Down east

Today we flew to New Brunswick, not thinking of the change of time zone until after 8 in the evening when we suddenly realised it was getting late, here.

"PTN departing from Rockcliffe straight out to the east," announced Chris on the airwaves, as we took off with a squawk code from Gatineau Flight Services. Our IFR flight plan was cleared as filed: maintain 5000', direct Lafit, Rabik, CYSC. CYSC is Sherbrooke airport where we have been before, and the waypoints were just triangles on the map, invisible on the ground. It was a hazy, hot day with no lightning strikes within a 200 mile radius. That was lucky. At St. Jean airport (not to be confused with Saint John, today's destination, we crossed the Richelieu River, packed with pleasure boats.

Shadows over the Maine-New Brunswick
border, from 9000 feet up
(our wing strut visible in bottom r h corner)

After a good lunch at the Resto de l'Aeroport at Sherbrooke, we were sent up to 9000'-- it took us half an hour to climb to that altitude and we stayed there, skimming through the tops of the fluffy cumulus clouds for another hour and a half, on the Victor 300 airway towards Millinocket and, before we got there, onto a direct course for another invisible waypoint called MOWND, thence to Saint John. Many wind turbines could be seen in the wilds, besides the usual rivers, lakes and forested steep hills. It was cool and smooth up there, but not so smooth on the descent to warmer air. We could see the estuaries of the rivers that pour into the Bay of Fundy, and Grand Manan Island on the horizon beyond St. Stephen's. It was easy to spot the Saint John airport beyond the city and its harbour, impossible to spot the fact that nobody was around to man the FBO which in fact had been closed for the long weekend since lunchtime. They won't be reopening till Tuesday! We arrived at supper time and had to make a phone call to ask where to park, how to get out of the airport, how to buy fuel before Tuesday. Supplied with answers to all these questions, after the FBO manager's wife had found her husband at home to answer the call, we managed to rent a car and drive into town, past the Irving Oil refinery and an amazing number of petrol stations by the roadside.

Evening view from our window at the Hilton, Saint John

I had booked us a room at a remarkably reasonable rate at the Hilton; what's more they upgraded us on arrival to a room with harbour view, high up and very satisfactory.

We took an evening walk around the town whose heyday was the 1880s, when a third of Britain's sailing ships were built here. The redbrick buildings look old; the hills down to the docks are steep. We sat on a bench on the boardwalk opposite a cluster of fishing boats starting to rise up the harbour wall with the incoming tide and watched a freight train go by. It had 56 carriages, mostly oil trucks.

KGAI to KSYR, May 4th

From my emails sent en route:

May 4th, 11a.m.

We were hoping to take off in a homewards direction from Gaithersburg half an hour ago, but while doing his very thorough run-up checks, Chris found that the vacuum system in our aircraft wasn't working, which meant that we'd have had no "attitude indicator" and no "heading indicator" to show us which way up we were in the clouds. Not good, when you're flying on the instruments. This would have been what he calls An Emergency, so we're glad we didn't take off. It seems that the heavy rain has leaked into the tubes overnight and caused a blockage. It's still raining cats and dogs out there and the weather likely to continue like this all day, although once we get half way over Pennsylvania we'll probably fly into fine weather. Anyway, Chris is talking to the people in the maintenance hangar to see if they can fix the problem...

May 4th, 9p.m.

This is being written from an hotel in Syracuse! Yes, we succeeded in getting off the ground mid afternoon and flew here -- through a Frontal System—in spite of rain in the tubes, Korean mechanics whose English wasn't perfect, PTN having her seats and sides taken out and refitted and having to have the two removed, inspected and reinstalled and the soggy vacuum filter replaced so that we now have a spare one, three hours' labour.

We took off in driving rain with the cloud ceiling less than 1000 ft above the runway in spite of electric activity in the clouds near and far lighting up our strike finder with little orange lights. We think it was heavy rain rather than lightning and thunder but some turbulence and wind shear is associated with these discharges all the same, as you soon learn, once you get up there. Less than half an hour into the flight in the vicinity of the Winchester VOR we flew into an area of disturbance close to the pesky orange dots on the storm scope which made our (now functional) instruments wobble considerably and us bounce around in our seats. The vertical speed indicator showed rises and falls of 1000 ft a minute although Chris says we weren't actually doing that; the readings were due to sudden changes of pressure within the cloud. He told ATC we were in a spot of turbulence close to some storm cells, so please could we turn 20° left, away from them? Although our next expected heading would have been in the other direction, towards the Lancaster VOR, we got permission to turn to the northwest and it turned out to be a good idea. After about an hour of intermittent lesser turbulence and calmer spots we realised we were beginning to see something out of the window. First an under-layer of whiter cloud, then patches of ground, then, still from 5000ft, our assigned altitude, more continuous ground with views of the Pennsylvania slag heaps near the coal mining towns. Perhaps the ground was closer in fact, because we were now over the hilly area approaching Westport.

At about this point, on a direct route to Binghamton cutting a corner from the Victor airways at ATC's instigation, New York Centre told us they'd lost radar contact with us because of a defective transmitter on the ground. So we were instructed to climb and maintain 6000ft (not at all the correct altitude for aircraft flying north. There were no aircraft coming the other way, apparently, so it didn't matter). As we complied, Chris said to me, "Watch out for icing!" because the outside air temperature was now approaching 0°. He kept an eagle eye out for the raindrops solidifying on his wing strut and I did the same on my side. It didn't happen, but I soon noticed visible horizontal precipitation below us and to the side. "That looks like sleet," I said, and soon we could see snow whitening the front of the tyres. Chris gave a pirep (pilot report) and asked for a lower altitude again. That was allowed as we were back within radar coverage now. As we descended we went through a few more bumps, the sky began to lighten ahead of us, and all of a sudden, close to Binghamton, we could see ahead for miles. Then to our relief the sky ahead began to brighten and the wind backed by what Chris estimated to be about 20 degrees, giving us a tail wind once more. We had crossed the Cold Front and were out in the clear.

Too late to give Canadian Customs and Immigration the statutory hour's notice after landing at Syracuse, because it would have been near nightfall when we arrived in the Ottawa area, we decided to call it a day and sleep at Syracuse. The FBO girl recommended this inexpensive nearby hotel which is very comfortable and which sent a shuttle bus to pick us up. We had supper at a Denny's in the strip mall across the road and a walk through a pleasant residential area while marvelling at the gorgeous sunset overhead and the flowering cherry trees.

CYRO to KGAI, April 30th

After going through all the hoops set up by the CBP websites in order to prepare the way for crossing the Canada - USA border--decal purchase for the aeroplane, eAPIS registration, examination to check whether Chris knows the regulations pertinent to the Special Flight Rules Area around Washington DC (including the printing and filing of the Certificate to say he'd passed), on-line notice of intent to cross the border, phone calls to Syracuse Customs to announce the exact time of our arrival, as well as filing the Flight Plan--our actual entry into the USA was surprisingly easy, this time.

We revved up at the appropriate time, Chris having briefed me on the flight procedures ("I will ask you questions like 'What angle must we fly at from here?'" - pointing to the Ottawa VOR on our Canadian LO-chart), and took off from Runway 09 at 11 a.m (15 Zulu). As soon as we were airborne, Chris was speaking to the Air Traffic Controller who "had his IFR" for him, writing it down and reading it back in the air. "YOW VOR to Syracuse VOR Victor 145 Flight Planned Route Maintain 6000 feet climbing through 2500 feet at this time." The distance was about 140 nautical miles and as we crossed the St Lawrence, where lies the international border, we entered thin cloud and began talking to the Air Traffic Controllers from Wheeler-Sack (a military base responsible for the airspace in these parts), who have a noticeably different (New York) accent from the Montrealers. The upper winds had smoothed the upper surface of the clouds as if with sweeps of a broad paintbrush, and when we came close to the shore of Lake Ontario south of Watertown we could see some of it through holes in the cloud layer. Over to Syracuse Approach who said, "Fly heading 216 and I'll have the direct approach available for you momentarily." Which sounds to a British English speaker as though his approach heading may not be available for very long so he'll have to make best speed, but which actually means: any moment now.

We were beaten to the customs shed by a Metroliner that touched down just before we did and we were told to park beside this aircraft that had been into Canada and was bringing back some object from the military, packed in a large cardboard box. A voice on the air commented, "Ugly, isn't it?" so the Metroliner's Captain must have felt doubly insulted when Chris asked, "Is that the one over there with the spindly legs?"

"Don't give the Metroliner crew a hard time, now!" warned ground control.

Having given the Metroliner a going-over, the customs / immigration officer rolled over to our spot in his car, checked our passports, tried to find radioactive material in PTN with his Geiger counter, failed, made a joke of it, and we were free to go, all within the space of about three minutes.

Our next stop was at another corner of the Syracuse airfield, the FBO Exec Air who without any formality other than a sign-up sheet handed us the keys to their "crew car" and a hand-drawn map to the recommended local diner, Zebbs, the sort of place that has posters of Elvis and Marilyn Monroe on the chrome plated walls and offers you boneless Buffalo wings at vinyl topped tables in little booths. I had a tasty bowl of chilli topped with melted cheese. Rain began as we drove back to the airport along a street lined with greenery and flowering trees; in gardening terms, we were already well ahead of Ottawa.

The heavy shower was finishing as we took PTN down the long taxiway past the New York Air National Guard base to the threshold of Rwy 28 for take-off. We climbed towards the cloud base and ATC cleared us "direct, when able" to the VOR at Binghamton. Victor 499, our airway of choice, was long, straight and monotonous, because we were "in IMC" (i.e. had no view) for most of the way. Through the occasional hole we saw the U-bends of the rivers and the striped fields typical of the NY - PA border. Looking out for the waypoints on our chart and on the GPS, with funny names like SCOFF, NOSEE, SWANK, MEATS, etc., we were handed off to Wilkes-Barre (pronounced "Wilksbury") and then Harrisburg Approach. The Harrisburg controller helpfully encouraged us to fly "direct Westminster" so as to make a short cut on the planned route and then, "direct Gaithersburg", which meant we must be nearly there. It may also have suited Traffic Control's purposes to keep us out of the way of the larger aircraft like the Springbok Heavy and the Lufthansa Heavy that were also flying around somewhere up there. The girl being trained (Chris assumes) as a Potomac Approach controller gave PTN a heading to fly but didn't tell him that it was an intercept heading, and didn't clear us for the approach. As we flew through the VOR radial, Chris prompted her and her supervisor took over, giving us the proper approach clearance! For the initiated, Gaithersburg has a "non-precision approach". I think Chris was glad to touch down. It had been a long flight into an unknown, high-traffic area and I'm sure he was feeling tired.

Once on the ground, it's my turn to take responsibility for our movements, so I got us a taxi to the Comfort Inn at Shady Grove where we were booked in for the next four nights. We checked in, had supper at the Indian restaurant next door and spent the next day in downtown Washington, getting there by means of the metro train. I'll describe Friday May 1st in my next blogpost.

On Friday evening we were just in the process of renting a car when we had a call from George at Norfolk airport, VA. "I'm on an earlier flight," he said, "getting to Dulles at 6:30 instead of 9. Any chance you could meet me that early?" It meant we had to drive down the 12 lane Interstate during the rush-hour instead of at a quieter time of day, but what a bonus to have two more hours of his company than we'd anticipated! We managed it, following my printout from Mapquest, and met him in the baggage hall. Feeling wobbly with hunger I wolfed down a bag of nuts and raisins, we lost our way on the roads outside the airport, found ourselves again at a suburb called Sterling, and ate a relaxing supper (with beers) at an Irish pub, out on the patio in the evening sunshine.