$100 Hamburger - again

It was Election Day, and my enlightened employer gave us all the day off to go vote. I thought I was going to need to use the whole day for this task, given the TV reports of six hour lines. Reported to the polling station at 10 a.m. (took me a while to wake up), and we were out of there by 10:05. Maike helped me press the buttons to vote for change. I felt excited about the prospect of having cast my vote. Not sure why, but I think it's because it seemed to be a small part of a much larger historical event, one that might be the dawn of a new age. Thus civicly refreshed, we pointed the car towards the airport to celebrate with a $100 hamburger.

The weather was looking iffy, so a quick call to the weather station at Newark confirmed that it wasn't ideal for flying. Reluctant to give up again ( I scrapped the last flight just as we were leaving New Beirut because of gusty winds; didn't want Maike to feel afraid ever), I called Lockheed to get their take on it, and it was all rosy according to the briefer in sitting Phoenix, Arizona.
"Hmm - I don't like the looks of that" he says, after finding New Jersey and Pennsylvania on the map.
Seems like there was a low pressure system meandering up from the south, and it might impact the area by late afternoon. Oh well, we'll be done lunch way before any evil rain comes our way.
I let Maike measure the fuel and sump the tanks, finished a thorough pre-flight (no birds in the engine cowls or insects in the pitot tube), and we roared off into the mist. Maike took a cool video of the take-off; if she ever finds her cable to connect her phone to a USB port I'll post it. We levelled off at 2500 feet, as I was concerned about the haziness.
Ever since I got lost flying on a solo cross-country during flight training I am very, very cautious about flying in variable weather. That time I truly understood what it meant to have a lead weight in the pit of your stomache. I had made it about half-way from Hammonton in the Pine Barrens to Central Jersey at 3500 feet when suddenly all I could see was grey and rain on the windscreen. Since I was half-way home, and I knew that the weather had come from the west, and there were no airports to the east of my position, turning around was not a good option. Instinctively I pushed the nose down to lose altitude to get underneath the weather, and 800 feet later I could see the ground again. I was close to Princeton by now so options were starting to become apparent, but then rain filled my windscreen and I couldn't see very well, and I knew that I was not going to make it to 47N. I was so mad at myself, I remember, for letting this happen to me. Actually, I think I was absolutely furious, so angry that I no longer felt the fear. I thought I spotted the water tower at the end of Princeton's runway, but when I circled around I couldn't see the runway, so I pressed on a few more miles to see if I could locate Central Jersey. I was totally lost, and by now I was only at 800 feet above the ground to stay out of the clouds, and I was resigned to landing off-airport, if only I could see enough to spot a field without wires. Suddenly, in the midst of cursing, I spotted the Raritan River, and I thought I might have a chance of following it back to another landmark. Out of the mist I see the runway, and I felt like I had been born-again. Oh my god was I relieved. Didn't even bother flying the pattern, just banked steeply and set the plane down half-way down the runway. Did a nasty bounce, but there was no way I was going to go-around in that awful weather, so I fought the plane to a stop at the very end of the runway. Tied up the plane, got into my car, and as soon as I got home made myself a very tasty martini. My flight instructor called me later to see how I had made out; he had flown up to Block Island, and made a stop in Westchester and drove the rest of the way back. "I told you to watch the weather" he tells me. Thank you, very helpful.

Maike and I are now flying at 2500 feet in 5 miles visibility to a place called Butter Valley, in Bally, PA. I have a plan in case the weather degrades, I know exactly where the front is located, so we press on on, and I feel totally comfortable. Twenty minutes later I call on the radio for a traffic advisory, and get advised to land uphill on runway 31. We overfly the filed to take a look, and Maike settles in for an exciting landing. Butter Valley is a so-called Golfport, with a little landing strip laid out in the center of a fairway. It's just a narrow strip of asphalt for a portion of the runway, the rest is impeccable golf course fairway grass, but it's got a pretty significant slope to it. It's safest, wind allowing, to land uphill, so this is what the friendly voice on the radio advises. On short final a golfer strolls across the approach end of the fairway, and Maike is wondering who has the right of way. I continue the descent, confident that eventually the idiot will hear the 180 hp Lycoming and hurry it up, which he does. Very, very quickly too. The runway ends before we have completed out flight; it's amazing how short 2000 feet is when you are doing 70 knots at 5 feet off the ground. We bounce twice on landing , but I figure there is a lot of nice smooth grass when the asphalt runs out, so I am not concerned at all. The slope stops us amazingly fast. I look back, and we actually only used 500 feet from the touchdown point. Park the plane, shut her down, and go in to get a BLT and a birch beer. Mmmm!
Taking off brings a new set of concerns. If I back-taxi to go downhill, I have a hill right at the end of the airport. If I take-off uphill, I have a clear horizon, but not a lot of runway to work with. We opt for the former, and soon we are positioned at the end of the runway, engine cranking out full power, held back only by me standing on the brakes. Ten degrees of flaps for maximum climb angle, and I release the brakes while keeping right rudder mashed in to counteract the torque and P-factor. As we rise up at a 45 degree angle to the ground, skimming about the hillside, Maike touches my arm and says "Great take-off, Papa". That meant so much to me. We chat for the next half-hour, are both silent while flying the pattern for landing, and are both ever so proud as we fuel the plane up before heading off to go play the Wii for a while.