Tag Archives: Roseburg

2012 San Francisco Air Venture 2012-07-11 Day Summary

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A much better day of flying today than we experienced yesterday.  We left Vancouver Pearson this morning after waiting once again for the weather to clear, which it did quickly.  It was still quite hazy and humid as we made our way northward, but the big problem once again was the wind.

We had hoped to make Snohomish Harvie Field in one long hop of about 2.5 hours, but with the wind at sometimes 25 mph on the nose, it was pretty clear that wasn’t going to happen.

We decided to land at Centralia-Chehalis airport for some gas.  We topped off and were soon on our way into some of the busiest airspace in this part of the world.  And busy it was.   We had to avoid a military operational area south of Seattle, then enter the Mode C veil surrounding SeaTac airport and make our way up the east side of Seattle’s airspace.

My radio was acting up the whole time, too, just like it did yesterday in Portland.  For some infuriating reason whenever I get over a large urban area my radio becomes nearly unreadable.  I was able to hear the tower just fine, but they couldn’t get any readable transmission from me.  Absolutely maddening!

The controller was a really good fellow, though, and allowed me to acknowledge his transmissions by squawking my ident.  I think the problem has something to do with the intense concentration of other radio signals in these urban areas.

At one point the controller called out some traffic of a Canadair Challenger whose call sign was Flight Check.  He was 5 miles west of us at our altitude. I think these are the planes the FAA uses to check the calibration of the nav aids around airports on a regular basis.  Transport Canada does the same thing.  The Challenger reported he had us in sight, then proceeded to buzz us!  He passed so close behind us that Geoff and I took evasive action to avoid this asshole.   If he missed us by 200 feet, I’d be surprised.

We continued up the east side of Seattle fighting the turbulence from the afternoon heat and trying to stay within our altitude bracket until after an hour of transiting over the surrounding suburbs of Seattle, we were finally able to sight Harvie Field and begin our descent.

The whole time we were in the Seattle area Geoff stuck to my wing like glue.  He reported afterwards that our formation flying was the most intense hour of flying he’d ever done.  We didn’t want to get separated and have to find each other with a bad radio in controlled airspace.

After dinner we popped over to Paine Field here in Everett and poked around for a few minutes.  We looked at several huge Boeings under construction or re-fit of some sort.  We were right up close to 767s, 777s, 747s, and, of course, the brand new 787.  Very cool.

Tomorrow we’re going to more fully explore Paine Field, Boeing Field in Seattle, and the Museum of Flight.  We’re going to have dinner in downtown somewhere and then head out to Castlegar on Friday morning to see my Dad.

Today’s photos show the Cub that followed us from Roseburg yesterday; Geoff flying in the hazy morning northbound out of Portland; downtown Seattle; downtown Renton; a Beaver with tundra tires on Harvie Field; a KLM 777 on the ramp at Paine.

More news on Friday.

Blue Skies,

Stu

2012 San Francisco Air Venture 2012-07-10 Day Summary

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Tough flying today!  We started the day in Medford, Oregon with an eye toward making Portland around a little after lunch.  Fat chance of that, as it turned out.

We flew for an hour and made our way along Interstate 5 because that’s the safest way for us to make it through the mountains down here.  We got an hour into our flight and it was pretty clear we weren’t going any further for a while.  We landed at a place called Roseburg because the clouds and low mist were blocking us from going any further.

It was really humid and cool. I’m glad I had full carb heat on because my engine stumbled with ice as we descended to get beneath the clouds.

We were delayed by 3 hours, or so, at Roseburg.  But it wasn’t a total waste of time.  We met a father and son who were flying their 1945 Piper L-4 from San Anantonio, Texas to Vancouver Pearson Airport, the same destination as us today.  They have a Continental A-75 in the plane and cruise at about 65 mph.  They left when we went in for lunch with the airport courtesy car, but we saw them on the ramp as we passed a place called Creswell, just south of Eugene.

We left Roseburg with about 8 miles visibility in haze, which improved to maybe 10 miles at some points in the afternoon.  But we were fighting a 20 to 30 mph headwind!  It was really frustrating to know we still had nearly 170 miles to fly against that wind.  And it was bumpy, too, from the day-time heating and the wind coming over the mountains.

We had hoped the wind would die off the closer we got to Portland, but no such fortune befell us.  We had to land again at a place called Albany for fuel and then had another hour and a half to go.

About 23 miles out of Portland, we called Portland Approach and they vectored us right over the city and nearly the downtown core to right over top of Portland International to put us onto a long final for Pearson’s runway 26.  It was pretty cool seeing 737s landing and taking off beneath us we sailed overhead at 2500’.

The landing at Pearson was a really tough bumpy one, especially since the last little bit is an approach right over the Fred Meyer store parking lot on a hot afternoon.  We finally hit the runway at 4 pm.

All in all, it wasn’t a really pleasant day of flying.  Hopefully, tomorrow will be better, especially since we only have 180 miles to fly to Snohomish Harvie Field.   We’re going to stay 2 nights and tour around Seattle.  Geoff wants to see the air museum there, but I may just drop him off and do some other sight-seeing because I’ve seen the museum a few times already.

Here are some photos. One of me in the cockpit today; a shot of Geoff as we’re leaving the mountains just south of Eugene; a look at the first wisps of the low clouds that held us up so long in Roseburg; the last ever L-4 at Roseburg; a shot of downtown Portland and the Willamette River (we drove over the arch bridge in the shot on our way back from dinner in downtown later in the evening); and finally, a look at the view over top of KPDX.  Note the 737 just entering runway 28L for departure.

More updates tomorrow, boys.

Blue Skies,

Stu