Saturday morning, just at dawn we took off for Lowell, Mi (24C) to
attend a ham radio swap and swindle... Heavy thunderstorms the night
before as a front pushed past, and it started clearing about 9Pm... By
6AM it was clear skys with no wind and lots cooler behind the front
compared to the 90 degrees ahead of it... I wondered about fog... The
SA's on the weather machine at the airport had no illumination on that
issue... Anyway, it wasn't a long run, about 70 nm, so off we went
jast as the sun was poking up...
At 1500 agl in absolutely still air we floated along looking for deer
(saw some which got my oldest son all excited about going hunting)..
Here and there was a small patch of thin ground fog, so didn't expect
any problems... What we did see was endless fields of beans and corn,
with bare fields where the wheat has been harvested... It takes a ride
like this to begin to imagine the endless bushels of food it takes to
feed 300 million people... Also, saw a couple small patches of pot -
one in a forest clearing and the other a row of plants inside a corn
field... Capitalism at work...

Well, as we got in sight of Lowell (haven't been there before) I could
see it sits down in a river valley (hmmm, not good - cold air + warm
water) and the airport is part way up the slope into the valley and I
could see cool whip billowing above the valley rim... On the first
pass over the airport going West there was no sign of a runway, just
mountains of cool whip, with a church steeple poking out.. Made a
second sashay back to the East (into blinding sunlight) and spotted
the approach end of runway 30 between the trees on the hill guarding
that end, and could see roughly half the length of the runway - and
the fog shelf was floating about 100 feet above the runway with clear
air below... Oh well, what the heck... So, made a carrier pass over
the numbers, pulled up to a left 360 bleeding off speed, gear down,
then quarter flaps, then half flaps, then full flaps, then flat pitch
on the prop, throttle back, push the nose down, and we dove into the
valley of cool whip... Still had a good sight line on the first half
of the runway so was not concerned... Because of the hill right up to
the end of the runway, and the BIG trees on top of the hill, this was
not my fathers 3 degree ILS approach.... Being fat with fuel and
people I kept an extra 5 on the speed o meter... Got a firm flare,
slight burp of power to arrest the sink, and we slid on with just a
squeak from the mains... Now that I am under the overhanging shelf of
cool whip I can see all the way to the end of the runway - which
wasn't that far away (2394 feet on the chart)... Took a bit of life
off the brake pucks but we were stopped before the grass over run...

The flight back at noon was boring...

denny / k8do