Thinking Out Loud…Snow and Biplanes

Where is Global Warming When We Really Need it!

 Check out this photo! This was three days ago and shows The Other Redhead with snow blanketed mountains behind it. This is right at the end of Runway 21 at KSDL in PHOENIX, ARIZONA FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! Where is the Arizona we all moved down here for?

This has been a really interesting week, for a number of different reasons, but first, a little background. I started the Pitts instruction thing in NJ in 1971 in the sixth Pitts S-2A built. In NJ, dealing with weather was just part of the game. In fact, before I left for the airport (Aeroflex-Andover in north NJ), I’d call and ask “Can you see the hills?” The hills were about 700 feet and a mile or two south. If you could see them, I flew. As we all did. However, I’ll bet that I canceled something like 30-40% of my scheduled hops because of scuzzy weather. It was just something you lived with. On one memorable flight, which I’ll chronicle here someday, I bought my Pitts back into the pattern with 3/16” of ugly rime ice covering every frontal surface on the airplane including the wires, etc.

AZ is an entirely different form of aviating. We’ll go for weeks without a single cloud and I almost never cancel a hop because of ceiling. I should admit, however, I do cancel hops because the truly crazy winds we have here. They’re not very strong but have really screwy character within ten feet of the runway. Too often the gusts come behind the wing, a no-no in a tailwheel airplane. The winds are so circular/cyclonic in nature that often both ends of the 8,000 foot runway have a downwind component.

This week was a continuation of the abnormally cold, crappy weather we’ve had for the last month or so. Yeah, I know, the entire rest of the country has been hammered and we’re just seeing the southern edge of it. However, this is so atypical for us Zonie weather weenies that we don’t know what to do with ourselves. I even had the zipper replaced on a wonderful, quilted coat that goes down past my butt. I have no idea where I got it. It just showed up in my closet about 40 years ago and is my go-to protection for open cockpit aviating. Lately, it hasn’t been unusual for us to see 34-37 degrees for the first morning hop, which for us is frigging frigid. Yeah, I know. We’re pussies! But, most of us down here have experienced lots of heavy winter in our past lives, which is why we moved down here. We thought we’d left that kind of stuff behind. ‘Guess not.

Basically, I’m really tired of seeing my breath in the cockpit and, when it’s an open cockpit and you’re seeing your breath, it is telling you something important. It’s telling you it’s too damn cold and you shouldn’t be up there.

I said this was an interesting week for a couple of reasons: One of those is that the cowboy tactical shooting competition put on by the Single Action Shooting Society (SASS, Google it!) was held here this week and I spent an afternoon out there. It was wildly enjoyable and I’ll be getting into that next week in Thinking Out Loud. However, what made it really interesting was the flying student who came with me.

To put it in a single sentence: The kind of people who come to fly with me and stay in our B & B are what make the entire flight instruction part of my existence worthwhile. I’ve been at this for over 50 years (strictly Pitts instruction) and here in PHX at Scottsdale Airport for 31 years as of last month. BTW, to me, that seems absolutely impossible. However, more important, with only one exception, every single one of the hundreds (probably over a thousand), folks I’ve flown with have been interesting, fun, thoroughly worthwhile people. The airplane attracts people who want to learn, regardless of their flight background, so they are absolutely willing, eager students. That makes my job easier and more enjoyable. Our relationships very quickly change from being instructor/student to being friend/friend. 95% of them stay with us in the B & B so we spend far more time with them out of the cockpit than we do in the cockpit and The Redhead and I are constantly amazed at how everyone who walks through our front door turns out to be someone we’re really glad to get to know.

This week’s student was a 45-year-old (that makes him a kid in this household) who had basically zero tailwheel time. So, it was fun watching his apprehension quickly mutate into excitement and enthusiasm. He also knew absolutely nothing about Cowboy Action Shooting, so he was constantly making fresh observations about that experience, which was also a huge amount of fun.

Every single person who pulls into our drive, which happens almost every Sunday at 5 pm, and they are with us for the week, brings something unique into our life. Universally, they’re the kind of people with whom we wind up having in-depth, interesting and, often, important, conversations. Usually, by the end of the week, we’ve solved every one of the world’s problems and we’re amazed that country’s leaders aren’t calling us for advice.

So, it has been another good, and unique, week. And another, better, one is coming. Temps are going to be back to normal and it looks like spring is already on the way. It was barely above freezing last week but they’re talking about 80 next Sunday. Hmmm! I’m not sure I’m actually ready for spring.

…and, yes, I do complain a lot. bd