All the Way up to Seattle

Can you believe this? My first real girl friend, and we all know what that means, had moved onto my continent!

That might sound strange, but let me explain.

Very early cracks in our togetherness developed when Martina told me about her big plans to leave the old world, Germany - to be precise - and explore the rest of the world, full of adventures and wonders. That would have been fine with me, only she talked about HER, going these strange and wonderous places, never about US going there.

Other cracks developed over time, we went our separate ways, but after the initial ugliness of a breakup we talked and Martina even came to my Wedding a few years later.

But then it was I, who ventured out to explore another world. While she started to build her career in Good Old Germany, I came out to California to dig for gold. Only the metaphorical though. Some things worked out fine for me, other not quite so, but overall it was successful. Some years later instead of a wife I had a girl friend. A girl friend with the rather uncommon name N8308L. But we loved each other and that is what counts.

At about that time rumors came to pass that Martina had been sent to Seattle, Washington by her company. Some phone calls to old mutual friends confirmed it, and then, one evening I had the nerve to call her up. After the initial awkwardness we talked for quite a while and yes, I would come up and visit.

I do not exactly remember the sequence of events, but it must have also been the time that I finished up my instrument rating, and that the first half year as a proud instrument pilot had passed. The six-six-six rule threatened to kick in, so I had to find some destination where I could collect six hours of instrument flight and six approaches to stay current in the process of getting there.

SEATTLE!

It was around spring, so I surely could expect some instrument time on a flight to Washington. A date was set up with Martina, trusty 08L got a checkup because I was expecting something in the area of twenty hours flight time, and one VERY early Friday morning, the alarm clock did not had to wake me up - I was excited. This was by far the farthest destination I had ever taken aim at.

Flight plans were well worked out and filed after a last weather check. There was some weather ahead and the most frightening was some low freezing levels in northern Oregon and Washington.

But the weather in California was - who would guess it - Californian. With only half an hour delay I was on my first leg of a very long instrument flight in the most delightful sunshine. Since those days I have gotten used to the fact, that, especially here in Southern California, we probably never get the routing that we so skillfully worked out on duats and the flight planning computer program. So it was on this flight. I had to copy a full clearance, and figure out which way air traffic control wanted me to go. It was not as good as I had planned initially, but the general direction was north, so it was ok.

08L's nose was pointing towards Nappa Valley. We propellered past Santa Barbara, San Louis Obispo and Salinas and generally had a good time. And then again an amendment to the clearance to keep us far away from San Francisco. And far away from San Francisco means far out on the ocean. I can not help it, but if I know that I can not glide to shore in case of engine problems, the automatic engine roughness sets in - you know the feeling that the engine sounds a bit different than it's supposed to - even though in reality it's most likely just as usual.

I have never run out of fuel. And I am not planning to, but when you are on a long flight, you start playing with your mind, developing ideas, discarding them, and inventing new ones. One of the ideas that did not want to go away anymore was to try running out of gas under controlled conditions. I new I was rather low on the left tank, and it looked intriguing to find out how that would sound if the engine quit and how it would come back when switching to the right tank.

Nothing could really go wrong, and a friend of mine had this actually happen to him, not even under so controlled conditions as I was planning. But then when I was out there, more than twenty-five miles away from shore, well west of the Golden Gate Bridge, feeling that there was only a couple of ounces of fuel left in the left - - - I chickened out.

Switch to the right tank, note in log: time, hobbs, and tach. Found out a bit later that the feeling of only some ounces left was just that, a feeling. There were still two gallons usable in the tank, when I later fueled up in Nappa.

.... the sage will continue when I find time to write more, especially my lesson I learned about drinking too much coffee before heading off into the low ceiling of a four hour instrument flight ....

Burbank Approach, Cherokee 8308L, five miles south of the Filmore VOR, three thousand five hundred, landing Burbank with Information Charly.