Bratburger-itis

Well, all week long I and three of my co-workers (all fellow engineers) had been dreaming of Friday. You see, there’s a very common expression among pilots called “the Hundred Dollar Hamburger”. In fact, there’s even a book that been written with that title. Here’s what it means. What do pilots love more than anything else in the world? FLYING! Of course. So, if private pilots spent their time just flying around aimlessly in circles doing nothing but drilling holes in air, ordinary folks would think they were a little aberrant. So, what do they do? They plan trips to fly to lunch (or dinner). Pilots will fly, 75 or a hundred miles for a hamburger. Of course this burns up around a hundred dollars in avgas, hence the term, The Hundred Dollar Hamburger. The book, and the website of the same name, tell pilots where to fly to for great lunches or dinners.

Well, my buddies and I had planned and were dreaming all week long about just such an adventure. Anyone from the Midwest knows that Wisconsin is famous for a lot of things but health food isn’t one of them. I had discovered, on one of my first trips to Madison, the holy grail of burgers. Here it is:

What you’re looking at is a quarter pound beef burger, topped with a quarter pound bratburger, topped with onions sautéed in beer, topped with bacon, topped with cheddar cheese, all on a pretzel bun. OMG!

So, my buddies and I planned to fly to Madison, Wisconsin to the mecca of burgers, The Great Dane .

All week long, the weather was looking good. When I called for my flight weather briefing Friday morning, the briefer mentioned the potential for moderate turbulence (this is like driving down a bumpy road in a car) and potential for gusty winds. The velocity of the winds was less than what I had comfortably handled before so I wasn’t concerned. Yeah, it might be a little bumpy ride but… here is the image I had in my head.

Pilots have another expression that’s called “get-there-it is”. Simply, this means, don’t feel so pressured to get somewhere that you make a bad decision. Okay so perhaps we had a mild case of “bratburger-itis” but again, the predictions weren’t for anything worse than I knew I could comfortably handle.

Now, here’s an expression that my instructor drilled into me. “The weather isn’t what the briefer tells you it is, the weather is what you’re actually in when you’re in the air.” Sometimes the two are pretty different.

So, Friday dawned and my friends and I launched from Waukegan, Illinois into gusty winds. It turns out that the winds were right on our nose (headwinds) and were 55 knots (about 63 miles per hour) or so and the moderate turbulence was bordering on severe turbulence with frequent rocking of the wings and sudden changes in altitude. Unpleasant but, again, certainly not the worst weather I’ve flown in. (Not so sure I could say the same for my passengers.) Despite me constantly asking if everyone was okay and assuring them we could turn back if they wanted, they all urged me to press on (see definition of that insidious “bratburger-itis”). So, not only does 55 knot winds mean that you’re being bounced around but, now your groundspeed, instead of being 115 knots (132 mph) is around 60 knots (69 mph) so you get to enjoy the effect MUCH longer.

Finally, we got to Madison and I announced we had to begin our descent and that typically, the ride would get bumpier closer to the ground. One of the passengers plaintively said, “You have to descend?” I calmly explained that, unfortunately, the restaurant was on the ground.

Well, I made a good landing (no, really) and we taxied to the FBO. I picked up a courtesy car and we drove off to the Great Dane. Now, I vaguely recalled hearing something about public workers (teachers, firemen, etc.) demonstrating in the Capitol. As it turns out, that day, there were 25,000 people demonstrating. Lucky for us, by the time we got there, the demonstrations were largely over. Not so lucky for us, most of them went to the Great Dane for lunch (and copious amounts of beer). When the hostess asked if we’d mind waiting 45 minutes for a table, none of my cohorts piped up and said, “hell no, we’re flying back where we came from” so, we waited. All agreed that when we did get our lunch, it was every bit worth the experience. It was AWESOME. In fact, if you go to Webster’s, and look up awesome, you might just see the picture I pasted above.

Eventually, we moseyed back to the FBO for the ride back. I had already explained that with a tailwind, the ride should be smoother and definitely faster and to ensure smoother, I would fly higher. (Not wanting to decorate the inside of my 172XP with the remnants of 4 bratburgers, I was REALLY hoping I was right.)

Well, we departed Madison and I climbed to 5500 feet. The winds had not subsided so when we leveled into our cruise altitude, we were zipping along at 175 knots (over 200 mph!!!). This meant that our 1.5 hour ride to Madison would now be a half hour ride back.

Typically, when I’m returning from points West of Waukegan airport, I line up 10 miles to the West to make my initial call and then I begin my descent from there. So, this is what I did. Of course “typically” I’m not going 200 miles an hour. So, slightly over 2 minutes later, I’m now 3 miles from the airport and I’m at 4000 feet. Unfortunately, the airport is only at 732 feet (poor planning on someone’s part). I pulled the throttle back to idle and began a serious descent. So, here we are, descending at about 1500 feet per minute and slowing up to maneuver into the pattern. When I had lost most of the altitude (2 minutes later) I was lined up with the runway with my flaps down. Close to the ground, the wind shifted until I had full right rudder in to avoid being blown off the runway. A few seconds later, we descended a little more and, wind shear, the wind shifted 180 degrees and we now had full left rudder in to hold our alignment with the runway. Finally, as we kept descending, the wind lined up right down the runway and we settled into a perfect, soft landing. My passengers cheered and asked, “when are we gonna do this again”?

What’s better than that? This is the reason I fly.