Flying - Meeting Mr. B

One of the great things about joining this flying club is I can get out and meet people and do things.

Mr. B of In The Middle Of The Right and I got our pilot's licenses a rather short time apart form each other.

Now we could actually meet up.

We dedcided to meet at KOEB, Coldwater Airport as its just about mid-way between us.

On Saturday the weather looked perfect for a Sunday flight.

Waking up Sunday it got interesting.

Very low clouds, creating LIFR, IFR and MVFR along the route of flight from Pontiac to KOEB.

The terminal area forecasts along route all predicted it would rise to VFR by my time of flight, and in calling for a Weather Brief, they concurred but suggested I depart a little later instead of the 10 am departure that I had planned.

I agreed with that and headed to the airport and got there at 10 to get ready. Between getting the aircraft from the hangar, getting it fueled up and having a thorough preflight, I got the Archer ready to leave and did my taxi to the run-up area.

I finally left at 11:00 am, after waiting for a long time to get clearance to take off. Lots of pattern activity and people coming in right then.

I was delayed so long that Tower even called to say "Cherokeee holding short of 25R, I haven't forgotten about you".

He was all sorts of busy so I didn't bother him with a request for flight following.

I then headed out to the southwest, and the clouds were low. I got up to 2,500 feet to stay 500 feet below the clouds and was stuck there for many miles until it lifted to 3,500.

It then got lower again about 30 nautical miles from Coldwater. I head a Bonanza announce itself at Coldwater.

When I was about 15 miles out I heard Mr. B's callsign on the radio that he was entering the downwind for Runway 25 at Coldwater.

At 10 nm, I called out my position and he knew it was me.

While I was setup for a straight-in approach for runway 25, A cardinal was entering the downwind for 25 from the west, so I decided not to do a straight-in approach as that would be impolite, and instead announced I was going to head south to offset, make sure I was out of his way, and do a teardrop entry at midfield into the downwind for Runway 25.

Mr. B landed uneventfully, then the Cardinal and then I came in and similarly did a good landing.

Photos by Mr. B.

I met up with Mr. B and we headed into the Prop Blast Cafe for lunch.

Low wing and high wing parked nicely beside each other (Mr. B's pic:).

On the way to the cafe, we passed by Coldwater's airport firetruck.

It may not look like much from the outside, but it had great food and nice service.

It also had a rather humorous sign in the washroom:

Mr. B. kindly insisted on buying lunch as he had invited me to KOEB. I owe him one.

$100 burgers were the order of the day. Mushroom Swiss and very tasty.

We had a good time chatting and I then got a text from Tash that the weather around Pontiac was starting to look bad including thunderclouds which was all sorts of no bueno.

I checked the Metar for Pontiac and while still VFR, it was reporting towering cumulus in the vicinity.

So we decided to head out at that point. I figured I'd make Howell my alternate airport if the weather was bad around Pontiac.

I then got the Archer pre-flighted, taxi'd to Runway 22 and did a run-up and then took off and headed back to the north east (Mr. B's pic of the start of my taxi out):

I called up Kalamazoo and got flight following to Pontiac. I was then almost immediately passed off to Lansing who had me change course for a bit to avoid some parachutists jumping, and to avoid another aircraft that was out there in my way and not talking to anyone. Flight following is good to have.

I remained below the clouds, staying at 2,900 feet and Lansing passed me through to Detroit Approach, who had me descend and maintain 2,800 feet. As I was flying picked up Pontiac's ATIS broadcast so I had it ready for when Detroit asked it I had it. Just low clouds, and a very little light chop in spots, but nothing serious along the way.

I then saw Pontiac through the haze at about 12 miles and flight following was cancelled and I then contacted Pontiac tower who had me make a right base for runway 9R. They then amended it to a straight in for Runway 9L. I must say it was yet again another excellent landing.

I then got off the runway at Kilo and ground sent me right to the hangar where I parked the aircraft, cleaned all the dead bugs off the leading edges and called it an excellent cross-country flight. That was an excellent time meeting with another great blogger.

2.4 and 2 landings.