Looking To The Sky

Nehalem Bay State Park with Chase and Larry

My buddy Chase contacted me a number of weeks back asking if there was a chance I could take him and his dad who was visiting town on a flight to the coast. The weather is hard to predict and I had a number of things going on that weekend, but I told him I would do my best to make it happen – and I did.

Little did we know we’d end up learning some new skills.

We had planned to go flying on Sunday, but I resized clouds were looking to be happening that day and since I didn’t want us to miss out on the flight, I moved some plans around and room him and his dad to Nehalem Bay the day before.

I had never flown into Nehalem Bay State Park, but have wanted to for some time. When Chase asked if I’d take his dad to the coast, I figured this was a better time than any.

The area around the airport is just stunning from the sky and so we took out time getting down. The runway was also pretty small and short at 2,500 feet. With pretty much no wind, we got down after doing a go around.

We got out of the plane and started making our way to the road to find out how to get to Manzanita. Chase called a cab and they said it would be 45 minutes. Uh oh.

Thankfully, when we got to the road, a SUV was parked there. Seems that this guy saw us flying around when he was at the golf course and decided to have a chat about flying in as he was from Utah and had some planes. After a little bit of chatting, he offered us a ride to Manzanita. Awesome!

It was about 3 miles to the town and glad to have the ride. We said thanks, got out, and went to the pub for a bit of grub.

When we finished up, we had to figure out a way back. Guess the one cab in a different city was going to take an hour, so I asked a lady headed to her car if she’d give us a lift. Guess her dad use to be a pilot at the airport here and was glad to drive us over to see it once again. Another awesome bit if kindness.

We arrived to the plane and I noticed that the beacon light was on. We got in and realized that I had left the electronics running. I turned things off, did a pre flight of the plane, and after loading up, I went to start the plane… Nothing…

Did You Know That AAA Doesn’t Cover Airplanes

If you have ever left your lights on and drained your battery, then you know the feeling in the pit of your stomach I had. Well, when it’s an airplane, it is a much deeper feeling.

You see, I’ve never had training for this, so I had no idea what to do. After some thinking through the situation, I decided to call AAA as I had road side assistance with them. Well, guess airplanes aren’t covered. Bummer.  My battery on my phone died with the call as I was using it to track the flight over.

Chase’s dad ended up going to the road and got some real nice people to pull over and help us out.

We ended up pushing the plane about an eighth of a mile to the gates fence as close as we could get it. We then got the truck up on the other side. Unlike a car where you can pop the hood, there plane has about thirty screws that need to come out before the hood would come off.

Once the hood was off, we hooked the nice people’s truck battery to the airplane battery and crossed our fingers.

After having him rev his engine for about five minutes, I decided to give starting the plane a shot.

We disconnected the cables, backed everyone away, turned on the electronics, gave the engine some fuel, and turned the key… IT STARTED!

I let it isn’t and generate some juice for about five minutes before I liked the engine. We quickly attached the hood, set all the screws, and after we got it secured got it going one more time to let it charge up a bit more before we took off.

After a bit, I turned off the plane, got out, have major thanks, and had the guys push the plane into position. Got the plane going, and moved forward to the runway. Made the proper radio calls, waved goodbye, and took off back to Troutdale.

The rest of the flight was perfect and we landed without any issues. Secured the plane, and got on the road back home.

What a flight to remember!

Here’s the flight to/from the Siletz Bay/Lincoln City area:

To:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzDM-Q4AVgpKWXdRMlNLN1hrMmM/view?usp=drivesdk

Created by Google My Tracks on Android

Name: To Nehalem
Activity type: airplane travel
Description: –
Total distance: 172.40 km (107.1 mi)
Total time: 1:13:41
Moving time: 1:00:22
Average speed: 140.38 km/h (87.2 mi/h)
Average moving speed: 171.35 km/h (106.5 mi/h)
Max speed: 231.22 km/h (143.7 mi/h)
Average pace: 0:26 min/km (0:41 min/mi)
Average moving pace: 0:21 min/km (0:34 min/mi)
Fastest pace: 0:16 min/km (0:25 min/mi)
Max elevation: 1868 m (6129 ft)
Min elevation: -32 m (-106 ft)
Elevation gain: 3034 m (9953 ft)
Max grade: 14 %
Min grade: -26 %
Recorded: 9/19/2015 3:28 PM

From:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzDM-Q4AVgpKcnMwWHRnT2ZPQ0E/view?usp=drivesdk

Created by Google My Tracks on Android

Name: From Nehalem
Activity type: airplane travel
Description: –
Total distance: 135.18 km (84.0 mi)
Total time: 42:24
Moving time: 41:56
Average speed: 191.28 km/h (118.9 mi/h)
Average moving speed: 193.37 km/h (120.2 mi/h)
Max speed: 260.28 km/h (161.7 mi/h)
Average pace: 0:19 min/km (0:30 min/mi)
Average moving pace: 0:19 min/km (0:30 min/mi)
Fastest pace: 0:14 min/km (0:22 min/mi)
Max elevation: 1920 m (6299 ft)
Min elevation: -13 m (-42 ft)
Elevation gain: 1521 m (4990 ft)
Max grade: 8 %
Min grade: -12 %
Recorded: 9/19/2015 7:15 PM

Categories: Flights

Tags: Cessna 172, K3S7, KTTD, N172MR, Nehalem Bay, Trouble, VFR

Siletz Bay/Lincoln City with Nancy/Rick/Kristen Lenhardt Area with Elli, David, and Nigel