Nice flight

It was a surprisingly nice day. Actually, I hadn’t noticed it was going to be a nice day until I was reading Information Echo, where he was opining how he was going to miss the flying day due to family commitments. I quickly hit F12 to bring up the Dashboard, where the Aviation Weather widget showed me that the only clouds forecast were high cirrus. Ok, not exactly sunny, but extremely good VFR throughout the region.

If Mark (Information Echo) had been available, I would gladly have flown across the lake to pick him up and take him to Niagara Falls. He’s only got (or technically, “nearly got”) a recreational license, so he can’t fly across the border or into some types of airspace, nor in a 6 seater retractable, so this would be an opportunity to show him stuff he’s never seen before. But he wasn’t. So I thought I’d take Vicki instead.

Taking Vicki meant waiting until after she got back from church, but that was ok because early in the day there was a ceiling at 2800 feet, which isn’t good VFR for a fun flight. Less time meant a less ambitious trip, only an hour or two. I thought we could do the Niagara Falls out and back, since it’s one of my favourite local sights. Since I’m not building cross country time for an instrument rating any more, I wouldn’t do the touch and go at IAG (Niagara Falls International) like I used to in the first couple of years after getting my license.

Niagara Falls has a special use airspace and special procedures in place to keep private pilots and tourist helicopters from flying into each other. Part of the procedure is a dedicated “Niagara Falls Scenic” radio frequency, and a pattern that private pilots are supposed to fly, and a minimum altitude of 3,500 feet.

We actually got flying at 2:15, and reported weather was broken clouds at 25,000 feet. As we climbed up to 3,500 feet, I could see a bank of clouds at about the same altitude as us maybe 15 or 20 miles south of us, but Buffalo and IAG were reporting no low clouds. I stayed at 3,500, which is a good sightseeing altitude, and headed on a 300 degree heading towards the lakeshore.

About half way there, I noticed this strange little “thump-thump-pause-thump-thump” in the engine vibrations. We were both concerned, and I turned back to Rochester while trying a few things. Changing the manifold pressure or propellor didn’t do anything. I didn’t see anything unusual in the graphic engine monitor, but I was pretty sure it was a fouled plug. The normal procedure on this engine is to lean it to 1400 degrees EGT, which I suspect is based on folklore and old wive’s tales rather than science, but it’s the procedure so I stick to it normally. I tried leaning to peak – it got up to nearly 1700 degrees EGT – and I tried switching mags. I don’t know what I did, but it definitely fixed the problem, so I turned back on-course.

When we reached the shoreline, we had a pretty decent view of Toronto across the lake. We continued along the shoreline and down the Niagara River. I briefly called in to IAG tower to tell them what I was doing, then called in on the Niagara Falls Scenic frequency. There was a Cessna in the pattern, but as soon as I called in that I was arriving, he announced he was leaving.

We did a few turns around the pattern. Because there was nobody there in the pattern, I could take a few liberties and modify it to get a better look at Marineland and the Belugas in the tank. Strangely, we couldn’t see any Orcas in the other tank, but it was so dirty we couldn’t be sure.

As we left, I monitored Buffalo Approach and IAG tower, and could hear three aircraft arriving for the pattern. I flipped back to the pattern frequency and could hear them trying to sort themselves out in the pattern. One was complaining that the guy ahead of him was doing a wider pattern. Surprisingly the guy doing wide was a Cessna – I go wide because I’m in a low wing and it’s hard to see through that wing, but Cessnas don’t have that problem.

The trip home was mostly uneventful. We got to the shoreline and I realized I was still at 3500 feet, which isn’t an appropriate altitude for an eastbound flight. I put in the throttle and climbed, and as I leveled out at 4500 feet, I saw a plane whiz by underneath us going in the opposite direction, probably at 3500 feet. I don’t know what it was, but it looked like a WW-II fighter or advanced trainer. I could see Rochester Airport from there, more that 40 miles away. Not bad.

I made a really soft landing, the sort you love to make when you’ve got loved ones on board. Going for a practice flight a week and a half ago really paid off. Another club plane landed on the long runway just about the same time, probably doing instrument training. And a King Air was cleared to land on the same runway as me before I even touched down. He was still 5 miles out, but I expedited the turn-off anyway.

The hangars are so damn nice – we just pull up, take our stuff out of the plane, and walk away. No wing covers, no cabin covers, no tie down chains, no nothing. I wouldn’t mind having this all year round.