One of our pilots, Jeff Bonasso, recently completed a big rescue for the team. Jeff sent us his detailed account of the day. Interesting to see what a typical rescue day looks like from the eyes of a pilot. Madman or genius? Maybe somewhere in between:
Some feedback from yesterday…
- I typically am very organized, punctual, etc…, but Murphy’s Law was against me.
- I wanted to get an early start since going to Charleston and Carlisle.
- I file three flight plans for each leg through the iPad.
- I get to the airport at 5:30am.
- I realize in the morning I don’t have the run sheet.
- After emailing Linda, I am told it was sent days ago.
- We finally figure out I never created my nodogleftbehind account, so I wasn’t aware it was there.
- I have being getting emails from everyone else through my gmail account so never thought of it.
- I overlooked the invitation that was sent in March.
- I was suppose to get the key for the hangar to get the crate and flight suits.
- I go to Corporate Air and no one to be found.
- Finally, I see the fuel guy is sleeping on his desk.
- I wake him up and ask if he knows about keys for No Dog Left Behind hangar where I have to get crates.
- He says, oh I know what you need and he puts me on one of their big golf carts and takes me over to this big hangar.
- In the back he points to too big creates, literally each larger than the airplanes we fly and says there are your crates.
- I laugh a little, and tell him no I just need a little plastic dog crate.
- We go back to Corporate Air and I try explaining that there should be keys for your hangar.
- He is searching forever and just can’t figure it out.
- Brad calls and finally he finds them.
- I go over to the hangar, and no matter how many times I put the key in, it won’t beep and the door won’t open.
- I literally try 100 times.
- One time I hear a beep, and I think I am golden, but no luck.
- I go back to get the plane ready and Jeremy is running a little late.
- I get everything ready to go and as soon as he arrives we are off.
- We go to get our clearance and ATC has none of them.
- I show Jeremy on the iPad the confirmation of all three filed, but no luck.
- Both of us following the weather thought we were in for some easy flying.
- Basically, after taking off, we barely ever saw the ground until landing back at county.
- Many times we are in the soup, although fortunately not too turbulent.
- Taking off from Carlisle, we try to open flight plan in air, but the controller isn’t much help, he says to remain vfr, although we are about to run into mountains because they are all obstructed.
- He then tells us we are too far west and he can only clear us once we fly back east for a while.
- We finally get our clearance and our on our way.
- We are above the cloud layer and the big puffy clouds are forming the whole way home.
- We have to keep climbing to 8000 to avoid which in the Tiger is about as good as it gets.
- We end up having to do an ILS back at County, although broke out at 2500.
- In the end it was a great experience!
- My first foray into real IFR for most of a flight as PIC on a long trip and I wouldn’t have traded any of it for a minute.
- It was all worth it for Red.
Thanks,
Jeff
