Overnight trip from Savannah to Knoxville McGhee-Tyson Airport
My F-22 driver nephew from Las Vegas, his wife and toddler son were visiting my sister and family in Knoxville. I’d not seen them in a bit over two years, and this was the first chance to see the little one – a very sociable and extremely active two year old.
It was hot and hazy on the way north, and I was fat, dumb and cool above it. Approaching the Smokies, I could see that the southern half was cloud free, and on the northern half, there was good clearance between cloud base and the mountains. That meant that if I lost power above the clouds, I’d have at least a chance to find something soft to run into after I broke out. I turned on the synthetic vision for the mountain crossing, just in case. (I never use it over the flatlands).
I was glad I was not VFR, just above the Smokies under the clouds or detouring around the west end. It was also amazing to think that not that many years ago, this trip would have been done without ADS-B weather, with all its features.
I was at 8,500, as were many of the cloud tops ahead, so I asked Knoxville Approach for and got an instrument clearance. No surprise, twenty miles later I was clear of clouds but didn’t cancel because of other traffic going into Knoxville Mike Tyson airport, as the FSS briefer referred to it in his heavy accent – and I don’t think he knew the mistake.
It was a slam dunk approach to the right runway, but the left runway was more convenient for taxiing, and tower gave it to me.
Next morning, there was lots of low IFR about so no hurry to get going, and the westerners had an early flight. If the Smokies were obscured, I would detour west towards Chattanooga. When I got to the airport, there were a few clouds about, so I filed IFR again. When I got to the Smokies, the tops were not obscured and even better, ATC’s vector took me over a gap in the clouds.
I was at 7,000 and ATC took me up to 8,000 for traffic, but tailwinds were increasing, so I went up to 9,000 and was rewarded with a 20 knot tailwind component.
Pretty soon, the clouds stopped, but there were reports of more clouds along the way. Twenty north of Savannah, the clouds stopped, I canceled IFR. Approach asked if I wanted the GPS approach for practice, but it was already hot and bumpy, so no, thanks. Instead, I was vectored to a base entry, keeping the speed well up because of departures waiting on the ground and Gulfstreams on final.
It occurred to me that flying IFR like this with an autopilot requires a fair amount of knowledge with a bit of experience and judgement tossed in. However, pushing buttons and turning knobs requires almost no skill. But if the autopilot fails…
Two hours, takeoff to landing. Beats driving, beats the airlines… as long as the weather permits, even IFR-capable.
https://steverush.smugmug.com/CAF-B-17-AWO-8-23/
