Jay Honeck
January 18th 07, 12:55 AM
Thanks to work and the weather, we hadn't flown in a couple of weeks.
Therefore, even though the temperature this morning was just above
zero, and the runways were twin sheets of ice (thanks to an ice storm
that preceded our snowstorm), we decided we HAD to fly today.
Worse, we hadn't taken the time to run up the engine after changing the
oil a couple of weeks ago (in our shirtsleeves!), so we really paid the
price today for our laziness. Nothing like decowling the engine and
checking for oil leaks when the wind-chill is minus 14 to make you vow
NEVER to put off till tomorrow what can be done today.
That done, Mary ever-so-carefully taxied out to Rwy 25 for departure.
With the taxiways and runways glare ice, a slow pace was rewarded, and
an "on-the-roll" run-up was required, since brakes wouldn't hold us,
even at run-up power. Luckily, we're from Wisconsin, and have been
flying in Midwestern winters for 14 years -- so we're used to such
nonsense. But the utterly deserted sky and ramp told us that we were
the only ones who regarded today as a good day to fly -- despite the
crystal clear skies and light winds.
As Mary applied full power for departure, we started an ever-so-slight
drift to the right, toward the snow banks, thanks to the cross wind.
Once started, it's hard to stop, but the combination of light load,
cold air, and 235 horses pulling meant that we were off in just a few
hundred feet -- no worries!
Grinnell, Iowa (KGGI) was our chosen destination, located about 50
miles due west, straight down Interstate 80. Home to Grinnell College,
a well-respected private university, it's a wonderful town with
excellent restaurants, a quaint and lively downtown, and a very
friendly airport. We had attended a Bed & Breakfast Guild meeting
there last winter, and had a marvelous time -- but we had (*gasp*)
driven the car, so by our best estimate we hadn't flown into Grinnell
in a couple of years.
We were met at the plane by the FBO owner, a very nice guy who bought
the place from a friend of ours several years ago, and has done a nice
job with it. The runways and taxiways were perfectly cleared of snow
-- almost manicured, in fact, despite the ice storm. When I commented
on this, he said "You've just got to play the storm right. Get out
there and run the plow up and down right when it's changing over from
freezing rain to snow, and you can get it clear down to the pavement
before it freezes over."
Now *that* is attention to detail.
You can tell there is big money in town, and much of his business is
catering to the biz-jet crowd. Despite this fact, his heart is in GA,
and it shows. Running his own extension cord out to our plane, he
helpfully plugged us in (an absolute necessity at these temperatures)
while Mary did the paperwork and I fetched the cowl cover. There was
no dawdling in this weather, and small talk was held until we were
indoors....
Spotlessly clean and tastefully decorated with historic artifacts from
the airmail days, the FBO is the absolute antithesis of the "radio
shack" most people expect in Smalltown, Iowa. Warm and full of good
stuff to eat and read, it's an excellent "front door" to Grinnell, and
you can tell that they're used to showing it off.
When we inquired about a courtesy car, it was offered without
hesitation. We asked if he could recommend a place to eat in town, and
he immediately responded "the Depot" -- an old, converted train station
that has been a restaurant for several years. We had eaten there
before, and liked it fine, but it was a bit pricey for our tastes.
Our friendly FBO owner volunteered that the restaurant had recently
changed hands, the new owners were now "fire-grilling" everything, and
had cut the once-high prices down to more reasonable lunch-time levels.
We were sold, and asked which car was "ours" for the noon hour...
Imagine our surprise when he handed us the keys to an almost-new
Cadillac DeVille! Shiny and clean (despite the weather) this car had
every bell and whistle Detroit has ever put in a car, and we were soon
tooling down the road in style!
For once, we didn't feel like the Beverly Hillbillies when we arrived
at a nice restaurant! We've grown so used to driving clapped-out old
police cruisers, or '74 Chevy Novas (visit Maquoketa, IA some day...),
that I was truly nervous driving such a beautiful automobile on the icy
roads. With real wood trim, a hundred yards of top-grain dead cow on
the seats, and electronic gizmos everywhere, this was truly a fine
driving machine -- and (after so many years of driving airport beaters)
I barely knew how to handle such luxury.
After a great lunch (a fire-grilled pulled-pork barbecue sandwich on a
gigantic fresh kaiser roll, finely-battered, thin onion rings, and a
cup of the best cheese-and-bacon soup I've ever had), we waddled back
to the FBO, fat, dumb and happy. We talked at length with our new
friend about everything under the sun, from the trials and tribulations
of handling corporate flights, to the reasons for having such an
amazing (some might say extravagant) courtesy car.
He stated that he'd been working at airports since high school, and had
spent too many years dealing with broken-down old courtesy cars to
count. He vowed that if he ever owned his own FBO, that he'd NEVER
provide junk cars for pilots -- and wow, has he kept his word! Best of
all, his investment is paying dividends with his business, since folks
flying into town remember this sort of thing. His sales are up, he's
doing well, and people are obvoiusly happy to see him.
Our flight home was just as nice as pie, with sunny skies and light
winds. Topping off a great flight, I greased my landing on Rwy 12 in
Iowa City, with the winds 170 at 11. Normally nothing to write home
about, today's glassy runways made it imperative to avoid *any*
side-stress at touchdown, or we'd be risking an "interesting" excursion
into the snow banks. Tires crunching over the snow and ice, we rolled
to a gentle stop without ever touching the brakes, as smooth as a
baby's bottom...
So there you have it -- another great flight. If you ever find
yourself toodling down I-80 (either from 1000 feet up, or on the road
itself), stop in at the Grinnell Airport. You'll find lots of neat
stuff to see, some truly friendly people to talk to -- and a really,
really, REALLY nice courtesy car!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"
Therefore, even though the temperature this morning was just above
zero, and the runways were twin sheets of ice (thanks to an ice storm
that preceded our snowstorm), we decided we HAD to fly today.
Worse, we hadn't taken the time to run up the engine after changing the
oil a couple of weeks ago (in our shirtsleeves!), so we really paid the
price today for our laziness. Nothing like decowling the engine and
checking for oil leaks when the wind-chill is minus 14 to make you vow
NEVER to put off till tomorrow what can be done today.
That done, Mary ever-so-carefully taxied out to Rwy 25 for departure.
With the taxiways and runways glare ice, a slow pace was rewarded, and
an "on-the-roll" run-up was required, since brakes wouldn't hold us,
even at run-up power. Luckily, we're from Wisconsin, and have been
flying in Midwestern winters for 14 years -- so we're used to such
nonsense. But the utterly deserted sky and ramp told us that we were
the only ones who regarded today as a good day to fly -- despite the
crystal clear skies and light winds.
As Mary applied full power for departure, we started an ever-so-slight
drift to the right, toward the snow banks, thanks to the cross wind.
Once started, it's hard to stop, but the combination of light load,
cold air, and 235 horses pulling meant that we were off in just a few
hundred feet -- no worries!
Grinnell, Iowa (KGGI) was our chosen destination, located about 50
miles due west, straight down Interstate 80. Home to Grinnell College,
a well-respected private university, it's a wonderful town with
excellent restaurants, a quaint and lively downtown, and a very
friendly airport. We had attended a Bed & Breakfast Guild meeting
there last winter, and had a marvelous time -- but we had (*gasp*)
driven the car, so by our best estimate we hadn't flown into Grinnell
in a couple of years.
We were met at the plane by the FBO owner, a very nice guy who bought
the place from a friend of ours several years ago, and has done a nice
job with it. The runways and taxiways were perfectly cleared of snow
-- almost manicured, in fact, despite the ice storm. When I commented
on this, he said "You've just got to play the storm right. Get out
there and run the plow up and down right when it's changing over from
freezing rain to snow, and you can get it clear down to the pavement
before it freezes over."
Now *that* is attention to detail.
You can tell there is big money in town, and much of his business is
catering to the biz-jet crowd. Despite this fact, his heart is in GA,
and it shows. Running his own extension cord out to our plane, he
helpfully plugged us in (an absolute necessity at these temperatures)
while Mary did the paperwork and I fetched the cowl cover. There was
no dawdling in this weather, and small talk was held until we were
indoors....
Spotlessly clean and tastefully decorated with historic artifacts from
the airmail days, the FBO is the absolute antithesis of the "radio
shack" most people expect in Smalltown, Iowa. Warm and full of good
stuff to eat and read, it's an excellent "front door" to Grinnell, and
you can tell that they're used to showing it off.
When we inquired about a courtesy car, it was offered without
hesitation. We asked if he could recommend a place to eat in town, and
he immediately responded "the Depot" -- an old, converted train station
that has been a restaurant for several years. We had eaten there
before, and liked it fine, but it was a bit pricey for our tastes.
Our friendly FBO owner volunteered that the restaurant had recently
changed hands, the new owners were now "fire-grilling" everything, and
had cut the once-high prices down to more reasonable lunch-time levels.
We were sold, and asked which car was "ours" for the noon hour...
Imagine our surprise when he handed us the keys to an almost-new
Cadillac DeVille! Shiny and clean (despite the weather) this car had
every bell and whistle Detroit has ever put in a car, and we were soon
tooling down the road in style!
For once, we didn't feel like the Beverly Hillbillies when we arrived
at a nice restaurant! We've grown so used to driving clapped-out old
police cruisers, or '74 Chevy Novas (visit Maquoketa, IA some day...),
that I was truly nervous driving such a beautiful automobile on the icy
roads. With real wood trim, a hundred yards of top-grain dead cow on
the seats, and electronic gizmos everywhere, this was truly a fine
driving machine -- and (after so many years of driving airport beaters)
I barely knew how to handle such luxury.
After a great lunch (a fire-grilled pulled-pork barbecue sandwich on a
gigantic fresh kaiser roll, finely-battered, thin onion rings, and a
cup of the best cheese-and-bacon soup I've ever had), we waddled back
to the FBO, fat, dumb and happy. We talked at length with our new
friend about everything under the sun, from the trials and tribulations
of handling corporate flights, to the reasons for having such an
amazing (some might say extravagant) courtesy car.
He stated that he'd been working at airports since high school, and had
spent too many years dealing with broken-down old courtesy cars to
count. He vowed that if he ever owned his own FBO, that he'd NEVER
provide junk cars for pilots -- and wow, has he kept his word! Best of
all, his investment is paying dividends with his business, since folks
flying into town remember this sort of thing. His sales are up, he's
doing well, and people are obvoiusly happy to see him.
Our flight home was just as nice as pie, with sunny skies and light
winds. Topping off a great flight, I greased my landing on Rwy 12 in
Iowa City, with the winds 170 at 11. Normally nothing to write home
about, today's glassy runways made it imperative to avoid *any*
side-stress at touchdown, or we'd be risking an "interesting" excursion
into the snow banks. Tires crunching over the snow and ice, we rolled
to a gentle stop without ever touching the brakes, as smooth as a
baby's bottom...
So there you have it -- another great flight. If you ever find
yourself toodling down I-80 (either from 1000 feet up, or on the road
itself), stop in at the Grinnell Airport. You'll find lots of neat
stuff to see, some truly friendly people to talk to -- and a really,
really, REALLY nice courtesy car!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"