After the rain, we had 8 inches of snow here the other night and the snow
blew all day Wednesday. They canceled school at noon that day and never
plowed any of the roads until Thursday afternoon. Wednesday's private
ground school had to be canceled mostly because visibility was less than 1/8
mile with 20-30mph winds out of the west with snow and blowing snow
everywhere. But last night the airport had been plowed out and it was time
to go flying!! Until the plane wouldn't start... even though it had sat in
the heated hanger all day, the battery in the Archer had seen it's better
days. So we pushed it back inside, got the doors buttoned up and hooked up
the charger for an hour. By this time it was down to 0F outside so after
pulling it out a second time, I jumped in and after 2 hesitant cranks of the
prop it fired and started. All the lights of the city and of the runway
glowed against the bright snow, and the lights of the freight traffic coming
into CWA just 20 miles north made for a beautiful night of flying. (not to
mention that great full moon!) 2.1 hours, a night time checkout, a hold, 4
instrument approaches with 4 touch and goes later we were done. Even though
it was after 9:00, it was almost too nice to quit.
--
Jim Burns III

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