So today, I went to my girls' soccer game while my husband went to preflight the plane (1966 Piper Cherokee Six named Debra). We were heading to Elmira, NY to attend the Sweet 16th of my husband's Goddaughter. We also were taking another passenger along, barely an acquaintance, because her aging, ill mother lives in Corning and she heard we were heading that way (BTW - she had never flown in a small plane before). We were planning to stay overnight and come back the next day. It was a beautiful day in Danville - sunny and 70 degrees, which was quite warm for this time of year. Husband filed IFR - destination weather was not as lovely. Got the plane loaded up and off we went. We had a head wind so we planned on it taking us a bit over three hours. At 7,000 feet, the visibility was great. The Shenandoah Valley was just beautiful!
We also cruised by Wintergreen Ski Resort (pictured below - look for the white trails).
Then Massanutten (it was on the end of this ridge, but we had already passed it and the wing was over)...
In terms of flying, it was not my most comfortable experience. We had a passenger that we were fairly unfamiliar with (although we agreed to bring her along because we felt like we were helping). A strong head wind was keeping our ground speed slow and we started to hit mountain waves. We heard another pilot request block clearance because he, too was experience mountain waves and couldn't color within the altitudinal lines. We went up to 9,000 feet and things seemed to be a bit better there. In the midst of things, I also took the following little video clip (Wintergreen again):
But my husband started to notice that every time he adjusted the mixture, a crackling would occur in the audio system. Don't ask super specifics - I am not very familiar with plane stuff, but he reached under the dash (and fiddling with wires near the mixture cable) and found that sure enough something was shorting out in the audio panel. Long story short, the radio went out and we had no communications. With the bad weather ahead, there was no way to continue on, even though we were at least, if not more than, halfway there. So, the safe decision - turn around and head home VFR. Back through the mountain waves - no intercom, just sign language, talking loud and lifting headset away from ear to hear. The turbulence was definitely disconcerting to me, never mind the poor newbie passenger. We hit a pretty big one - I think that was the first time my head almost hit the ceiling. I had to retighten my belt after that. The comfort was that we were getting a good tailwind and our speed was great. Passing the James River, I managed to unclench my fingers from the bottom of the seat and snap this:
Lo and behold, we made it safely back to Danville. This one definitely ranked as my least favorite flight, maybe due to the turbulence (which I can never seem to get accustomed to), or the stress of having someone along who's never been in the plane before, or just not making it there. Yet there was nothing unsafe about the flight and decisions made, and I sure did manage to get some lovely views along the way (and only hope my pictures can do them justice). The sad news is Debra (the plane) will have to go and get fixed, so the next time I get to share the things I see out my window will be a while from now...
