Friday, February 23, 2007

Windy Morning

Don't let the passengers see now...


The wind is howling at 25 gusting 30 knots as we hold short of the runway waiting on our clearance from Saskatoon radio. It's dark outside still at 0625 and the ground is hardly visible from the blowing snow. Our clearance is given to us with a cancellation time of 1231, that gives us about 3 minutes to be airborne which won't be a problem. As we take position on the runway and pause to run through the take off checks, we are given the illusion of rolling forward from the layer of snow moving steadily down the runway. A quick glance at the motionless runway lights and a little more pressure on the brakes is our only confirmation that we aren't on the move. As we push the power up for take off the strong winds quickly bring out air speed up to 100 knots. We leap off the runway and climb quickly above the blowing snow. The bright lights of the airport and city are below us now. The vis hazard from the windy conditions does not look so bad at this angle.

We are now 150 miles from our destination where we'll be sitting for 8 hours as our customers tend to their duties. We've got a room and bed booked for the day, I'm looking forward to it after the early morning.

1 Comments:

At 11:40 AM, Blogger Flyin Dutchman said...

Holy crap ! that's some good ice ! Still carrying some good speed though so it looks like the plane is handling it well !

take care

 

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