old Man laughed louder.