re: You guys ever notice when you're outside alone and you're thinking about life

I'm too busy working to notice

That's because when they're spraying that cloud seed dust, it gets to your brain

We lived in MT. Home, AR once. The small airport there (midway, AR) had a commuter air service that flew from Mt. Home to Memphis twice a day. The pilot would fly directly toward the Mt. Home beacon ad when his indicator rotated to indicate he had just passed over the beacon, he would turn a set number of degrees to the southeast, click his stopwatch and squawk a frequency on his radio to turn on the runway lights. A certain number of seconds later, he would be directly over the water tower at the airport and able to see the runway lights. This approach was not all that difficult if he had clear sky because the Baxter Healthcare-Midway facility had a bunch of those pinkish lights on their parking lot and they were right across the road from the airport.

The angle of approach, airspeed and seconds of flight were important if there was fog, which was the case many times.

He usually flew over the beacon sometime between 9:00 and 9:30 pm for his night shuttle. Many times, I would hear his Beechcraft Baron come by at night and think "The Arkansas Traveler flight is here. Then we would have a foggy night and he would come over, the sound would fade, and then five minutes later I would hear him circling back toward Memphis, then circling to come back across the beacon. When I would hear this, I always knew he had missed the airport and was trying the approach again.

If this happened a third time, I would know the pilot was sweating bullets, trying to locate the Baxter parking lot lights, the flashing red warning light on top of the water tower, or hopefully the runway lights. As I recall, there was a radio tower not too far below the airport and a smart pilot would definitely stay at an altitude above the top of the radio tower. Coming in low enough to hit the water tower, which was right at the eastern end of the runway would also be a bad way to find the ground.

I bet I flew that return flight from Memphis to Mt Home on the "Arkansas Traveler Sometimes Scheduled Airline" a hundred times in the years we lived in Mountain Home, working for Baxter. It was never fun in the fog, but the alternate airport was Springfield, MO, or Little Rock.

That is my memory of a small plane flying over in the quietness.

quote:

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somewhat TulaneLSU-esque of a post here..

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Nicest thing anyone has said to me today. And I wrote it absolutely for free.