Barry's Excellent Adventure

“Hey Halsted – …” is how this all started. The call was from Terry Smith, a friend I’ve known from the ‘60’s when we were Flight Test Engineers working for Boeing. When the 737 program was complete he moved on to Northwest Airlines and I, after a stint starting and running a Bellanca dealership, went to work directly for Bellanca and guess who was there? Terry! He was working as Chief Engineer at the Champion (Citabria) facility and I worked in Dealer Development. Anyway, our paths have crossed many times and we both ended up here in the Northwest. Terry lives on the southern part of Whidbey Island.

“I want to get back to flying and I’m going to get a hangar at Whidbey Air Park!” How cool! Terry’s flown with me here and I was happy to see he’s finally getting active again. Terry has houses all over the place including one from our Bellanca days back in Minnesota, and he keeps a Mooney there, but: “What I really want is a PA-11.” He liked mine. “I found one in Southern California, what do you think?” That’s how this all started.

We looked at the seller’s specs. PA-11’s aren’t easy to find and this one has less than 3000 TT with a relatively low time engine and, an electrical system, lights, radio, transponder and ADS-B out. The pictures looked good. Terry has spent his spare time skiing and supporting his Porsche collection and didn’t feel up to flying the little airplane from Van Nuys to Whidbey. “I’ll pick it up for you!” I said. Perhaps I should have asked Tracy first. “From Van Nuys?” she said. Well, yeah… “When? It’s January. Winter. Clouds and snow. Look outside! And you promised John Meyers you’d help him with a request on February 4 and 5.” There was no way I’d miss that. Today was January 24. “Maybe a couple of weeks from now” I said.

But that was Friday and the next day guess what? The weather from Southern California to Canada was SUNSHINE! And it was forecast to last a week! How could I pass this up? So Saturday I went to the bank (no time to get a check from Terry) and Sunday I packed. Headphones, ADS-B In, IPad Mini, batteries. Quick trip, who needs more?

MONDAY morning Tracy took me to SeaTac where I boarded Alaska Airlines and headed to Burbank. “I’ll be back in a couple of days…” Tracy is wonderful.

I’m picked up at Burbank Airport and I get to see the PA-11 about 5:00 pm. Terry wanted me to look at it before handing over the check. There are some things about the airplane that weren’t really expected. For one thing this one looks like a back-country PA-18. No covering on the landing gear, 27 inch tires, big tailwheel. The fabric was old and had a bit of ringworm; we had been told about this.I looked and called Terry; we talked about these things. The ringworm really was minor. I said the airplane looked good at 50 ft, twenty ft, even at 10 ft it looked pretty good. It needed a bath. I had asked and he again confirmed he expected to keep it to the end of his flying. The available logbooks were complete from the 70’s and didn’t contain surprises other than no lengthy explanations. He decided to go ahead and I was taken to my night’s hotel.

Van Nuys - I’m remembering why I’m so happy about living in Sequim. The AirTel Plaza Hotel adjacent to the airport must have over 350 rooms, but only a dozen cars in the parking lot. It used to have a restaurant, now not even the one soft drink machine worked. I walked past windows all barred up on my way to a hamburger joint two blocks away. Made sure both locks were in place on the door when I came back to the bed.

TUESDAY, we’re off to the bank. Bye bye check. It’s about 40º outside and we pull the airplane out. The engine starts and I’m moving. Now most of you know my ears don’t work well anymore and this radio is difficult for me. When departing Van Nuys airport on Runway 16R the non-movement area goes right up to the hold short line so I don’t need to worry until takeoff. There were four airplanes waiting to go so I break in and announce Cub 4953M is ready for takeoff in sequence. Another airplane joins the group. Hmmm. Finally all have gone and I hear someone is cleared for takeoff. I don’t see anyone else so I announce a right downwind departure and off I go! Somewhere on downwind I hear numbers that include Mike so I announce radio problems and confirm I’m exiting to the north. No more radio for me on this trip… I should explain here that my first takeoff in this airplane was an experience. Remember what they taught us about propeller “P” factor and gyroscopic forces and engine torque when we learned to fly? Well, with the big tires this airplane sits at quite a high deck angle and when I quickly pushed the stick to raise the tail right after adding full power like I do in MY PA-11 . I immediately found myself headed off the runway to the left… Luckily Cubs require little takeoff distance so I doubt the tower noticed my little escapade.

Onward. I’ll skip describing the first day’s flight other than to mention that my first three landings occurred at the end of my first leg. There I discovered there is no shock absorbing movement in this airplane’s landing gear and the previous owner pumped the tire pressure to allow for at least 10 years’ worth of flying.I had decided to wheel it on and found right away that there is a bunch of inertia required to get these big tires rotating. This causes instant deceleration and downward movement of the nose. I did not, however, LEARN this now because I was immediately several feet back in the air. The second bounce came in seconds; THIS is where I found out about the sudden deceleration and downward nose pitch because my feet had moved forward and were nudging the wonderful heel brakes. Quick application of aft stick pulled me back in the air after which, at what was now a very slow speed, I splat onto the ground and stopped. Practically no distance required.

I had planned to overnight at Red Bluff but deciding to eliminate tower controlled airports and having ground speeds that ran 45-65 kts, that was out. The remainder of my Tuesday flying included two legs and I overnighted in Willows, CA. Here I met a helpful young crop-duster pilot who offered to take me into town where, not knowing how far I would get that day, I had no hotel reservation. Upon learning that I was headed to Sequim, Warner Michael offered me a spare bedroom at his home and I bought him a fine dinner. Turns out he knew Gerry Mahoney and Bill Shepard well. Gerry had crop dusted in Willows and had worked for Warner’s grandfather. Warner had spent time with Gerry in Sequim and Bill had been Warner’s instructor. We had a fun evening.

WEDNESDAY started slowly. The temperature was 25º when we got to the airport. This Cub has no primer and it was 10:00 am by the time I got it running. Getting home tonight was now out. Airports were few and far between this day, so fuel management was a concern. I planned for two hour legs so that if I had winds or if airports didn’t have fuel I had alternatives. Maybe I could get to Centralia. I wanted to get to Siskiyou on my first leg, 160 miles away, a two hour flight leaving 45 more minutes of available fuel. There were only a couple of places ahead where fuel was a possibility but I felt good about Siskiyou because it was a county airport reporting attendance from 8:00 to 5:00. However,,, more headwinds. I passed Weed with 15 minutes plus the reserve to go, no sweat. I landed at Siskiyou (landings are easy now) where I found there was NOBODY there. The display on the self-service fuel stand was completely sun damaged and unreadable. And there were no restrooms. So with Ashland 15 minutes west and Weed 15 minutes east I left a memento of my appreciation on the ground and headed west. After refueling there it was on to overnight at Hobby Field (with a fine FBO, by the way) near Eugene. THURSDAY was also below 30º when I got up and the excellent weather promised for the trip was gone. Departure was about 10:00 am again with 300 scattered and at best 1000 broken but better weather ahead. After maneuvering around the scattered clouds a bit I climbed on top of the broken layer to see what it looked like. It appeared that above the broken layer I could work my way north, carefully making sure the broken layer below had holes I could reach at any point if there was an engine failure. Sure, better weather ahead… Nearing the Portland area, however, the better weather hadn’t materialized and I dropped down underneath where now the scattered clouds were more numerous and visibilities shorter. So much for Centralia. I landed at McMinnville to think. It was about 1:00 pm. Weather all around was dismal.

About 3:00 pm I decided to call a friend in Portland to see about an overnight. But the 3:00 weather report came and showed improvement! Even getting north of the Columbia River weather would be helpful; the morning forecast south of the river led me to believe I’d never get home. So with weather west of Portland IFR, but 600 scattered and 1300 broken on the east side with 1900 broken at Centralia, off I went. The problems were that Portland had Class C airspace which meant the long way around without radio, the broken layer meant it would be dark before sunset, and ground speeds were still in the 60 kt range. Centralia would be a race. And 10 minutes north of the Columbia the race was over; the broken layer wasn’t rising and there are hills before I’d get there. It was already getting dark. So a turn to the west headed me to Kelso where I landed and spent the night.

FRIDAY the weather was impossible. Not only were the clouds (400 ft) and visibilities (1-1/2 miles) around Kelso impossible, the forecasted winds were in the 20’s gusting into the upper 30’s. Not for me, not for this Cub. I called Tracy and said I could take a train to Tacoma but my little darling said she’d rather drive to Kelso and pick me up. And that she did! It was pouring down rain when she arrived. Weather forecasts ahead suggested possibilities in about a week.

SATURDAY dawned and guess what? The weather from Kelso north to Port Angeles was forecast to be VFR with low winds! And at the moment the METARs agreed! A quick call to Ray Ballantyne and we were off in his new Sportsman! We started out low but climbed above a broken layer where we stayed until nearing Centralia. There we descended for fuel and flew the remaining 10 miles underneath. The clouds were low but the visibilities were good. After fueling we proceeded to Kelso, and the clouds got lower and the visibilities shorter. I retrieved the Cub (which had been hangered by the very accommodating Cascade Air) and enviously watched Ray blast out through a hole in the broken clouds. My departure placed me over Interstate 5 where despite less than desirable conditions I could make my way. Enroute to Kelso we had noticed that weather to the east was better and I soon found that Interstate 5 wasn’t going to do so I moved off a ways. By now it was raining. My ground speed ranged from the 40’s to the 60’s (knots). I passed Centralia but Olympia was a problem. The weather was again somewhat better to the east of the Olympia control zone but the weather conditions were such that I couldn’t be sure of being able to remain clear of the numerous restricted areas on that side. I stayed on the west side of their control zone enduring the rain/snow and increasing wind. North of Olympia I reached the water where terrain and obstacles don’t exist. Continuing north, cloud bases over Puget Sound slowly increased and even on the west side forays back and forth over land were possible when clearances and visibilities allowed. Coming into Discovery Bay the cloud base over the water was good and I watched Jefferson County Airport from a dozen miles away. The cloud base above Diamond Point was 400 ft and it ended as I passed by over the water. Then came Sequim’s blue hole and I landed at Rakes Glen in glorious sunshine and calm winds!at Rakes Glen in glorious sunshine and calm winds!

AFTERWARDS, Terry has not yet flown his new Cub! He did drive over to meet it and is looking forward to sometime this coming week to taking it to its new home at Whidbey Airpark! It is a fun flyer and I’m sure he is going to enjoy it! For me, I’m enjoying a peaceful rest from flying! - Barry