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Batesville, MS By Don
Miller
Columnist The Millers have been busy using their SEL device lately. Although summer
flying seems to offer as many obstacles as advantages to flying below 10,000 feet, we added 20
hours to our log since June 1. Over seven of those hours were actual IMC
flight. This is being written on June 21. meet her and fly both of
us to Batesville, Mississippi for a family gathering on the following Sunday
morning. Her aunt was having a twin grand baby christening in Como,
Mississippi and I had never met many of the relatives who would be there. After some study of flying times and
weather trends in that region during the AM and PM I agreed to be a party to
this venture. The forecast for Saturday was scattered thunderstorms throughout Alabama
and Mississippi for the weekend - No surprise! I departed DKX about noon with
an IFR flight plan to BHM. The GPS direct flight path was approved as filed
and no deviations were necessary. One hour of the flight was in IMC and 10
minutes of that was in moderate turbulence. It turns out that conditions such
as these become real fun after about 30 to 40 hours actual IMC experience.
The 8,000 foot cruise altitude was above the highest layer quite a bit of the
time and the 10 minutes of moderate turbulence was enough to help refresh me
on the basics of DG and HI focus using corrective inputs with some
moderation. BHM controllers are truly a pleasure to behold - Mark said to
expect that, he was right. They worked with me as if
I was a long lost fishing buddy to line the 172 up on the ILS Runway 6. It
was at this point that I realized my big planning omission. The Tower's first
question hit me like a ton of bricks - Which FBO do you plan to taxi to????
He offered Jet South and Mercury Air Center. I had cleverly printed a nice
enlarged view of the taxiway system, which was in front of me on my lap
board, but what was the answer to the question? Finally I said which is
closest to my turnoff point? He responded with Jet South. So it was Jet
south. It turned out that Jet South was adjacent to the runway 6 touchdown
point. I made a quick return to their ramp and called for service. Service it
was! They quickly provided a ramp attendant who did a fine job of parking me
and offering service. Sticker shock came later when I paid for gas - $3.11
per gallon. I took the hotel shuttle
to the meeting and met Anna in the lobby. After an evening with 200 women I
was ready to get a good nights sleep. We were up and out early
to get both of us to the Jet South ramp and on our way. The forecast was the
same as Saturday but our early takeoff offered almost clear skies. It was
only 1.6 hours to Batesville, PMU, but that was enough to have some solar
warming and .9 hour in IMC. We arrived and landed under a ceiling of 3,000
scattered, expecting to have Anna's aunt's car parked near the terminal
building. The car was no-where to be found! Next fallback was the courtesy
car. The airport appeared to
be unattended but the courtesy car was right there at the door with key in
it. We quickly loaded our luggage into the 1980ish Ford and started the
motor. No problem yet. It was about 10:30 am and already the temperature was
close to 90 degrees. I pushed the air conditioner button and the fan started
immediately blowing very hot air. Note
that we had traveled in our church clothes, visiting long lost relatives
required formal dress. No problem, being the
ever resourceful pilot SEL, I pressed the window down button. It didn't
respond, so I naturally chose Anna's window next! No response and so with all
windows. Well now it was down to holding the car door open while trying to
find my way to the interstate and Como.
This brought a large protest from the passenger side. The heat is
better than a ticket!! Well so it went and we arrived at the church dripping
wet. The service, christening and
visit was much more successful than the earlier part of the day. Later on Sunday it had
been our plan to fly back to Knoxville. The forecast was for afternoon
thundershowers and possible tornadoes in northern Mississippi and western
Tennessee. That was outside my personal minimums, so overnight it was. Monday
brought the clear skies we typically see in the morning and remained so for
the first hour of flight. About Chattanooga we encountered an hour of IMC and
landed at DKX VFR. Reaction to this trip -
Summer flying is as easy or hard as your planning makes it. ATC is often
helpful with heads up tips when the pilot appears to be a bit outside his
element. I heard several receiving weather observations from ATC with a
pregnant silence following. (Do you want to go through or around dummy?) ____________________________________________________________ Want to read more from Don Miller?
Check out of his other
columns. Got a comment, question or suggestion for future article? eMail Don. _________________________________________________________________ Welcome to FatBoyz Aviation. Updated
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