In the Meantime: Flying -- Again and Again!

30 May 2013; Over the Skies of Wetter Washington --

Here we go again! This post talks about the first of two (2) flights. This is the one with just Grumpy alone [what? no one wants fly with this Grumpy Old, "Zoomie" Zim?] and the other, to be described in my next post is with my "Little Punkin" [youngest Granddaughter].

First, let me tell you about my solo flight.

After filling both wing tanks to the brim. The right tank seems to have a leak when completely full, so Grumpy planned to fly most of this anticipated 2-plus hour flight using the right tank. My route was to fly North, along the 121st longitudinal meridian -- this would keep me out of the SeaTac Class B airspace -- to about Lake Stevens, then Northeasterly to Granite Falls where I circled my daughter's company facility, hoping they could catch a glimpse. From there, I flew Westerly to Arlington Municipal Airport, then turned to a heading of about 90 degrees magnetic toward Ellensburg, climbing to at least 9,500 to clear the high terrain of the Cascades. After verifying Ellensburg airport (Bowers Field), I flew a direct heading to my home field at Crush.

On my climb, after leaving Arlington, I encountered some clouds; thanks to the encouragement of my younger but more experienced brother, I mastered this "obstacle" without a sweat. Well, sort of a "sweat"; as I emerged into sunshine over the tops of these clouds, I discovered that the windshield (and leading edges) was coated with a thin and translucent layer of ice! Since I had previously  ascertained that the conditions at Ellensburg were CAVU, and since I had six hours (plus an hour reserve) of fuel, I knew that the ice would eventually sublime (melt) in the warm dry air. 

I decided to climb to 12,500 for my return flight to Crush to avoid the possibility of further build-up of ice (the coating on the windshield had disappeared in the meantime, but the layer on the wing leading edges had only thinned). The weather in the Puget Sound area was, I knew, a broken layer at about 10,000 and scattered clouds at about 4,500-5,000. I could find a "hole" down through which I could descend once I was clear of the high stuff in the Cascades. As I predicted, the hole was found and my descent down to ground visibility achieved without a problem. Well, "rain" is not exactly a problem here on the Wet Coast; it's a "given" if you want to fly at all!

At the bottom of my descent within this visibility hole, I found myself in a valley with railroad tracks. My chart revealed this to be part of the Green River drainage system -- the Green River empties out onto the Kent valley floor near my intended landing site. However, the "opening" from the gorge and into the Kent valley was narrow and had a "blind" curve in it (and a rain shower obscuring the details of both sides of the notch), so I opted to climb slightly and go over a pass between mountains toward the clear weather beyond. The clear area on the other side of this pass was the Kent valley, with familiar landmarks all around.

My landing at Crush was not a good one; I bounced [a "Crush" landing!?] and noted that I need more practice to make landings like the one in my previous post. But, they say that "all landings from which you can walk away, are good landings!" And here Grumpy is -- alive and well.