Ready to Taxi It’s a beautiful sunset and 2 degrees above zero; better than yesterday when the high was -14ºF. Flying on cold winter days has its own set of challenges. A bush pilot, I am not. Still, sometimes, cold skies call you to fly. So, let’s fire up and call ground control. We’re ready to taxi.
Sun Dogs This image does exactly follow this week’s theme, but you just don’t seen a sun tower and dogs very often. This weather phenomena is caused by the blowing snow particles flying through the very cold air. Yesterday’s snow coupled with today’s -18 temperature and a 28 knot wind made for a most unusual sunset over our local airport.
C-185 Snow Vortices This Cessna 185 on skis was giving rides from a frozen lake in Michigan a few years ago. Since it’s clearly winter, this week’s theme will be airplanes on skis. Even though it’s cold, we can think of good times flying. The temperature was so cold, the Nikon D200 would stop working in about a half hour. After replacing the cold battery with a warm one, it would jump back to life and keep shooting. Actually, the camera weathered the cold better than I did. Wind chills had to be in the -20 to -30 range with the 15+ knot wind. Still, it’s a rush landing over those trees onto a small frozen lake. My bush pilot friend, Steve, was at the controls.
Snow Closeup Good thing this first week of the new year is a short one. This snow theme is beginning to get a bit boring. No fear, next week will be start a new theme. Hope you had a Happy New Year.
Snow Everywhere The weatherman was right. It’s just not safe for me to travel my normal walkabout paths. So, I just stayed home and shoveled snow and shoveled snow and shoveled snow…
More Snow & Cold Today’s walkabout took me though a local forest preserve. No everyone decided to walk. Can’t really blame them; it was bit cold and still snowing. The weatherman says tomorrow it will be too cold to walk. Perhaps, I’ll stay closer to home.
Snow and Cold 2014 2014 started with snow and cold; a lot of snow and cold. You say, so what, it’s January; you know, winter. Well yes, still in northern Illinois, we get cold and snow, but we have not had snow and cold like this in many years. In fact, the weather folks tell us to stock up, we could be getting 10+ inches of snow with -20 below zero temps. And, around here, that’s a lot of snow and cold.
