Today is labor day and my wonderful place of employment has given everyone the day off. To start the day off right, I sleeping in and eat a nice breakfast. This afternoon I have plans to attend my brother's Labor Day BBQ. It's about 8:30am and I'm in the middle of making a dessert to bring when the phone rings. It's a charter to Burlington, Vermont! I have never been to Vermont before, so I was immediately excited. However, I also knew that it was going to be a looooong trip and I had to be at work at 5am the next day. What was the lesser of two evils in this situation? Not going at all and being upset that I turned it down, or go and risk getting home late, then either having to call in sick or go to work with little sleep? I choose the latter and commit to the opportunity.
Ed is my pilot today. The preflight inspection is done and the paperwork is ready. We depart Lambert International at 10:35am, carrying one GoJet mechanic and some cargo. The cool thing about this trip is that it's in the daytime, whereas about 90% of charters are overnight. This means that I will actually get to see all of nature's beauty along the way! Flying northeast-bound, we make our way over Great Lake #1; Lake Erie. Our route takes us right down the middle of the lake, from the west end all the way to the east end. It is so unbelievably gorgeous and blue. Looking to the right is the USA, and looking to the left is Canada. I have never been to Canada, nor flown over it. This is a first for me! We then cross over into Lake Ontario, just barely missing Niagra Falls. Again, the scenery is amazing.
We continue on our way, flying over Lake Placid, then Lake Champlain in Vermont. Our airport is just ahead. Looking down over the mountains, I can see a forest spotted with yellow. The leaves are already beginning to change for Fall. Another two weeks and Burlington will be filled with an abundance of oranges, yellows, and reds. I can already imagine the beauty that the northeast is known for in the Fall.
We land at the Burlington International Airport around 2:35pm (all times will be listed as central time for the sake of simplicity). I enjoy a refreshing cup of lemon water while we wait for the lineman to fuel our plane. The mechanic took his cargo and went on his way. Inside the FBO building, they had a nice cabinet full of items known to Vermont. Pure maple syrup was one of those items, and boy did it catch my eye! I mentioned to Ed that I had never tried pure maple syrup before. Little did I know that later while I was distracted, he had scored a couple sample bottles from the friendly lady behind the counter. Ed kept one, and gave me the other... how thoughtful!
Since we didn't need to transport anything home, I jumped in the pilot's seat and Ed sat on the co-pilot's side. We departed Burlington at 3:35pm, headed for Columbus, OH. We knew we would need fuel for the trip home because of headwinds and possible storms. Along the way we flew over Amish country, where you could see small houses, randomly laid out, and each with their own little farm. Further along the way, we flew over the Finger Lakes. That was pretty neat because they really did look like fingers; all long and skinny lakes, paralleling each other like fingers. We landed in Columbus at 6:45pm.
After snacking on some freshly popped popcorn, checking the weather, and getting fuel, we departed Columbus at 7:23pm. Shortly after arriving at altitude, we were met with some small pop-up thunderstorm. They weren't going to affect us at all, but it made for a nice light show. It was shortly after sunset and the lightning inside the cell illuminated the clouds like I'd never seen before. I grab my cell phone and get lucky enough to capture one.
A little beyond that cell, we could see out in the distance an enormous storm structure. I assume it's the rain that we see on our on-board radar. When I mention it to Ed, he said he would actually bet money that we are seeing the storms over St. Louis. To put that into perspective, we are over Dayton, OH and still 260nm away from St. Louis! That storm system we are seeing is an absolute monster. I can tell it's going to get interesting in a couple short hours.
We arrive in the St. Louis area around 9:30pm and the ground is lit up by the constant brightness of lightning bolts. Air traffic control diverts us to the south to stay away from the storms. I have never seen anything like this in my four years of flying. We're flying westbound, the storms are to the north (on our right side) and currently over our home airport. Our plan was to get behind behind the storm and land once it moved out. Mother Nature has other plans though. The first cell moved past, and we could see the airport beacon flashing out in the distance, We told ATC that we wanted to go for the opening while we had the chance, knowing that another cell was not far behind the first. We get within 2nm when we lost visual contact with the airport and had to abort the landing... 2 MILES!!! After an attempt to get under the clouds and trying to come in from a different side, we decided we had better go wait out the storms at Lambert. It was now 9:55pm.
Video of the storm can be found here: YouTube
While waiting, we heard a story of an airliner that tried to land after us. It took them three attempts due to wind shear. We watched as Lambert stopped all air traffic and the runways went vacant. Shortly after we were informed that the tornado sirens were going off in the surrounding towns. The major downside to this delay was that it turned into a nearly three hour wait. One storm would pop up right after another, giving us no opportunity to get home. Finally the storms moved out enough that we would take off. After a safe landing at home, we were exhausted.
I thanked Ed for letting me fly along, then hopped in my car and began my 30 minute drive home. It was pitch black outside and another small storm popped up, making driving dangerous. The roads were severely flash flooded and I nearly hit a fallen tree branch. At 1:15am, I finally opened the front door to my house. I got three hours of sleep before having to wake back up and go to work. Thankfully my shift ended at 10am and I could sleep all afternoon... before having to go back out to the airport for my other job at the front desk.
After all was said and done, I'm actually quite happy I went on the flight. The scenery was amazing, and I had a great learning experience dealing with the storms. Now onto the next flight!
