For several reasons, all of them financial, we decided to sell our Commander 114. Today, I ferried (delivered) 57W to its new owner in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Susan and Andrew joined me for this final flight. I had been preparing for this flight for over a week, in case the new owner was unable to pick it up himself.
The first leg of the flight took us from Melbourne, Florida to Enterprise, Alabama.
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| Melbourne, FL to Enterprise, AL |
The morning started absolutely perfectly. The weather couldn’t have been any better, which is saying a lot this time of year in Florida. For the past several days, a low pressure system was parked over the Gulf, causing showers and thunderstorms along our proposed route. Under a completely clear, cloudless sky, we departed and turned to the north.
The first sign of trouble occurred when I tried to call Orlando Approach. The radio was creating a screeching wa-wa-wa noise that made my request unreadable. This concerned me, but was not necessarily a reason to turn back. As we flew along the Indian River, I tuned to an empty frequency and pressed the talk button on the radio. My goal was to warm up the transmitter and hopefully eliminate the noise. Believe it or not, it actually worked! I was able to contact Daytona Approach over Titusville.
The flight was trouble-free for the next two hours. We climbed to 4,500 feet, then climbed again up to 6,500 feet to clear some slowly building cumulous clouds over the Panhandle. The air was cool and the ride smooth. Andrew was in the front seat, helping me with the radios and the course. We noticed another problem along the way. The trim wheel, which is supposed to set the elevator position and hold the pitch of the plane at a specific speed, was slowly rolling back. Every time I set the trim, I would notice that within a minute, I was starting to climb again. Andrew noticed that the trim wheel was actually turning back after I set it. Holding it continuously was the only way to solve the problem.
As we approached Enterprise, Alabama, we descended down to pattern altitude and asked for wind conditions on the field. Wind was calm, so we had our choice of runway. There was a helicopter on a long straight in approach, so I decided to setup to follow him in. While setting up the pattern entry, Andrew put the gear down, but we only got two green lights. I’ve seen this one before, and I thought it was fixed! I tested the bulb; it was fine. We departed the pattern to troubleshoot the gear light. Thankfully, cycling it once was all it took. With three green lights, we landed with no further drama.
On the ground, we fueled the plane, used the facilities, and ate lunch. Looking at our phones, we were pleasantly surprised to find that we were an hour ahead of schedule, thanks to Central Daylight Time.
After lunch, we started our second leg, which would take us to our final destination – Vicksburg, Mississippi.
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| Enterprise, AL to Tallulah, LA |
The second leg was a little shorter, but the clouds had built pretty significantly while we were on the ground. The bases were now around 4,000 feet, and I had no desire to bounce along underneath the clouds for the next two hours. I picked up ATC after taking off and he held me below 4,500 feet for passing traffic. Once clear of traffic, I started climbing through the nearest hole I could find. Up we went to 6,500 feet, but the clouds were still above us, so we continued up to 8,500 feet. We were now high enough to avoid the occasional clouds with tops near our altitude.
After happily flying along for about 10 minutes, ATC dropped flight following. We were now on our own to look for traffic. This wasn’t a problem, since I think we were the only ones flying in the south today. Nonetheless, we still had an issue to deal with.
Up ahead was a military operation area with a base of 8,000 feet – 500 feet below our current cruise altitude. We needed to find out if it was active. The nearest flight service station requires talking on one frequency and listening over the navigation radio frequency. This is normally not an issue, but in ‘57W, turning up the volume of the NAV radio causes interference in the COM radio.
I called the flight service station, but he couldn’t understand what I was saying at first. I got smart and tuned my second NAV radio, then turned the volume back down on the first. Now I could almost understand what he was saying, but not really. After he finished talking, I decided to drop down to 7,500 feet and stay below the MOA until I could ask Jackson Approach for its active status.
Once on with Jackson Approach, I asked about the MOA. He told me it was active, so we stayed at 7,500 feet. A few minutes later, he came back on and told me I was clear to climb through the MOA. Woo-hoo, back up to 8,500 feet, where it was much easier to avoid the cloud tops.
As we approached the Mississippi River, I decided to take a little detour to take in the sights. But first, I had to find a hole big enough to lose 7,000 feet. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. Instead, we found a smaller hole and did two 360 degree turns to drop to 4,000 feet. That was enough to let us continue west for awhile, before starting another descent. This time, I found one lone small cloud in the center of a hole and spiraled down around it. Oh how fun it is to dance with the clouds!
Now underneath the bases of the clouds, we cruised toward the Mississippi River at 1,500 feet. It looked like it might rain, but it never did. Across the river, we could see the airport in the clear. We turned north along the river and passed over, then around Vicksburg. We passed by a tug boat pushing a long string of barges. We passed over the I-20 bridge.
Finally it was time to land ‘57W for the last time. We entered the pattern and dropped the gear. Once again, only two lights. Oh how frustrating it was dealing with this issue. Again, we left the pattern and cycled the gear. This time, the third light did not come on. I climbed up enough to enter a slow glide. Susan pulled the gear breaker and I dropped the gear manually. The third light still did not come on, but I was confident that it was down and locked based on my experiences during annuals with the plane on the jacks. We re-entered the pattern and landed successfully for the final time.
While driving the airport courtesy car to pick up our rental car, I thought, "Gee, we should drive into Louisiana, if it isn't too far away. I've never been there." Then I started thinking, doesn't the Mississippi River separate Mississippi and Louisiana? Yes it does. Well, we crossed the river before we landed, so we must already be in Louisiana! No wonder we're seeing so many Louisiana license plates!
My time with ‘57W started rough, with a gear-up landing during initial checkout. Then I moved to Florida shortly after the repairs were complete. In 2011, we were rejoined when I became the sole owner and flew it back to Florida. Since then, we’ve had a few adventures and some issues to work through. In the end, we shared about 115 hours of time together. I only wish I could have afforded to make it like I wanted – new paint, panel, and interior.
The new owner plans to make many of the improvements that I always wanted to make, but couldn’t afford. I look forward to seeing ‘57W after it emerges from its upcoming makeover.
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