Page 26 - JULY 20 TNT

Jet Journal
Lucky People
by Kevin Ware
has a dedicated weather reporting sta- tion at Stampede Pass just to the south and near the only one truly narrow point near the summit. The Columbia River Gorge (or just the “gorge” as it is known to local pilots) is basically near sea level the entire way and wide open by comparison to the others. It almost always has better weather than the other two, and an interstate highway runs all along the south side. However, the entrance is 100 miles south by Port- land, which is nearly an hour out of the way in a slow airplane or helicopter.
With those memories fresh in my mind, I look over the weather for the helicopter trip and decide that Stevens Pass might be a bit of a push and opt for Snoqualmie. Once air- borne it was somewhat of a déjà vu experience as years ago when doing instruction out of Boeing Field (KBFI), Snoqualmie was the pass we most often used for training. Back in the 1960s, West Coast Airlines was also based out of BFI and used to fly DC3’s through that route. The State of Washington also installed several “emergency air- strips” along the way just in case the weather unexpectedly closed in. The first of these airstrips is called Bandera. When eastbound, it is about 20 miles inside the pass with mountains slop- ing up on either side to about 5,000 feet. It has a couple thousand feet of usually wet grass and is quite near the highway, which was handy in the event you had to land there and hitchhike out. I pass over Bandera at around 400 feet above the runway in the helicop- ter and start having f lashbacks about teaching students how to get in there with a 500-foot ceiling in a Cessna 206. From Bandera, the valley east follows the highway, which shortly thereafter makes a nearly 90-degree turn to the north as it passes through a narrow canyon just before reaching the 3,500- foot summit.
Because the weather in Western Washington generally comes in from the Pacific Ocean, it carries a lot of
Relocating an R44 to the cherry orchards.
Retired Delta captain, Mark Zahrt joins me in the Cessna 340.
Over the past several months, the COVID-19 problem dra- matically reduced the num-
ber of executives f lying business jets around the country to meet with customers. But, that doesn’t mean all flying has come to a standstill. Much of the piston and propeller fleet has been flying just fine, and quite fortu- nately, so have I – though in slightly different equipment.
One of the first trips over the past month was in our R44 helicopter. The cherry drying season had arrived and the helicopter needed to be flown to the east side of the Cascade Mountain Range in Washington State for stag- ing near the orchards. I had not flown through the Cascades at low altitude for years, but at one time, used to instruct students in how to do it in
single-engine piston aircraft. I still somewhat remembered the routes and procedures we used to teach pilots new to the area.
I recalled three ways to transit through the Cascades eastbound out of the Seattle area at non-turbocharged al- titudes: Stevens Pass, Snoqualmie Pass and Columbia River Gorge. The topog- raphy and weather systems have not changed over the years, so my memory was still valid and I could easily recall the advantages and disadvantages of each route. Stevens Pass is closer to where we are based on the west side, but narrower with only a two-lane highway to follow. It also has no aviation weather reporting station. Snoqualmie Pass is the route both the railroad track and the interstate highway use, which tells you something about gradient. It also
24 • TWIN & TURBINE / July 2020 Jet Journal