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What I have learned about NOTAMS
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I don't usually post about my own flying experiences. Partly I like my flights well-planned and routine, so there's usually not much to tell. Partly how I feel about flying is kind of personal. This is long and rambling but I'm posting it because I think there's a couple of useful points to ponder. For those who like the Form 1040EZ, my take on it is:
1) always check NOTAMS, including published NOTAMS which the briefer won't give you unless you ask
2) don't trust NOTAMS to tell you what you need to know, especially about small rural airports
OK, so it seemed like a good idea at the time. We'd flown into Springfield MO Friday afternoon, for a surprise 40th birthday party for my sister-in-law's husband. He said he was surprised, though like all the men in my husband's family you'd have to squint to see it.
After an afternoon spent swimming and eating barbeque and cake, we planned to fly east to Willow Springs MO to stay overnight with my husband's parents. Dad (my father-in-law) hadn't flown with me, or flown in our new plane, so we invited him to fly with us while the others drove back. We offered him his choice of pilots, but he refused to state a preference so we went with our usual "alternate legs." It was my turn.
It was a beautiful, star-studded night, and I hoped to give Dad a treat.
The trip was a short flight of 70 miles, about 45 minutes from takeoff to touchdown, maybe less with a bit of a tailwind. Our destination was a small rural airport, a nice one with a generous 3,500 x 50 ft runway in very nice shape, with good runway lights on a dusk-to-dawn timer. No VASI or beacon, no instrument approach, and while I wouldn't call it obstructed there are trees off one end and power wires off the other, so like many small rural airports at night, if one didn't mind the approach path one could get into trouble from obstacles it would be hard to see until too late. I like steep approaches, they keep me away from that nasty hard stuff I can't see too well at night but I digress.
If I didn't like the airport at night, no problem, I had Plan B in mind: another airport 10 miles off, an easy drive for my mother-in-law who would pick us up. Plan B airport has a generous 75x4000 ft runway in impeccable shape, beacon, pilot controlled lighting, VASI, instrument approaches to both runways thus well-defined obstacle clearance, everything a pilot could want from a rural airport. I'd landed there at night several times, once after a rough day flying back from Miami in a barely-familiar complex plane, and it was no problem. Easy airport, easy to find.
There's a special quality to flying from small rural airports. No ATIS, no clearance delivery, no radar, no tower. Often a more casual, friendly quality to the radio transmissions ("that you Bill?" "yep, got back Sunday") It's sometimes sad, when you fly into an airport which has obviously once seen bigger and better days. It's often interesting to see the various strategies pilots have evolved to keep the airport going without enough business to support an FBO. Willow Springs Missouri has a combination lock on the door with a note saying "the combination is Springfield approach frequency". If you're a pilot, you should have a chart. If you have a chart, you'll have the frequency. There's a note on the gas pumps saying "call police for fuel" (I'm not kidding, check it out in the AOPA book).
The FBOs which do exist at small airports are often more willing to go the extra mile -- often less expensive fuel, and when I call to check hours, often there's the offer to "leave the keys under the mat" of the FBO car for a trip into town, along with a description of the local restaurants and where the motels are. We like to stop at small airports when we're travelling across the country but it's not for everyone I guess. And it has gotten me into some, um, interesting situations but that's another story. If you know someone named Mike Letrello, ask him about his plans to retire to Dalhart, Texas that's all I'll say but I digress.
It was 11 pm and I'd been up since 7 am to get in a half day's work before flying to the party, but I'd had a mug of coffee and I felt pretty good and I figured if I felt uncomfortable at the smaller airport I'd just jog south and plant the plane on the long wide runway at my alternate. I want to note here that I did not feel any pressure to make the flight. Dad could have driven home, and we could have spent the night with my sister-in-law in Springfield. I have been known to abort planned flights and start phoning for motels when I feel it's been too long of a day (even at 5 in the afternoon).
The night was clear and star-studded with nothing on radar or satellite weather, but I requested a weather briefing. It's always good to ask about NOTAMS affecting one's destination, including "Notam 2s" or published NOTAMS, so I did just that. Nothing, I was told.
The flight was smooth and beautiful. What with baggage, three big people, and a 50 lb dog the cabin was pretty full, but we'd burnt off almost 2 hrs of fuel flying down so we were comfortably under gross and Tigger leapt off the runway and gained altitude rapidly enough that we'd be well above the 3,700 ft antenna farm just east of Springfield without the need for circling. My father-in-law admired the stars and identified the towns along the highway just to our north. (I could pick out several airports, always reassuring at night). I had requested flight following, but as frequently occurs in these parts the only time we spoke was when I told Mizzou Approach I'd be beginning my descent, and when I told him I didn't have the airport in sight yet but I was over the town and was going to switch to advisory frequency.
Funny. We're over the town. I know just where the airport should be, and there's my husband and father-in-law picking out landmarks surrounding where we know the airport is, but none of us see it. Have they installed pilot-controlled lighting without telling anyone? I try clicking the PTT. Lo, there is not light. Wait, there's a bar of red lights...white light stretching back from them, then quitting on one side...no green lights. That's the airport, but the threshold lights and the runway lights on the right side are inoperative. At low altitude, it's pretty dark with few visual cues to pick out a horizen. I fly a pretty sloppy pattern (without two lines of lights to cue me, and needing to switch on and off the gauges, the runway is hard to pick out from the nearby highway). I end with a low approach to confirm, yep, that's the runway, This Is Harder Than I want to Do.
Time for plan B. I fly off to the south, heading for that big easy runway at that easy to find airport like a homing pigeon on the way to the dovecote.
OK, there's the beacon, I see the dim shapes of hangars, UNICOM dialed in, click the PTT, and Lo. Once again, there is Not Light. Well, these things are finicky sometimes, I tried again on the other COM and had my father-in-law try the other PTT. No joy. Now what? Knowing that the airport manager sometimes monitors unicom after hours, I try asking "West Plains, if anyone's at the airport, the lights aren't coming on, could you switch them on for me?" No response.
Well, I know people who fly at night out of grass strips with lights only on one side. Heck, I've landed at Creve Coeur at night where the corn blocks the threshold lights and the 29' paved runway is asymmetric within the lights outlining the larger and longer grass strip (it impressed me so much the next time my husband planned to fly back there at night, I asked where he was planning to stop and let me off first. I wasn't kidding either. But I digress).
How hard can this be? I decide to fly back to the first airport and try two approaches. There are other airports within easy fuel range, but I've never landed at any of them and I do prefer to land at a rural airport for the first time in daylight. There can be gotchas which the AF/D and other guides don't adequately describe. Like corn hiding the threshold, or sudden dips and humps in the runway, potholes, unmarked wires on approach, that kind of thing.
I do a low approach to goose off any deer on the runway, then I fly a pattern and aim for the first light on the left. The runway appears in my landing light. I can see well enough to land, but I don't like where I am, too close to the red lights at the end. I go around.
By this time, someone heard me on CTAF and sent a police cruiser to the airport. My husband comments that he thinks the policeman is shining his headlights across the threshold, and I see what the problem is: several lights on the left are burnt out too, shortening the runway substantially when I aimed for the first working light. I aim for the headlights instead, airspeed good, approach angle good, the runway shows up, and I make what my husband pronounces a pretty good landing. Whew. The ground feels kind of good.
I thank the police officer. He asked if it helped to have the lights across the threshold and I assure him it was a big help and much appreciated. He mentions that the lights went out last week! and there's a work order in with the city to fix them. Now I don't want to come down on him, but I mention that there's this here FAA "notices to airmen" program, and suggest that it would be very helpful if the airport manager would put in a notice about the lights, so other pilots flying in would know they are partly inoperative.
I also describe the problems at both airports to FSS, double check that there weren't any NOTAMS published or unpublished which the briefer missed, and ask if they can put in some sort of notice other than a Pirep which will expire in hours. They say they can make an airport advisory but not a NOTAM, and I ask, could they then because equipment problems at two different airports was a little disconcerting.
The next morning we flew to the second airport for fuel, and I asked about the problem with the pilot-controlled lighting not activating. They weren't aware of any. The kid manning the pumps turned the lights on, and said they were fine, but I pointed out that the problem might not be with the lights, it might be with the switch which activates them on receiving "clicks" over the unicom frequency and he promised to check that too. Later while departing, we wanted to fly IFR to bust through a 2,200 agl ceiling. FSS didn't want to give us a void time clearance because there's an RCO which should pick up voice on the field (they said). That wasn't working either, at least we couldn't raise anyone.
I learned about NOTAMS from that. Specifically, I learned that when flying into a small airport, there is no substitute for calling and talking to someone in town, because there is no guarantee that a NOTAM will be filed or even that anyone will be aware of a problem. Counting on the NOTAM system to alert me to problems made what should have been a routine short flight unnecessarily interesting.
What about my passenger? Did I mention the men in my husband's family are all very calm? Dad was also a mechanic on the "Fighting I" during the Korean War and had flown in Navy planes many times. He was the perfect passenger for the circumstances. He says he'll fly with me again.
But next time, I think I'll add Plan C and Plan D to my list ahead of time. |
Snowbird
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