Three men and an airplane on a mission
Sometimes an opportunity presents itself in such a way that you can't deny yourself. If that opportunity is combined with a need, then all efforts to sway you from your mission will prove to be folly. Combine need, opportunity, and adolescentlike testosterone among three adult males and you get an adventure — three men, if you will, on a mission. Such is what happened in the summer of 2003, in a small community of northern Kentucky.
I originally hail from the shores of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, Annapolis to be exact, and I was raised to believe that a lot of life's ills could be cured by what the bay offered: swimming, boating, sunshine, and above all, blue crabs. Blue crabs are to the Chesapeake like lobsters to Maine and apples to Washington. Marylanders all but worship their seafood, and steamed bushels of blue crabs covered — and I do mean covered — in Old Bay Seasoning top the list of Nature's gifts. Ever since I permanently moved out of the state, I've lamented the lack of truly fresh blue crabs, where fresh is defined as being out of the water for less than 24 hours. I've never had a taste for restaurant seafood because if it isn't fresh, it just isn't...well, it just isn't right — not in taste, not in atmosphere, not in anything. And this year, I was determined to get some fresh crabs some way, somehow, never mind the price.
Maryland's Seafood
There is no shortage of places to choose from to sample Maryland's blue crabs. If you fly into Bay Bridge Airport, you can walk to Hemingway's Restaurant, which sits on the water next to the approach end of Runway 11 and is a great place to dine and watch airplanes. If you land in Annapolis, at Lee Airport, you can call for a cab and go downtown, where famous local eateries include Buddy's Crabs and Ribs, McGarvey's, and Middleton's (Lincoln stayed at Middleton's on his way to his inauguration). There is also the Treaty of Paris Restaurant, which is more upscale and expensive, but historic, a restaurant where George Washington is rumored to have dined. — CW
On the Chesapeake, summer crab feasts and festivals are common, and while every family or group does things with its own touch, there are certain common elements. First, the crabs have to be fresh. Second, you need a lot of them because they take an awful lot of work to get a relatively small reward; each crab only has a small quantity of meat. Third, you need a big backyard picnic table covered with brown paper. Finally, you need a lot of cold beer, especially on a hot summer day. A good crab feast will start early in the day and last until sunset. Other side items might include corn on the cob, potato chips, shrimp, and coleslaw. A giant garbage can is also necessary to hold all the spent shells and the innards of the crabs.
On the first real hot summer night in May, during our weekly get-together on my deck in Kentucky, my two neighbors and I were talking about what we needed to make the summer complete. Matt Dieter, a Florida native whose parents are from the Baltimore area, discussed our need for crabs. I made mention of the fact that I was determined to have some and that I could have my parents ship us some fresh. Matt, who is not a pilot but is an aviation nut set on someday getting his certificate, jumped on the idea. And then someone, either Matt or I, or Rick Weber, another neighbor, suggested we take a small airplane to Maryland, get the crabs ourselves, and bring them back. Whoever said it didn't matter; the collective light bulb was lit. The Boys were going to Maryland. We would make our opportunity, as we had already manufactured our need, cost be damned.
We put together a rough plan for a trip east later in the summer, and convinced ourselves (it didn't take much) that this was not only going to be fun, but also it was, in fact, necessary. Originally, I was planning to get checked out in a Cessna 172 for the trip, but I decided instead on a Piper Arrow. The Arrow is faster, it has an autopilot, and it has a big enough baggage door to get a 2-foot-square box of crabs into the airplane. Very important. I also figured that it would be more likely to ensure a nonstop return flight, thanks to its 72 gallons of usable fuel. The autopilot would come in handy during the busy terminal phase of flight or if we had to fly through or around the typical late-summer cumulus buildups or rain. I made a call to the Cincinnati Flight Training Club at Cincinnati Municipal Airport Lunken Field to set up the checkout and to reserve the airplane for the trip.
We set target dates of August 28 and 29, a Friday and Saturday. We'd fly out to Bay Bridge Airport on Maryland's Kent Island on Friday morning, spend the night at my parents' house outside of Annapolis, and fly back first thing Saturday morning; the crabs would be out of the water for no more than 24 hours. We'd be in the back yard smashing them open by early afternoon. Throughout the summer, occasionally Sandy (Matt's wife) or Jen (Rick's wife) would ask if we were really serious about doing this. But of course. My wife, Lisa, just rolled her eyes and smiled. She's seen me like this before, excited about flying a particular trip, especially one to my hometown, and fortunately supports me. This trip would be one of the best, a true "boys will be boys" adventure. The rest of the summer became a countdown to what I began calling "Operation Blue Crab." We just had to go. I'm sure you understand.... It could have been for golf, a baseball game, or any reason you care to mention. I had to get those blue crabs.
The Cost: Was It Worth It?
The cost of the airplane was $124 an hour. The total rental was $900 after the 5-percent AOPA MBNA credit card rebate. Per person, the cost of the trip came out to $350 if you include the crabs. With a fourth person it would have been about $250 each but probably would have forced us to make a fuel stop on the return flight.
Driving a car from northern Kentucky to southern Maryland is a 10-hour drive one way, for 20 hours total just for travel time, assuming no delays. The cost of driving would have been on the order of four tanks of gas, plus a refill at home, but we flew it in less than eight hours total and had more time in Annapolis for it. If we had really wanted to, we could have flown the whole trip in a (long) day.
From door to door, an airline flight (from Cincinnati to Baltimore; drive time to and from each airport) routinely takes around four hours with no hitches. In the Arrow, we came within a few minutes of matching that, and if you count car rental time we beat it. — CW
The biggest worry leading up to the flight was the weather, particularly the late-morning buildups that could become vicious thunderstorms almost at will. Fortunately, during the week leading up to the flight, the temperatures were never too terribly hot, but that was expected to change. I had been flying my airline flights during the week, and I was happy to see that, while there might be some bumps along the way, most of the thunderstorm activity was taking place late in the afternoon, and it was isolated enough that we'd be able to get around it or, in the worst case, land. Besides, both of our flights were scheduled for the mornings.
It turned out that Friday was the hottest day all week. We left the house around 9:30 a.m. and had the preflight done by 10:15 or so. We waited for Matt, a photographer and the designated keeper of records, to finish up taking some photos. We were taxiing out of the blocks shortly after 10:30, cleared as filed to Bay Bridge. Unfortunately, we were going to be flying into the sun, and it was getting warm fast; it was almost 90 degrees Fahrenheit when we took off. Needless to say, it took quite a while to reach our cruise altitude of 7,000 feet (we leveled off at 5,000 feet to pick up some speed and burn off some weight in the form of fuel). At 7,000, we were above most of the clouds, the temperatures were much more comfortable, and the ride was mostly smooth. The Arrow had an autopilot that could fly a heading, so all I had to worry about was the trim, which, in such a stable airplane, left me with little to do much of the time. The winds were light, but they helped. In cruise, we settled into a conversation about doing this kind of thing on a regular basis, at least once a year. An "executive decision," you might call it. We called it "The Meaning of Life." A quick three hours after we took off, the City of Baltimore was in sight and, shortly after, we were descending over the Bay Bridge, the airport in sight five miles away. We canceled IFR, switched frequencies, and flew parallel to the twin spans of the bridge on a long final to Runway 11. In the water below us, I swear I saw a few blue crabs scurrying away to a safe haven. Swim fast, fellas.
We spent the rest of the day in downtown Annapolis, eating ice cream at Storm Brothers and checking out the boats in "Ego Alley," the nickname for the city harbor, and touring the sights. On Friday night, Mom treated us to a delicious dinner of steaks cooked on the grill and fresh garden vegetables. In the morning, she was up at 7, still rolling out the red carpet, to cook us breakfast before Dad took us to the airport (I'm bringing these guys home with me more often). By 8 we were picking up the crabs. Annapolis Sea-food Market, where we got them, does not keep them live overnight. The last of the crabs from the day are steamed and readied for sale the next morning. Ours were among the last ones cooked on Friday, and they were packed for travel. The store was even generous enough to let us in an hour before its scheduled opening. My concerns of returning an airplane smelling of Old Bay turned out to be unfounded. The box was totally sealed and the crabs were wrapped in ice. The box fit perfectly through the door of the baggage compartment. In the spirit of this adventure, that alone qualified for cost justification.
I had emphasized to Matt and Rick that I wanted to be airborne by 10 to get home before the afternoon storms reared up. Because the runway at Bay Bridge is only 2,900 feet long and we were heavy, I had asked the FBO not to totally top off the tanks. As a result, we were not going to be able to handle a lot of deviations and, if we were forced to stop, I was afraid we'd be stuck sitting somewhere for a while (but at least we'd have something to eat). But, at 10 minutes before 10, the wheels were in the wells and we were heading home. Along the way, we made the official decision to do something like this again; Rick even suggested Maine for lobster. Smart man, Rick is. We discussed such places as Chicago, Memphis, Cleveland, and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Four hours, 12 minutes, and a number of minor deviations later, and only 24 hours after the crabs were taken from the water, we crossed over the Ohio River, turned final, and settled down on Runway 21 at Lunken. It was one of the best landings I've ever made, and a perfect way to end the flight. Unfortunately, before we could set up to eat outside, the forecasted rain began, and we were forced to eat indoors. "Good thing we left when we did," said Rick, our official observer of facts.
That Saturday evening, the three of us sat at Matt's kitchen table. On top of the brown paper that Lisa had bought for us, in a pile of organized mess, were the spent shells and innards of four dozen blue crabs that had made a most worthwhile sacrifice. Around us our families and friends were carrying on their own conversation, having worn out their interest in the crabs at least an hour before.
Our hands were red from the Old Bay, the heat of the seasoning washed down by the ice-cold beer in front of us, our stomachs getting slowly full from a mission long overdue but accomplished in style. We paused long enough to take in what we had done, still feeling the rush.
It was exactly the kind of trip I had envisioned doing so many years ago when I learned to fly. It had gone without a hitch and I had shared it with two close friends. We looked at our mess and at each other, smiled, and agreed that an excursion like this — a chance for The Boys to be boys on a regular basis — in a small airplane, going to places like Chicago to watch a Cubs game, or to Maryland to buy a bushel of crabs, or to Memphis to see Graceland, or to some small town in Kentucky to play golf, was not only necessary, but right. And to that we had a toast.
Chip Wright of Hebron, Kentucky, is a Canadair Regional Jet captain for Comair.
Running Coors
Ag pilot salesmen with a sideline
BY RALPH HOOD
Surely the statute of limitations has run out on this story by now. If not, well, I swear the whole thing is a lie. Everybody knows I lie a lot, and half my lies aren't even true.
First, a few facts:
- Back in the 1970s, Coors beer was not obtainable in the eastern United States.
- At that time, I was selling Cessna agricultural-application aircraft — crop dusters, to you old-timers — in Mississippi.
- We picked up the airplanes at the Cessna Aircraft Company factory in Wichita, where Coors was very much available.
Add those three facts together, and you can quickly deduce that we brought a lot of Coors beer home in the hoppers of those Cessna AgTrucks.
The first statistic I learned about Cessna ag aircraft came when I asked the boss on my first day, "What's the difference between an AgTruck and an AgWagon?"
"The AgTruck," he answered, "will haul 27 cases of Coors beer. The AgWagon will carry only 22."
As one of Cessna's top ag aircraft dealers, we picked up a lot of airplanes. Typically, we'd take an airplane-load of pilots to Wichita and bring back several airplanes. Our trips started before dawn at the local coffee shop, where there was much grumbling and joshing amid frequent defamatory comments regarding the ancestry and flying abilities of the other pilots. Truth is, we were all glad to be going, as the trip provided an escape from our regular duties. This was particularly true during the winter months when ag pilots were not flying, but were confined to the ground and performing "honeydos" such as taking out the garbage.
An "old" pilot — he was 53 at the time and seemed ancient to us — often flew us to Wichita. He had flown in the "big war," and spent the years since flying all over the world in huge transport aircraft with big, round radial engines. He wasn't overly fond of single-engine aircraft, and one of our games was trying to push him into taking off while it was still dark. Somehow, he always managed to delay until the first glow of daylight peaked over the horizon. Once the gear was up, he poked the guy sitting next to him and said, "This reminds me of taking off one morning in Rangoon (or Hong Kong, Singapore, Beijing, or where have you). You've been to Rangoon, haven't you?"
"Naw," was the answer. "I ain't been to Rangoon. I been to Memphis, once!"
The conversation went like that all the way to Wichita.
We stopped once for fuel, usually about Conway, Arkansas. Everyone woke up for the landing and teased the pilot all the way down final. "Looks like you lucked out and got a good approach goin'. Now, don't mess it up at the last minute."
The old boy bounced it in the last 6 inches one day, and he spent the next hour swearing it was our fault because we had given him the wrong airport elevation by 1 foot.
Once at Wichita, the first order of business was that Coors beer. Our official Cessna greeter — no fool, he — owned a beer store, conveniently, and he drove us to said store in a Cessna station wagon. We loaded that wagon down big time, then carefully put each case into the ag aircraft. Only then did we carefully check out each airplane and do the paperwork.
The trip back was called a "group grope." More than one of the ag pilots couldn't navigate at all. They could all fly under a power line to spray cotton from inches above the ground, but some of them couldn't navigate. One didn't even carry a map. You couldn't lose that pilot to save your life. No matter what you did, that pilot would be right on your tail all the way to Mississippi.
Once we got weathered in at Russellville, a smallish town along the Arkansas River. The agplanes always attracted a crowd, and we all looked uneasily at each other as we rode off to the motel, leaving more than 80 cases of Coors in the airplanes with no lock at all. We hoped that nobody would climb up to open the hopper door for a look, and nobody did.
The airplanes had no gyros and no radios. This wasn't even needle, ball, and airspeed, because we didn't have the needle and ball. This was long before handheld GPS, so each trip was an exercise in keeping one eye glued to a sectional chart and the other eye on the ground while holding a heading with a bouncing wet compass. It was a lot of fun, and I wouldn't take anything for the experience. To this day I can still remember the entire route.
It should be understood that we weren't bringing all that beer back just for personal consumption. We each took orders from our friends, and Coors was widespread in our town shortly after we returned from each pilgrimage to Wichita. Years later, when I lived in another city in another state, selling new Piper airplanes and wearing a suit and tie, I met a pediatrician at a party. "I know you," he immediately and loudly exclaimed in front of the highly civilized group. "You used to be a bootlegger in Mississippi when I lived there."
"Oh, no," sez I. "I wasn't a bootlegger."
"The hell you weren't! You used to fly in Coors beer from Kansas."
I never lived it down.
Ralph Hood of Huntsville, Alabama, is a professional speaker and a monthly columnist for AOPA Flight Training magazine.
Baby-Bird Express
An eaglet flies GA to its new home
BY ROBIN HUGHES
Sterile cockpit takes on an entirely different meaning when transporting live animals by air, as I found out during my first summer as a private pilot. My job as curator of animals at a zoo in Newport News, Virginia, put me in the way of some unique experiences, one of which was to participate in a bald-eagle fostering program. Our sister zoo in Salisbury, Maryland, had a bald-eagle chick that had been hatched in captivity and was now at the stage where it needed to learn to be a wild eagle.
Officials of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had located a pair of wild adult eagles with a chick of the same age in the Finger Lakes region of New York. The strange thing about eagles (and other birds) is that they cannot count. The sudden appearance of an extra chick in the nest would not surprise the parents, and they would take on the task of nurturing it without raising an eyebrow feather.
So it happened that the zoo director at the Salisbury Zoo asked me to transport the bird to upstate New York. Being a newly fledged pilot, I asked my flight instructor to go along. The plan was to fly to Salisbury to pick up the bird and the director and then proceed to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. After refueling, we would continue to Dansville, New York, where we would be met by a wildlife official who would take the bird and sneakily introduce it into the nest while the parents weren't looking.
The weather was forecast VFR the entire route with little change expected for the next two days. We would be returning on day two.
We arrived in Salisbury in short order and took on our passengers. Jim, the zoo director, displaying the faith and fearlessness of Daniel entering the lion's den, was soon ensconced in the backseat, asleep with head thrown back and mouth open. He never moved until we landed in Harrisburg. The eaglet was a huge downy dumpling with dark, innocent eyes, an oversize yellow bill, and awkward reptilian-clawed feet — a combination of softness and daggers. It traveled in a plastic crate with a large-gauge wire front closure. With the crate on the center of the backseat next to Jim, we could look in periodically to make sure the bird was OK.
I was used to flying Cessna 152s, so the 172 felt big and boaty to me. The slightly different handling characteristics, the pressure of trying to impress Jim with my flying skills (unnecessary, as he was unconscious), the pressure of trying not to disappoint my flight instructor, and the length of the flight conspired to fatigue me.
We set up for landing in hazy Harrisburg. My head was bursting with instructions from the tower, prelanding checklists, airspeed control, orienting to a new airfield, and my instructor's admonition that I was coming in too low. Suddenly, on short final, the inside of the cockpit was sprayed with a fine white mist that spattered the instrument panel, the windscreen, and the back of my shirt. I had no idea what this was or where it had come from, and I didn't know whether this new development represented some imminent in-flight emergency, but I willed the runway to reach up to me. Frazzled and bewildered, I landed. Not a landing to impress Jim, but it didn't matter; he was still asleep.
Upon taxi, we determined that the distracting white spume was released out the front of the crate by the backside of our avian passenger, apparently in an attempt to dump extra weight prior to landing.
The remainder of our flight went well. For the second leg, we turned the crate around so the open end faced the seat back.
In transporting animals, I have found that their behavior in the air can be unpredictable (in the car too, for that matter). The best plan is to make certain the shipping container is secure and loaded in a stable manner prior to takeoff. Make sure the door cannot be opened in flight by the animal! It is best to cover the crate openings with burlap or light cloth so the interior is dark. This way, ventilation is still adequate, but the darkness calms the animal, allowing it to feel safe and unexposed. Resist the impulse to repeatedly check on the animal during flight. If possible, let your passenger do this, or else just relax. A healthy animal should be able to tolerate any travel environment that is comfortable for you. Remove food and water dishes prior to the flight unless the flight is prolonged. Most animals do not eat or drink while traveling anyway. The less chance of spillage, mess, and bad odors in the cockpit, the better.
The eaglet subsequently grew to adulthood under the care of its numbers-challenged foster parents, who never suspected they were the brunt of a "cheep" trick.
Robin Hughes of Bradenton, Florida, is a veterinarian and a 700-hour private pilot with commercial and flight instructor ratings.
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