Leaving the Arizona Sun for Chicago Rain

We had a few days home (a rare thing indeed these past few months), and Gladys had a chance to spend some time with our favorite mechanics at Embraer. They always take such great care of us. I’m just glad that they are so close…just an eight-minute flight to get us there for some updates!

It’s the weirdest thing…but I always miss her. When I get to see Gladys again, no matter how long it’s been, it’s nothing but a pleasure.

We picked up the airplane from maintenance at Willy Gateway Airport to fly to Chicago Midway to meet a few passengers. We were set to finish our evening in Dallas, where I got a whole evening and morning with my sister, brother-in-law, and two nephews!

What a treat!

A little sunburst action behind the Embraer Service Center hangar today! Cue the angels!

I would much rather have people in back for every flight, but occasionally we get these empty legs to pick people up. I had their blankets washed and their snacks ready for our few days on the road.

Let’s go get some passengers!

Willy Gateway is the perfect setting for several airplane manufacturers to set up maintenance facilities. Until Hawker Beechcraft went bankrupt this past year and shut their facility down, there were three service centers on the field!

They must have gotten a good price on land…since all three of them are right next to each other!

As we were taxiing to the runway, I grabbed one last shot of our beloved maintenance hangar. We’ve spent lots of quality time here working out some bugs on such a new-to-the-world airplane.

It happens with any new airplane.

Willy Gateway is in the southeast corner of the Valley of the Sun. It is the perfect location for flight schools, and there are plenty on the field!

In fact, my favorite school in the world, The University of North Dakota John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences, even has a satellite campus here. And with three-hundred and sixty four flying days a year, it’s a great place to get started in aviation.

Hint hint…

Eek! Here are some of their airplanes now! In fact, I’ve flown that Piper Seminole on the end! It was named Sioux 97, using the last two numbers of the N-Number.

After flying for a few years at the main campus airport in Grand Forks, North Dakota, the airplanes are sent to the satellite campuses all over the country. They switched back to Cessna airplanes a few years ago, as you can see here. (sniff sniff)

This makes me miss Grand Forks. Maybe I’ll go visit this summer! There is now a direct flight from this very airport!

Some government airplanes have been parked here for a while. You can tell because their flaps have started to lose their hydraulic pressure to hold them in place. Can you see them hanging down on the wing near the body of the airplane?

Once the engines start up, hydraulic pressure is sent right back to them to retract them into proper place.

And now you know!

And we’re off!

You can plainly see that I was wearing a zebra-stripe cardigan today for work. Sorry. It kind of interfered with some pictures.

Dang zebras. They always ruin the party.

We passed some pretty mountains on our climb towards the east. Our flight will take just over two hours to get into Chicago Midway today.

But the weather won’t be nearly this nice, so kiss it goodbye!

It kept getting flatter and flatter as we made our way east. I am starting to think there’s a reason that they call them The Great Plains!

Here is the airport diagram to Chicago Midway Airport, which is just south and west of downtown. It is a popular reliever airport for Chicago O’Hare. And it is a hub for Southwest Airlines, since they avoid big airports where other guys are based.

In this case, United and American.

So Midway is crazy busy because of all the Southwest guys and all of the corporate guys!

We started our descent into the rainy muck that is Chicago. But it would be worse…it could be snowy muck.

Yuck!

This was our view for the last twenty minutes of the flight as we made our way into Chicago this afternoon. Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC) all the way!

We were soon on the ground and taxiing to the ramp. We tried a new FBO today, since our last one had gone under. Another sign of the times?

Actually, this is my first time to Chicago with this new job, so we could have gone anywhere we wanted. We chose Atlantic Aviation, and they were wonderful!

They even marshaled us in to the ramp. Thanks, guys!

But I always get worried when the locals are bundled up in heavy coats and hats. I think this warm-blooded girl is in trouble!

We parked and cleaned Gladys up. We will only be here for a few hours before our passengers arrive for our flight to Dallas.

But you know what? A few hours is plenty of time to drive the half-mile to Giordano’s to get some lunch! Yippeeeeeee!

As you can see, lots of private airplanes were visiting the lovely weather in Chicago today. The far-left is a Westwind. I’m always worried that they will scrape their bellies when landing because they sit so low to the ground. Then we have a Citation Excel, which is oh-so pretty. And last but not least…a Beechjet, which is what I used to fly.

Have I mentioned lately how very much I love Gladys?

The winds were terrible today in The Windy City. I was anxious to be on our way to bluer skies!

Bye, Southwest! Have a good flight!

Now, let’s go get some lunch Chicago lunch!

Vancouver Gets Even Better With Age

After a quick fuel stop in Fargo, we were were half-way done with the long coast-to-coast flight from Philadelphia to Vancouver, Canada.

Have you been to Vancouver? You should go. It’s lovely.

Fargo…not so much. At least, not in the middle of the winter like this!

When I trained in Grand Forks just north of Fargo (yes, there is something north of Fargo), the airplane ramp was covered with packed ice like this for about five months. Except you couldn’t see cement…just ice, It was awful. And slick. Awfully slick, actually.

So we were out of there as soon as the fuel truck was done pumping and the fuel bill was paid.

That’s a very important step, everyone. Don’t forget to pay for gas!

You can see that a few of those sneaky clouds were still hanging out around the airport when we departed.

And this was a shot towards the north, where my beloved Grand Forks lives just seventy miles away.

It really was a great place to attend school. But I don’t know how I lasted four winters (three for my bachelors, and another as a flight instructor for the school)!

I would love to go back to visit for a few days. Being able to take some pictures of all the places that I held dear to my heart would be wonderful. Allegiant Airlines actually flies direct there from Phoenix, so maybe I can sneak away for a cheap, quick weekend this summer?

Not in the winter time, thank you!

Anyway, there weren’t a whole lot of photo opportunities until we got much closer to Vancouver. Just lots of flat fields covered in snow. Four-letter word, everyone. Snow = yuck.

Here are some Rocky Mountains as we get a little closer to the west coast!

Don’t worry…the weather wasn’t bad at all. For some reason, though, XM Weather thought that it should paint some ugly stuff like this magenta and red. Those colors are bad news! Luckily, it was just a fake warning today.

But it’s pretty, huh? If those colors didn’t mean certain death in a real weather situation, then I would think that they looked kind of nice!

I’m so dramatic…

We got a little bit of icing in our descent today, but not much. These clouds look all nice and inviting…until you realize that you’re in Canada in February, and you will get icing in them.

But once we broke out of the clouds, this was the view that greeted me.

Oh, Vancouver. How I love thee.

That’s Whistler Mountain in the background, where the Winter Olympics were held a few years ago. And, if you can read measurements in meters, you can check out how much snow is at the ski resort right now!

This picture of the actual airport is not the best. Once again, I’m going to blame the windshield heat for the fuzz.

Can you believe how close the runways are to the ocean? Don’t land long!

You can see downtown Vancouver, and the Harbor where I spent a few nights on a yacht in the marina with family. That was a fun trip, too.

What do you think those fields are growing down below? With my luck, they are some sort of water treatment sewage plant. But I think they’re pretty anyway!

And now I know why IKEA has such a giant sign on their buildings. They are advertising their location even to airline passengers.

Just to the left of downtown, you can see the green grass of Stanley Park. I’ve been there, too. Though it was years ago and still pretty chilly in April, too.

We were on the ground and taxiing back to the FBO before long. We had a few friends who landed behind us, so we followed them to the ramp.

It’s kind of an expensive version of follow the leader.

Hi, Vancouver Tower! You were so nice to us. Thanks! Roger.

Vancouver is a massive airport…the second-busiest in the country (I made that up, but I bet I’m right…this place is busiest right behind Toronto).

This is one of the five FBOs on the field! We tried a new place today…Million Air. We’ve never tried them at this airport but have used Million Air many times in the States. And they are awesome. So why not give them a try in Canada?

With my old job, we used this Esso Avitat. We tried very hard to keep old memories at bay by going to a completely different FBO!

And here we are! We are going to park next to that pretty Learjet. Can you see our bright-green-jacket line guy waiting to marshal us in?

When we called Customer Service, they said to look for the green pyramid. Now I understand what she was saying!

Please put this in my stocking this year, Santa. I love it.

I’ve never seen this dark mint green color on an airplane before, but it was oh-so cool. I guess this Learjet was owned by the guy who owns this Million Air.

It appears that he is doing well, and I’m happy for him!

Those big white things on the wings? Where Gladys has pretty winglets? Those are giant fuel tanks! This is an oooooooolllllllddddd Learjet! That guzzles so much fuel that they had to add giant wing tip tanks in addition to what is stored in the wings and fuselage!

This is not an old Learjet.

Have I mentioned how lovely the folks were at Million Air? Our first order of business was to borrow a crew car to grab some lunch. It was a seven-hour flight day with a fuel stop, and lunch sounded just perfect to me!

The FBO lobby was pretty cool, too. Someday, I would love to have a spiral staircase. Even if it just goes up to my tree fort above. That would be fine with me.

Can you see the copper fireplace in the distance? The fire was warm and wonderful after being outside in the cold. Thankfully, Vancouver is a bearable cold. It doesn’t get extremely miserable here like other parts of our northern cousin.

Ever been to Winnipeg?

And this is what the green pyramid looked like from inside.

But enough of this lobby sightseeing…let’s go eat some lunch!

Fargo Isn’t Very Warm in February

And here I was complaining about how cold Philadelphia was!

Today, we are flying coast-to-coast…from Philly all the way to Vancouver! Unfortunately, especially with all those headwinds, we had to stop for fuel about half-way. And the best place for that mid-way stop was…Fargo!

In Philly, heading to the airport was a cold and drizzly endeavor.

We hitched a ride with the FBO van, then borrowed a car to make a quick dash to McDonald’s for some unhealthy breakfast. If a hotel charges for internet, there’s a pretty high chance that they do not serve any semblance of complimentary breakfast!

But today will be a long day…about three hours each leg. So starting out right with some breakfast was the best decision that we made all morning!

I don’t really like fast food breakfast. None of those McMuffin things for me, thank you! But I got their breakfast burrito meal and swapped out coffee for some orange juice.

This was the best part of the meal. I love orange juice!

Soon we were back at the FBO and waiting for our passengers to arrive. They know that we have a long day ahead of us, so we left at 9:00 AM this morning.

This is the FBO lobby. Pretty nice, huh? It was empty because it was too cold for most people to want to fly today.

This is the reception area, and this nice gal was super cool to us. She was here when we landed two days previously, and she helped us get ready to depart by ordering our fuel, etc. We had very wonderful service at Atlantic Aviation in Philly!

I gazed at Gladys from the warmth of inside…not wanting to go back out there until it was absolutely necessary. They let the passengers drive onto the ramp, so loading luggage was at least a little easy. Thank goodness! It was rather chilly today!

Soon we were braving the drizzle and winds to depart for our long trip to the west. Goodbye, East Coast. At least for a few weeks, anyway!

Rain makes seeing out the windows a little difficult at times. This will be the worst weather that we have to battle today. Fargo, while stinkin’ cold, is forecasted to be mostly clear. And Vancouver won’t have rain until tomorrow, after we’re safely on the ground.

On our climb today, we definitely had the engine and wing heat on to prevent any ice from forming. The conditions were perfect for ice to adhere to the airplane today…cold, wet, and a cold surface (like an airplane) soaring through the sky!

But we beat it all by turning on the engine-bleed heaters. None of that icing stuff for us, thank you!

I don’t know about you, but it looks pretty cold to me! Look at all that snow and ice on Lake Erie! Yuck!

Even with a pretty winglet in the picture, it still looks cold out there. I’m glad that we have heat inside this airplane!

I was excited for our fuel stop today, since it was just seventy miles south of my old college stomping grounds. In fact, I’ve flown to Fargo a time or two to practice approaches and do some cross-country stops. It kind of feels like coming home, in a sense.

But it’s way more fun to return in a jet.

And it’s also nice knowing that I will only have to endure the ridiculous temperatures for as long as it takes the line guys to single-point fuel my airplane!

And I can be very helpful and motivating fuel guys when it’s twelve degrees outside.

We were told to expect the visual approach to Runway 18, but the clouds never cleared enough over the airport for us to see it. So they vectored us out a little wide to intercept the localizer to track inbound for the runway.

We were given vectors towards KENIE, which is the final approach fix for the ILS approach for Runway 18. I’m glad that we got vectors, because we didn’t see the runway until just a few miles away!

Supposedly, there is a town named Fargo down there somewhere. It’s hard to tell with all these cute little puffy clouds in the way.

Finally we broke through and had the runway in sight. It’s fun to talk to the Tower guys…since all but two of them went to UND for their Air Traffic Control schooling.

Yes, the University of North Dakota really does do it all. It is hands-down the best place to attend flight school!

Nope, not biased at all. Why do you ask?

Go Sioux!

It was so cold here. I didn’t even take very many pictures because I was worried that it would break my camera.

Oh yeah, and because I was busy getting fuel so we could be on our way again to thaw out! Fargo isn’t on my top list of places to visit in February, I’ll tell you that right now.

But they do have Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. We drove down a few times  over the years just to experience all of that glory. It’s been proven that the hot sign being on will help in student performance during Finals Week.

That is ice on the ramp. It was lots of fun. And even with three shirts and two coats, I was still a little chilly as we got fuel. Luckily. they figured out that we didn’t want to stay long. Our quick-turn stop took less than twenty minutes.

We got our two passengers back on board and were off again!

Next stop…beautiful Vancouver!