My last week

Last week was a hard one. There were thunderstorms each and every morning flying out of Oklahoma City ( KOKC ). It seems like the spring weather down here in " Tornado Alley" has moved in a little late. It used to be that the really bad weather was done by the last week of May or so, but that doesn't seen to be the case this year. Bring on the hot weather, boring weather I say. Well, I'll try to give you more details from my last trip in a few days. I leave at the end of this week for extreme south Texas. I will be there for a few days and I'll let you know how that went as well. Until then. Cheers.

The Mighty Caravan

Sorry it took so long to post this. I wanted to explain the aircraft that I command through the air. It is the Cessna C-208B Caravan " Super Cargomaster". A very fun aircraft to fly. It is powered by a Pratt & Whitney PT6 Turbine Engine producing either 600 SHP ( Shaft Horsepower ) or 675 SHP depending on model ( I have flown both ). It has been said that the Caravan is just a big Cessna 172, I disagree. For one thing, the Caravan is huge and heavy for a single-engine aircraft. The Cessna 172 seats 4 but the Caravan can seat 14 in the right configuration. Secondly, try to fit 3000 lbs of cargo in the Cessna 172 ( good luck). I routinely fly with that much cargo on board plus enough Jet-A to allow me to fly for 3 1/2 hours. Granted, it does look like a big freaking 172 but that's about as close as the comparison gets for me.
The Caravan cruises at around 170 knots TAS, so it is fairly slow. But for handling large freight loads with one pilot, slow can be good. Also, the low landing speed and reverse range prop allows me to get into small fields with no problems. It's large enough to draw crowd of onlookers at the small airports and that's a cool plus. The mighty Caravan, it gets the job done.
Well tomorrow I depart on another week of overnight express package delivery. Talk to you when that's finished. Cheers.

Back on terra firma

Finally back from my week long excursion into the world of freight hauling. The previous week started with a bang. A cold front was sweeping through the area at the time of departure. The cold front brought cold air that was smashing into warm moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, and forcing the warm air to rise. That, of course, meant thunderstorms were in the area. This clash happens on a weekly basis in the Great Plains during the spring time. Some of us refer to it as the "mobile home relocation process" because the main threat here in the Great Plains is tornadoes. Oh sure there is hail and wind and such, but it's the tornadoes that get the attention.

So I had to navigate around these massive storms as I made my way south. I was able to stay in the clear as I went around them, which provided me the opportunity to see a spectacular light show. Some of the best lightning I've seen in several years, I witnessed on that first night. As the storms gathered strength they combined to form a nasty squall line. The lightning would seem to start in one cloud and end in another several miles ( 50 or more ) away. Nope, didn't want to be in the middle of that mess, but it sure was nice to look at.

The days went on to become mostly VFR for the next couple of days. Around Wednesday another cold front ushered in very cold air for this time of year. It snowed in Texas and Oklahoma at the end of the week, which is pretty rare for late April. As for my flight, all that cold air meant that I was flying in the clouds a lot. On Thursday morning I spent most of my flight in the soup. Flying without outside visual references is one of the coolest things that I do. It makes the flying intense and it can test your abilities. In short, it's challenging and beautiful. There's nothing like flying in and out of cloud layers and you make your way to the next destination.

I was going to discuss the aircraft I fly, but I will write about the mighty Cessna C-208B Caravan "Super Cargomaster"on the next posting.

Leaving for one week cargo run.

Well tomorrow I leave for a week long assignment in the southern Great Plains. The forecast for tomorrow is for rain in the morning and major storms in the evening. I always fly the freight at night which, for tomorrow, means some nasty flying conditions. There are pilots, especially freight dogs, that say that flying in and around thunderstorms are what they live for. They lie. Flying near large cumulonimbus clouds really kind of sucks, particularly when you fly single-pilot operations. All of my flying is of the single pilot variety. The air is extremely bumpy, with large ups and down drafts; the rain is heavy and comes in large waves; and at night you can't see anything past what your radar shows. Not to mention that the lightning can be intense and blinding. It's really no fun. But hey, those packages have got to be to their destinations on time or there's trouble to be had.
Just when you make it through a storm alive you're faced with the prospect of flying an approach down to minimums. All of this done at 3 in the morning and your dog tired. Ah, the life of a freight dog. Makes you wonder why we do it. Wait...why do we do it? That's a good question. A lot of us are trying to move on to bigger and better things, like perhaps an airplane with more than one pilot. Airlines are a major goal of freight dogs. Some think it's pretty cool to fly these big machines after flying the small aircraft at flight schools. Some would do just about anything to get away from instructing. And some are just plain sick in the head! For myself, I would love to get my hands on a jet, especially a Boeing 737.
Don't get me wrong, when the weather is good, it can be really fun and rewarding to fly your packages around from point A to point B. And it sounds like the weather after tomorrow will quiet down for a few days and I can experience some fun. When I return I will post some info about the aircraft I fly ( although the company I fly for will remain anonymous ) and I will fill you in on any interesting things that happened during my trip. Until then, cheers.

The Start

This is the first day of this blog. I am a cargo pilot and I will be devoting a lot of space to that part of my life. I also hope to spend time on other subjects outside of the aviation world. Things such as baseball, fly fishing, other such subjects are on my list. I will be adding content between flying gigs and I hope you enjoy it.