Winter Hazards

Winter seems to have settled itself in our little northern town. It's an inevitable fact that I personally hate. I am not a winter fan in the slightest as there is not much I do in the winter that I actually like. Mostly because anything you do in the winter that's not indoors is cold. No matter how I bundle up. Fortunately, when people stop me and ask if I've had to park my plane for the winter, I can tell them no. Of course, I can't exactly fly at temperatures of -40C, but until that hits, I'm fairly good to go. Or so I thought.

Winter flying has an entirely different set of hazards that have absolutely nothing to do with flying. For instance, back injury. When you're flying a nosewheel like myself, it's not exactly snow-friendly. You can't go and put winter tires on it like your vehicle and it will drive in snow and icy conditions. No. You have to shovel. And depending how much snow or how far your hangar sits from the airport maintained taxiway, you may spend your entire day shoveling and then if you don't have your night rating, find yourself unable to fly when you're done. Unless you have a friend with a skid stear, then you whine, complain, beg, plead, absolutely anything to get him to come down and clear out that snow. After all, the sooner that snow is cleaned up, the sooner you're flying. Besides, most pilots I know will give anything up to fly, including the gym. So shoveling isn't exactly an easy task.

If you've managed to avoid injuring your back while watching your friend clear the snow, you may think you're in the clear. Now all that has to get done is pull the plane out and go. Unfortunately, that is not the case. It's winter and with winter comes ice. With ice comes slips and falls when not wearing spiked footwear. So, when you're pulling your aircraft out of the hanger, pay attention to where exactly you're stepping, because it takes a great deal of effort to pull out a plane onto icy, gravel, so that's a great deal of energy getting transferred skyward when your feet slip out from underneath you and you land on your back. Not only that, but if that aircraft is still moving, however small it is, you  might want to get out of the way. Those nosewheels don't feel so great rolling over your foot!

Now that your shoveling is done and your plane has started (hopefully, but since it's been sitting in the cold while you've been paralyzed from your fall) it might take a little work. But, optimism is key and you cross your fingers that the thing starts. And it does, yay! Things warm up and you can now start taxiing to the apron. Until you find yourself barricaded in by a ridge of gravel, ice and snow. It's very similar to that ridge you get at the end of your driveway from the grader cleaning the streets. Unfortunately, unlike driving, you can't simply plow into it and use your speed to force a path. There's that problem of a propeller blade digging right into the rocks. So, you must once again shut down your engines and go back with a shovel. Actually, forget the shovel, an ice pick or a giant metal scraper is something you'll need to break down the frozen, compacted combination of gravel and snow.

Finally, finally you make it out and can go fuel up. Make sure you brought gloves, however, because if you thought that hose got cold in the summer it's an entirely different thing at subzero temperatures. If anything, just make sure any part in contact with the metal is dry. It's the same thing as a pole in winter. You stick your tongue to it, you're leaving your tongue on it. As is any part of your hand that may stick to the nozzle.

And there. You've made it to the apron and hopefully now can prepare to take off. Now, hopefully you're not too tired to remember all the rules about winter flying because all that work you did to get out will be useless when your carb ices up and you have to bury your aircraft in a field. Unless you pick one out ahead of time and send your friend with his skid stear to clear you a runway.

Selfish Mother Nature

There is one profession that I have sworn I would never want to do, or involve myself with. That is farming. Why you ask? Because with farming you are completely and utterly dependent upon the weather. Obviously I mean grain or crop farming, not the kind of farming that involved any kind of animal because that would be so much worse than regular farming and therefore I have removed that from my point entirely. Farming is one profession in which you are at the mercy of the weather. You can have the best growing season ever, then have winter come too early and destroy it all. Or, you can not even have a growing season due to unusually large rainfall or not enough rainfall. You pray for dry days, then rainy days, then warm days. It would just be too stressful for me and I am not the type that enjoys being dependent on something so completely and utterly uncontrollable. So, instead, what do I do? I take up flying.

Talk about dependent on the weather. At least when you're safely enveloped in a combine it won't kill you. And yes, it's completely unpredictable sometimes but at least not to the point that you're trapped in some remote town, or field, due to an oncoming storm. Honestly, why would someone who cannot stand for being out of control take up something so uncontrollable as flying. I'm sorry, that was wrong. You have a great deal of control when you're flying, or at least you should or you've got an entirely different set of problems on your hands, but you are still completely at the mercy of that beautiful, irritating and irrational mother nature.

As you can might have guessed from my bitter attitude, I made plans today that entirely revolved around flying. I was going to fly to a few airports to which I've never been and then stop and have lunch with a friend before coming home. Now I cannot because it is far too windy and the fargo does not do too well in high, gusty winds, as is the case with most small aircraft. It's not that I cannot go have lunch with my friend, I am still planning on that, it's just that I now will have to drive there, and where is the fun in that? Anybody can hop in their cars and go to a nearby town to visit. Not anyone can fly there. And now I will spend 1.5 hours driving along a busy highway on which I've been countless times instead of spending 1.5 hours in the air flying over places I've never seen. All because of the stupid weather. Maybe I should take up something else, something indoors in which it doesn't matter one little bit how things are faring outside. Something like knitting. Then again I could just get a bigger plane and take on Mother Nature myself. Yes. That is also a possibility.