A Day In The Life
Chapter 4
It's cold! Colder than a well digger, 50 feet deep as my ole granddaddy used to say, with a 20 to 25 knot surface wind blowing, right out of the North. A cold front had passed through this place called, Great Falls, Montana yesterday, bringing with it about 10 inches of snow.
I had been contracted to deliver a Beech model 18, from Great Falls, Montana to Lima, Peru. Since I was going to be traveling in a 180 knot aircraft, this was going to be a long trip, boring, with no company as I was not authorized to have a co-pilot, unless I wanted to pay him myself. Thanks, but no thanks, $800.00 bucks don't go very far when trying to feed 2 other mouths besides mine in 1968.
This should be a good trip as this aircraft had good maintenance history, with both engines 1450 TT and 670 on both since TOP overhaul. Just the normal equipment replaced and when and the only thing which caught my eye was the fuel pump on right engine has been replaced 3 times and not once on left engine. Wonder what that is all about. Looked like about roughly 300 hours between change outs, so its been about 230 since last replaced. Good radio systems, all Collins, with a FD-106 flight director and a AVQ-55 radar.
Only problem I see to start with is working my way South through that cold front which passed yesterday.
Route of flight is going to be loooooong, but that goes with the job, a total mileage of 4,324 miles and that works out to 22.7 hours of flying over a 2 day streach and that does not count weather deviations and etc.
Day 1, I will plan on Great Falls to Mexico City, about 2100 miles, with 2 stops, Okaie city and Brownsville, Tx. for customs.
Now to load up all extra's that I will need for this trip, portable "Pee" jug, 2 thermos of coffee, 3 sandwiches and alarm clock. I had acquired a alarm clock with 2 bells mounted either side at the top and the thing really made a noise when it when off.
Now, lets see if this thing will fly! Full fuel load this leg, lined up on the runway, pushed throttles up and off I went! Climb out was normal, nothing of note except CHT on right engine not working, but not a safety of flight item, so press on "Tater". With a EGT and oil temp guage you can get by without the CHT.
Four hours into the flight now, and starting to pick up a little "rime" ice in the tops of this stuff i keep going into and out of. I am at 9,000MSL and I can see that I am going to go solid on the gauges pretty quick now and guess I will have, no, know I will have to shoot an approach into Oka City! They are reporting 900 broken, 1400 overcast, rain showers with thunder in all quadrants. A man should never have to penetrate a cold front, ever, but if you fly much, sooner or later its going to have to be done.
Now I am busy, cycling the de-ice boots every 10 minutes or so, getting a good bit of ice every now and then, but its no big problem, yet, trying to fly the aircraft, navigate and drink a cup of coffee all at the same time.
Am talking to approach control now, good bit of traffic around in different places because of all the weather around and they have asked me to hold at 4,000 SW VOR and that isn't to bad as I am in a light area of rain and I can see lighting on the inbound leg off to my right a little and the Radar is showing it, but its not on the ILS system, so put up with bumps and pay attention. A lot of bumps now, i would rate it as moderate, but I don't like bumps when IFR, so anything is moderate to me. I get a heading to fly right towards that thunderstorm I noticed a while ago when holding and I questioned the controller about it and he said he was going to take me around it to the outer marker, should be no problem. A couple of really good bumps, then break out into the clear! Now I have clear air turbulence to deal with, gosh its rough. Advise approach of turbulence and just as quick, it disappeared. Landed with no trouble and re-fueled as quick as i could, wanted to beat that cold front through here. The "squall" line that I was dealing with was dissipating rapidly so it shouldn't bother me.
Next leg to Brownsville to clear customs, 690 miles, and because of holding, deviations and waiting on fuel truck to top me off, I am now running about an 1 and 1/2 hour behind the schedule I wanted to keep. Now, it will be about 11PM, local time when I get to Mexico city. Even tho its got a lot of high hills around it, the controllers are good, speak good English and the traffic at that time of night is very good!
Takeoff again good, CHT still not working and its getting dark fast, so turn on instrument lights, whoa, they won't come on! No amount of circuit breaker resects or swift size 11 shoe against the panel, the dang lights won't come on. They are working on right side and engine instrument lights are working, but my flight instruments are not. Climb straight out to 10,000, 230 on the heading was instructions from departure, then I felt it! a slight fish tail of the aircraft! Yaw damper on flight director hunting! So, turn it off and now I have to drive this rig manually all the way to Lima I guess.
I had already decided in my mind that I was not going to go direct from Cali, Colombia to Lima, I was going to go VFR, follow the coast line to Talara, Ecuador and then on down coast line to Lima. I just wasn't going to mess with those mountain passes and etc. Weather reporting "iffy" at best and this was going to a night landing at Lima!
As with any aircraft accident, a series of little things happen, not at once, but over a period of time.
To be cont'
