The Scariest Thing I've Ever Seen

You should carry your Icom to listen to see if the pilot was saying anything
on Unicom, center, FSS, etc.

Now that's the kind of suggestion I'd expect to hear from a guy that
lives in Hawaii, or Phoenix, or someplace that doesn't get winter. Is
a guy from *Minnesota* really suggesting that I should carry a scanner
while I'm shoveling snow, with the temperature around minus 1 F?

Heck, if I could even find a place to hang the danged thing, I wouldn't
be able to hear it, underneath the 13 layers of clothing I was wearing!


:-)

We do play Unicom all the time in the lobby; I just happened to be
outside when this guy flew over...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Man,what a story!

Only flew in snow once, with my CFI. Started to snow a bit on our way
back from the practice area. Fairly light snow, but it was just like I
read about...lower horizontal visibility, but still pretty good vertically.

I haven't flow in over a month now, cause my schedule and the weather
didn't cooperate.

John

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
oups.com...
Heck, if I could even find a place to hang the danged thing, I wouldn't
be able to hear it, underneath the 13 layers of clothing I was wearing!

You could probably hear the pilot yelling expletives without listening to a
radio.

No, I don't normally carry my scanner, but I know where it is and will turn
it on when things might get interesting.

Obviously a 1920's mail pilot in a time warp.
--
Gene Seibel
Gene & Sue's Aeroplanes - http://pad39a.com/gene/planes.html
Because we fly, we envy no one.

Obviously a 1920's mail pilot in a time warp.

Yep, Jack Knight would have thought that this weather was no big deal.
And he did it in an open cockpit!

In fact, this February marks the 85th anniversary of his epic flight
through Iowa City. This flight was truly the birth of
transcontinental air mail service, which was the impetus for all
transcontinental commercial passenger service.

Read the story he
http://www.alexisparkinn.com/the_iowa_city_airport.htm We're trying
to get a historic marker put up at our airport to commemorate the
flight.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com

"Gene Seibel" wrote in message
oups.com...
Obviously a 1920's mail pilot in a time warp.

And Jay is Rod Sterling?

Nice account of a dramatic story. Hope this guy learned his lesson and
won't be trying THAT anymore.

Nicely written.

We will be stopping in to see you on our way to FTG. Looks like we will be
there on the 23rd. maybe the 22nd.

Bill Snow, Plymouth, MA

"William Snow" wrote in message
. ..
Nicely written.

We will be stopping in to see you on our way to FTG. Looks like we will be
there on the 23rd. maybe the 22nd.

Bill Snow, Plymouth, MA

More Snow coming???

;-)

Jay Honeck wrote:

As anyone in the Upper Midwest knows, we're getting our first real winter in
many years. Temperatures well below zero (we set the record on December
7th, at minus 19), and snow every day are making life hard on everyone.

Yesterday we got hit hard, with another all-day snow. At times visibility
was reduced to zero, as the white stuff fell in dense waves. Luckily, there
was little wind, or blizzard conditions would have prevailed.

As I was out shoveling the hotel sidewalks for the fifth time, I heard a
wowing engine noise overhead, as the pilot went from flight idle to full
power. The constant speed prop took a second to catch, and then the sound
rose into a crescendo -- right over my head.

I couldn't believe it.

Looking up vainly into the intense snowfall, I followed my ears with my
eyes. Finally I caught a glimpse of the plane -- a single engine Cessna
182 -- as it flashed overhead.

In nearly knife-edge flight.

At that moment a guest walked past me on the way to the lobby. He mentioned
that it seemed like an awful night to be flying, by which point I was
already running toward the sound. The plane had disappeared into the snow
and murk, behind our Airport Building (the one closest to the runway), and I
strained to hear the *crump* sound that a light plane makes when it hits the
ground.

With the deep snow, I couldn't run fast enough, so I just stood there,
straining my eyes and ears, hoping to see the guy come around. Suddenly,
there he was -- this time directly over the field, banked at a 60 degree
angle, obviously trying desperately to keep the field in sight as he
circled.

Then, poof, he was gone. The snow just swallowed him up again.

By now, my heart was pounding. I knew this couldn't end well, and I ran
toward the airport, again straining to hear anything that might indicate a
direction of flight.

Suddenly I spotted him again, in an impossibly tight base-leg turn, barely
100 feet off the ground, coming around for Rwy 30. The wind was not
favoring this runway, but I'm sure he was just willing to take "any port in
a storm"... First visible, than not, I caught a glimpse of his landing
light again as he touched down, theoretically on the unplowed runway...

He touched down well past the halfway point of the runway, and was going way
too fast.

Now at a dead gallop, I was able to see him slide to a stop, just before the
end of the runway. The deep snow had saved him, and he stopped in an
impossibly short space...

Jogging back to my nearly-forgotten guest (who was trying to check in for
the night), I could only shake my head in wonder at what some guys will do
to fly.

It is truly amazing what a 182 can do! :-)

Matt (unfortunately a former 182 owner)