I did not want to drive the long distance again. I had hoped to get someone to fly me up to Nashville from our airport, Jim Hamilton-LB Owens Airport (KCUB), but there were not too many people around. EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2011 was still going on and several of our folks were there. Others were traveling elsewhere, so flying commercial seemed like the only option available to take advantage of a good forecast on Tuesday, August 2, 2011.

As Pam and I planned and discussed my trip to retrieve Betsy, our daughter Mallory, ten, said she wanted to go. I asked her if she was up to a long day of travel and explained in detail what we would be getting in to. She was excited and so I booked two one-way tickets to Nashville. We packed our GPS, two headsets, a change of clothes and went to bed early.

Pam got us up early at 4:00 a.m. and drove us to Columbia Metropolitan Airport (KCAE) to catch our flight. We were on the 5:45 a.m. flight to a stop in Charlotte, then on to Nashville, departing Charlotte around 8:00 a.m. We tried to catch up on sleep during the flights, but it doesn’t always happen.

Out of Charlotte, we saw the mountains over Asheville, with low lying clouds hanging in the valleys, next up was Knoxville, then we saw Rockwood Airport (KRKW) way off to the north, then Crossville Airport (KCSV), then we landed in Nashville. I thought of how funny it was to see most all of I-40 from the mountains throught Knoxville to Nashville from the air that Pam and I had just driven only three days earlier.

After we landed in Nashville, Mallory and I quickly made our way to the where the taxis awaited. We boarded a taxi driven by a man wearing a red turban. He said it would cost around $45 dollars for the drive to John C Tune Airport (KJWN) on the other side of town. He was close – it was over $46. Enroute, I had called the FBO at John C Tune Airport to have them pull Betsy up to the flightline. When we arrived, we could see that she was there waiting for us. We did not waste time departing after a good preflight check.

My gats fuel drain cup after sitting in the baggage compartment for three days while tied down at John C Tune Airport (KJWN) during a hot Nashville summer.

We departed on runway 20 and climbed on up to 5500 feet after talking to Nashville Approach. The flight was very nice on to Chattanooga. Mallory was doing great as my co-pilot. With Chattanooga in view, it was on to Dalton, GA. We had planned to stop there for fuel but now that we were at 7500 feet and flying nice and smooth, we opted to fly on to Gainesville Aiport (KGVL). As we approached Gainesville, I listened to their ASOS. It was reporting 3400 density alitude. This would be the highest DA that I will have encountered so far in my flying days. The runway was plently long, so I was not worried.

"Praying for cooler weather" at the Gainesville Airport (KGVL) in Georgia on Tuesday, August 2, 2011.

7500 feet over north Georgia on Tuesday, August 2, 2011.

The clouds at altitude were getting more cumbersome to navigate so we descended to 5500 feet as we approached the Georgia/SC border. It was still smooth at 5500 feet and the outside temperature was still below 70 degrees. It was pleasant. We flew on into South Carolina and before long Lake Greenwood showed up on the horizon, and then Lake Murray. We began our descent and flew straight up the lake, over the dam into bumpy air at 1600 feet. We flew over Forest Acres over our house and then pointed towards Jim Hamilton-LB Owens Airport – home. Runway 31 greeted us with its customary burbles on short final, but otherwise an uneventful landing. Nashville trip done!

This Foreflight radar image showing the weather than blocked our path home. This was about 1.5 hours after we decided not to fly.

Pam and I had flown to Nashville on Wednesday, July 27, 2011, in a pretty much uneventful flight. We enjoyed a couple of days in Nashville and attended our business meetings. We were set to depart on Saturday, July 30th, but an early morning storm system stretching from Nashville to Chattanooga would delay our flight.

We arrived at John C. Tune Airport (KJWN) on the northwest side of Nashville at around 9:30 a.m. on Saturday. It had been raining hard this morning and there were some gloomly looking low, misty clouds coming and going, so we waited for all of it to cook off, hopefully, later in the morning. They had pulled the Cessna to the flight line from the tie down area, so I loaded her up and preflighted. Eleven o’clock came and it looked like we might be able to depart soon. But that storm system was hanging around and blocked our path home.

Betsy on the flightline at John C Tune Aiport (KJWN) in Nashville, Saturday, July 30, 2011.

The FBO at John C Tune Airport (KJWN) in Nashville on Saturday, July 30, 2011.

We decided to venture out and see if we could get home. As we sat on the flightline with engine running, the XM weather signal finally showing on the Garmin GPS 496, I took one more look at the Nexrad images on the GPS, looked over at Pam, and said that I didn’t think we should depart. So, Pam agreed, and we shut down, rented a car and drove the 455 miles back home to Columbia. It wasn’t an unpleasant drive, but almost eight hours. We had planned from the beginning to rent a car and drive home if the weather was iffy, so plan B it was.

This Foreflight radar image showing the weather than blocked our path home. This was about 1.5 hours after we decided not to fly.

At the airport, I looked Betsy over, checked the fuel and oil, loaded our bags inside, and departed Columbia (KCUB) at 10:00 a.m. A low scattered layer around 1600 feet kept us weaving around under the Columbia Metro (KCAE) Class C veil until we cleared their airspace. It was clear blue sky above, so we climbed out and got above the scattered layer. We climbed on up to 4500 feet as we passed over the length of Lake Murray. Below us to the south, the scattered layer thickened and to the north it was clearer as we approached Greenwood (KGND). We stayed a bit north of our GPS track towards Greenwood. It was nice and smooth so we stayed at 4500 on past Elberton, Franklin, and Jackson airports in Georgia. We saw our waypoint, Gainesville, to the south and headed on to Dalton Airport. There was a ridge line that came up so we climbed to 6500 feet. At 6500 feet we were dodging occassional clouds. It was a pretty flight so far.

Our flight time was looking great so I keyed in Shelbyville Airport (KSYI) into the Garmin GPS 496. Our original plan was to land at Dalton for our one fuel stop. It looked as though we could make it on past Chattanooga to Shelbyville, TN, at a little over an hour away, so I considered it. Dalton was on our path and after considering the change in plan we opted to go with our original plan and not push the fuel limit.

We started climbing from 4500 feet to 6500 feet as we approached the ridges at Amicalola Falls State Park. As we passed over the valley area a few miles south of Ellija I looked at the altimeter I saw it suddenly begin to show us loosing altitute. We were at around 6600 feet and were dropped 600, over a period of about a minute. That was a weird sensation. I check the airspeed – nothing had changed there. I checked engine instruments – all good. Tachometer showed around 2600 rpms – nothing different there, and the engine sounded good. Not sure what was happening. Looking out the window, everything seemed normal. But the altimeter was dropping and finally stopped around 6000 feet. A downdraft? A change in barometric pressure? I don’t know. We were still plenty high enough to clear the next ridges south of Tatum Mountain.

Shortly after that interesting episode, I plugged Dalton back into the GPS and we saw it to our south, so we descended and dropped in for fuel. I hated to give up our altitude as Betsy takes her sweet time getting up there, but we decided to stick with our original plan and fuel up in Dalton. There were reporting 2700 density altitude and we had already passed a few airports that were reporting 3000 and 3100. Dalton has a 5400 foot runway at around 700 feet elevation, so it looked ideal for the fuel stop as the day was heating up rapidly.

We announced our downwind and the fellow on the radio warned us to be mindful of the “moors” on the field. “Moors?” Were they some kind of bird or something. Pam thought he said “boars”. I radioed back for him to please repeat his transmission and he said that there were mowers cutting grass. Ah! We had a laugh over that.

As we pulled up to the FBO, a gentleman parked us, greeted us and fueled us up. We were there for about 30 minutes – long enough to used the restroom, check weather, pay for fuel and then we were on our way. Thanks to Bob for his kind hospitality! Dalton was great.

Back in the air, we climbed out to 4500 feet heading straight for Chattanooga. I contacted Chattanooga approach so we could fly straight over the top of their airspace. They handed us off to Memphis Center for several miles. We climbed to 6500 to get over some occassional clouds we were dodging at 4500. We weaved around a few clouds and flew in between some up there. It was very beautiful. Memphis handed us off to Nashville as we got to within 30 or so miles. As we got closer to Nashville, approach told us to descend to 3000 feet and diverte us to stay clear of their airspace. We hated to give up our cool spot up there, so we set up for a very slow descent and headed 290 degrees as told. Nashville gave us a frequency change and that lady kept us clear of their airspace. We flew to the west of it until about 10 miles from Tune (KJWN), our destination. The approach gave us direct to the airport. We announced we had Tune in sight and approach gave us “sqawk VFR” and “have a nice day.”

We contacted Tune to find the winds not a factor, but it got bumpier as we descended to pattern altitude as we arrived on downwind for runway 20. It was hot as we taxied to the ramp. A nice fellow parked us and help carry our baggage into the FBO. They called a cab and about 20 minutes later we were on our way to the hotel, the Marriott at Vanderbilt University.

The trip over at 5500 feet took us right at two hours. It was a perfect day for flying. Blues skies and smooth. We flew almost directly over the airport by the Atlanta Motor Speedway. What a sight. The airport is only a short walk to the speedway. About 15 to 20 minutes later we arrived at Falcon Field, entering into downwind from the east for right traffic runway 13.

There were many RV’s in attendance. I wish I had taken more photos, but I was too distracted by just looking at them. They had an array of great food to eat, which we really enjoyed.

There were several of us RV-minded folks from KCUB there. We all got golf carted to the very nearby Aircraft Spruce, adjacent to the airport. How convenient for the folks at Falcon Field. We shopped for about an hour. I pulled out my CC and burned it up good there. Yikes!

Great to meet the folks at Falcon Field. They really put on a great fly-in event. I look forward to going back soon!

We got airborne and flew over downtown Columbia, right by the State Capitol building with the big Christmas tree out front. Its lights were on, but there was still a little too much daylight to make them look bright from our viewpoint, but pretty none the less.

The sun was setting blindingly bright to our west so we flew eastward over Forest Acres. What an incredible view of the vast “forest” of the Forest Areas area as the low lying sunlight had shone on the trees, lighting them up intensely with an almost glowing golden hue on their westerly sides, and casting shadows beyond them to the east in a way that only the setting sun can.

After a while, we returned to Columbia Owens Downtown and landed on one-three. The light was fading fast as we taxied back toward the hangar. I asked Pam if she felt like going around the pattern once more. She was fighting a head cold and decided remain on the ground while I went back up.

I departed one-three again, and while on downwind, saw that the sun had set and the view westward was just beautiful. I grabbed my camera and attempted to take a photo or two, not really sure if I got a good one because I was more focused on flying the airplane. On downwind, I tried to shoot a photo of the downtown city lights as they were starting to really stand out in the fading sunlight.

I made my second landing and was clear of the runway when a taxing aircraft passed by me on the taxiway as I held short on the middle exit ramp. I started to hear a crackling sound in the cockpit that I hadn’t heard before. At first I thought it was my headset. Or perhaps my intercom. The taxiing aircraft passed and as I pulled off the exit ramp onto the taxiway behind it, taxing north back to the hangar, the crackling noise stopped.

An airplane that had been holding short of one-three departed so I slowed my taxi speed to watch it take off. The crackling started up again, so I stopped to try and find the cause. It was a rather loud constant crackling sound, sort of like a bad connection in stereo speakers, or how crinkling plastic wrap sounds. I took my headset off and the sound was all throughout the cockpit. It was hard to tell where the crackling sound was coming from. I turned the volume on both COMs down and made sure the cockpit speaker selections on the intercom were off for both COMs. It sounded like it was coming from everywhere. The panel, the doors, the dashboard, the windscreen. I put my ear to the panel, then the dashboard, and then the door panel. Still no idea what might be causing the mysterious crackling noise that was verberating throughout the cockpit.

I then continued to taxi further up the taxiway toward my hangar and the noise ceased. What the heck is going on? I slowed to a stop about at the on ramp to runway one-three. The crackling started up again. Was the noise coming from outside? It sounded like sleet hitting the windscreen, crackling with every impacting ice particle. And a bunch of them. But it’s a clear evening! Nothing is hitting the windscreen. I pressed my hands in several places on the wind screen and this seemed to effect the noise – subdue it perhaps – but not nearly stop it. I pulled my hands away from the windscreen and the noise then continued its normal level of crazy crackling. Hum?

I pushed the throttle in and revved the engine for a moment and the noise again ceased. I pulled back on the throttle and the engine settled to below 1000 rpms. The crackling noise started back again. I revved the engine again. Noise stopped. Backed off the throttle again. More crackling.

And then it hit me. This was perhaps the coldest day I had flown Betsy. The temperature was below 50 degrees and falling rapidly with the fading light. The windscreen had contracted with the cold air and was relatively loose in its mounting. The combination of typical engine and aircraft vibrations and prop wind at low rpm caused the windscreen to vibrate in its mount, thereby causing the mysterious crackling noise that reverberated throughout the cockpit. The crackling sound seemed to come from anywhere and everywhere because it was being created all about the perimeter of the windscreen, which is shape somewhat like a parabolic section – a megaphone – and was being amplified and transmitted throughout the cockpit.

And so there was something hitting the windscreen – wind! And with increased rpm of the prop, the resulting higher wind pressure against the windscreen stopped the vibrating – and the mysterious and crazy crackling noise. Case closed. I radioed to Columbia Downtown traffic and departed runway one-three, once again around the pattern, to enjoy the view of the sky and cityscape at dusk.