Well, last week was interesting, to say the least. All went normal until Monday, then the fun began.
Starting the night, I checked the weather, and noticed they were calling for fog at my last two stops. This is when those that are paid to fly earn their paychecks. If you are in the cold, adding ice to your airplane while shooting an approach to minimums can be some of the most challenging times for an aviator. This was the night all this would happen, but not as planned.
Coming out of Chicago, I had checked the weather in Des Moines, and noticed I would be shooting an approach and needing an alternate airport due to low ceilings. An alternate airport is absolutely and positively just a legal thing. The way it works on paper is the pilot, if the destination weather is below certain parameters, must “file” an alternate airport. There are only a few airports in any area that are qualified as a legal alternate, so you must plan ahead. My alternate for the night was CID (Cedar Rapids)…remember, this is all for legal purposes and it rarely works out that you actually end up at your alternate, but you must have enough fuel to get to your alternate and still have reserve fuel on board. I’m sure down the road, I’ll explain how you can use this to your advantage, but for now we’ll stick with this.
My final destination also had low ceilings reported when I left Chicago, and there are some airport renovations happening, so it limits us to higher visibility and ceilings going in there, so I had told dispatch there might be problems getting in to my base airport before I left. So, about 1/2 way to DSM, I call up the weather people and ask how the weather is for DSM and my base airport. DSM is reporting 1/8 Mile visibility, blah, blah, blah. 1/8 Mile is bad. Now, I cannot legally get into there. When I get back on to ATC, they had just been talking to another aircraft heading to DSM also, and asked for my intentions.
At this point, we had no second plan for DSM…we were supposed to be able to get in there, according to the forecast. So, I eventually get a hold of some of our other airplanes and it has already been decided to go to OMA (Omaha, NE). At this point in time, I am about 100 Miles from DSM, with an extra 100 Miles to go to OMA, and almost 3 hours of fuel. DSM is fogged in, and I’m over my “technical alternate” of CID. I check the CIDÂ weather for future reference. 4 Miles visibility, so they are good right now. OMA is reporting clear skies and everybody is making plans to go there. So, I tell ATC, diverting OMA. Great.
A funny thing about fog, it’s very unpredictable, other than getting in the way of a perfectly executed plan “B”. At this point in time, we have a Lear Jet depart DSM going to OMA, and another en-route from some place out West, along with myself and 3 Aero-Commanders from a contract we have with another company. All are heading to OMA. When I get to about 75 miles outside of OMA, the Aero-Commanders are starting to report the visibility going down fast…two get in, and then one of our Lears has to go missed approach due to fog. Great, now OMA is down.
So, here I sit, 50 Miles out of OMA, with DSM fogged in, OMA fogged in, with a little less than 2 hours of fuel aboard. I could try to make it back to base, but they are fogging in also, and I’d be cutting into my reserve fuel to get there. That’s a situation I don’t want to play around with. “Center, freighter 123 request weather at CID and divert to CID.” “Weather is now 1 3/4 miles vis.” That works. It’s heading downhill, but maybe I can beat it, and there’s always IOW (Iowa City), so here we go. I race the fog to CID and beat it with about 15 minutes to spare. By the time I get fuel, the weather everywhere is pretty bad, with my base airport below minimums, CID is saying 1/8 mile and eventually goes to 1/16 mile visibility. It was ugly there.
So, I got to spend the night in Cedar Rapids, got my rest and started my day early with an extra leg back to my home base. There was a very good lesson I learned from my days as a reserve pilot…always have an extra change of clothes and toothbrush, etc., with you. It paid off that night.