Chapter 3

Dad peered through the window of the Beechcraft Baron and on into the gathering gloom.  We were somewhere over Kansas.  It would be night soon. 

Small rumbles of turbulence rocked the plane.  Several miles ahead and far, far below dad studied a low lying wind storm that swept over the flat dusty ground, roiling a cloud of soot and ice particles a few hundred feet into the swirling air.  From this altitude it looked like a brown layer of fluffy cotton spread over the surface of the earth.  The weather report he’d gotten in Farmington had predicted the possibility of the storm, and it would probably get a little rough as we flew over it, but it wasn’t suppose to be too bad all the way up here. 

Darkness crept up on the little plane from the eastern sky.  As the plane began to be lightly buffeted from the updrafts created by the storm below, dad squinted from behind his Ray-Bans toward his new concern.  A thin grey line of clouds had crept into view from over the horizon.  It expanded across the horizon from north to south directly in line with the path of our airplane flying through the rapidly darkening sky.  This front, too, had been mentioned in the forecast, so it wasn’t unexpected, but it appeared much lower than he’d thought it would have been. 

“Better check that weather,” he said to mom.  She saw the clouds too and nodded.  She flipped through the pages till she found the correct radio frequency for the nearest flight service station in Minneapolis and turned the knobs on the radio until they were displayed in the display.    

The storm below had closed most of the airports in the region to visual, or VFR flight, which was dad’s highest FAA certification.  If he knowingly entered a situation where he had low or no visibility, like a cloud bank or snow storm, he would be in big trouble with the FAA.  You have to be instrument, or IFR certified to fly in those conditions.  Dad had flown IFR with Bruce many times, so he knew how.  He had the hours, but never took the test, so he had no IFR certification.  Without that certification, he could only legally fly so long as he had visibility.

There was a low pressure front stationary over the area in front of him, explaining the cloud bank extending from left to right like a grey wall before them.  It had been reported as a high system, starting at 5-6,000 feet, which he could easily get under and still fly VFR.  But, as the pressure in the area unexpectedly dropped, so did the clouds.  

Dad considered his options.  The top of the clouds weren’t that high, but he was very hesitant to increase his altitude and go over them.  If he did that, and lost view of the ground, he would also lose critical landmarks.  Of course he could do the calculations and time the flight, and that should put us close, but the odds were that he’d still have to go through the clouds to get down once over Lincoln, if he couldn’t find a hole, which was likely with overcast like this. 

Another option was to just put down and wait.  He didn’t really want to fly through this system; however the wind storm in Kansas wasn’t any good and would have created dangerous wind conditions no the ground for miles around, so diverting that way wasn’t really a good option either.  He considered cutting southeast toward Missouri to avoid the system, and landing in Kansas City or somewhere close, but even if it was clear there, that would cut his fuel short, and he didn’t want to push his luck there.  Most aviation accidents were a result of fuel exhaustion, he knew, and he didn’t want to be one of them. 

So there was left the option to go under the system, and try to stay above the deck.  Beside, these clouds didn’t contain any bad weather, just overcast conditions. 

            He asked mom to get out the sectional chart for the area.  She flipped on a small directional light above her and pulled it out, folding it into a manageable size and put it on her lap.  He glanced at it, noting the altitude of Lincoln at about 1,000 feet above sea level.  He wasn’t sure of his exact position on the map, but the change of altitude wouldn’t be that great from Lincoln. 

He was presently cruising at 6,500 feet above sea level, so a gentle decent to an altitude that would get him under the clouds, but above, say, 1,500 feet would suffice.  If things got too bad, like if the cloud layer got too low to safely fly under, he could always find a farm or small town runway to land at.  With his wife and kids, it was the last thing he wanted to do, but if he had to, it was an option.

He would be able to see the lights on the ground.  And if he could see lights, he could tell if he was getting low. 

As the airplane approached the leading edge of the system, he gently reduced the power and the plane began to sink through the rushing air into an easy decent, aimed for the bottom of the dark bank of clouds.  The sky behind had grown from orange and blue to steel grey as the sun submerged itself somewhere back over the horizon.  Under the clouds the air was black.  The altimeter slowly ticked off the cushion of air under us, gravity pulling us gently down.  Thin wafts of clouds hanging from the bank reached down to grab at the plane as it was pulled towards earth.  They momentarily enveloped the plane for a few seconds at a time.

            The night sky below the clouds enveloped us completely, but below it the air was clear and the dotted lights of the civilization of rural America appeared on the ground, sporadically dotting the wash of black over the ground, trailing off to the horizon in all directions.  Dad continued his decent to stay about 500 feet below the ceiling and restored the power to the engines and leveled the flight.

            Nothing to it.  He turned and smiled at mom.  She saw and smiled back at him, then flipped the light off.  The cabin went dark, save for the lights of the instruments.  It wouldn’t be long now.  The sing-song droning of the engines eased dad back into the seat and he thought of what he’d have to do once they landed.  This and that.  Call Bruce…all the little things. 

            Occasionally, he glanced down at the panel.  The flight remained nice and smooth.  It was clear sailing from here, so to speak.  He was significantly lower than usual when he flew this route, but never gave it another thought.  As long as he was higher than Lincoln, there was nothing to worry about.  He had a little wiggle room if he needed it.

            A poignant thought, as the clouds began to settle around the plane again and the ceiling dropped a little more.  Dad cursed this.  The pressure was still dropping and the clouds had lowered themselves.  The red-flashing anti-collision beacon and wing tip lights reflected off of them forming a multicolored halo around the plane alternating between green and red hues, and white flashes from the wingtip strobes, punctuated by intervals of blackness. 

Dad reduced power again and eased the plane down through the clouds until he could see the lights on the ground again.  He looked at the altimeter.  He had room.  Lincoln was still way down there.

Some time later, the same thing.  The clouds kept coming down, as if to push us lower, and he kept getting lower and lower to get under them.  In the pilot world this was called ‘scud-running.’  Everyone knew it was a good way to get into trouble.  But unfortunately in situations like this, without IFR training it was all you could do without getting in trouble with the FAA.  He had done it before.  The trick was to just not get too low.  The clouds were not suppose to get that low tonight, according to the weather.

He knew that didn’t guarantee anything, though.  Clouds can do anything, so he wasn’t afraid to go IFR if the clouds forced him to an unsafe altitude.  It just wasn’t necessary yet.  And there are reasons why there is an IFR certification in the first place.  It is easy to get off course or otherwise askew when you can’t see in an airplane, especially in clouds where everything looks the same.  A pilot can easily get completely inverted and not even know it, and if not well trained, have a very hard time re-orienting themselves when they realize their error, often at a cost of their lives and that of their passengers.

He hadn’t trained to that extent, but still felt comfortable to simply go through the cloud layer to the clear air above without getting turned over, and then report to the nearest flight service station, acknowledge his error, and request a vector to Lincoln.  They’d want a word with him when he got there, but it was better than the alternative.  There wasn’t turbulence or wind, so it would be a simple steady course, until the clouds were below him.           

But until then, he just had to watch the altimeter.  Keep high enough, above Lincoln’s elevation, and he’d be okay.  He hadn’t wandered off course.  The compass had not changed overly dramatically during the trip down, and they hadn’t been buffeted too badly.  There was a slight crosswind from due north, but nothing that he couldn’t compensate for. 

Beside, he could still see light far beneath him.  As long as he could see the lights on the ground, he’d know roughly how high up he was. 

He was keeping his eye on one particular bright light in the far distance to use as a reference.  From where he sat it was a long way down still, letting him know that there was still plenty of altitude between the plane and the ground. 

But still, he had a tingle telling him to watch his butt.  He was getting lower than he liked, that was for sure.  He preferred to be high.  He’d be happy when Lincoln appeared. 

The altimeter needle slowly approached 1,650 feet.  1,500 feet, 500 feet above Lincoln was as low as he was willing to go.  If the clouds moved in any more, he’d have to just fly IFR and deal with it.  He turned to mom. 

She held Kim in her lap and stared out the windshield into the darkness beyond, looking uneasy.  Her face was silhouetted against the intermittent flash of the wing tip strobe beyond her window.  She glanced at him, and smiled nervously.  They were thinking the same thing.  Dad spoke into his microphone.

            “Were going in pretty low,” he said.  “Why don’t you give Kim to Chris, and help me keep an eye out.  We should try to get our bearings in case the clouds move in again.  I might have to go through them.” 

Mom smiled again.  She unbuckled her seatbelt and turned to get Chris’ attention.  He was sitting awake in his seat and smiled at her immediately as she caught his eye.  He leaned forward to hear her.  She covered her microphone and loudly spoke over the drone of the engines.

“I need you to hold Kim for a little while, okay?” she said. 

He smiled and held out his hands.  Mom gently lifted the sleeping little girl toward Chris over the front seat.  Chris unbuckled his belt and softly took her to him and positioned her on his lap so she faced forward.  Her head lulled back onto his shoulder as he pulled some slack out of the seat belt to make room for her, and then clicked it securely around them both.  Kim settled back into the security of her brother’s embrace and fell quickly back asleep.  Mom looked at her oldest boy and was proud of him.

“I love you,” she mouthed to him, and smiled.