Unexpected Stop

Neither Sasha or Carolyn had been in a small plane, and Sasha has on occasion mentioned her fear of flying. Both had asked if I could take them along sometime.

A recent Friday looked like a great day to go have some breakfast and take a couple of friends along.

Taking someone new along is always fun, but not without unknowns with new passengers and a big breakfast. During the preflight I did quietly take a peek to make sure some sick-sacks were on board count.

The skies near Twin Oaks were mixed with low ceilings to the east, and clearing to the west. Current conditions towards Independence were good, with improving conditions forecast.

We made a turn to the west after departure to reach the clear, and turned south with good conditions.

As we approached the ridge south of Twin Oaks on the return from breakfast, we were met with solid overcast below. Hillsboro was reporting overcast at 1500ft, so we turned west to see if we could come in under the overcast from the lower terrain at that end of the valley.

As we descended in the clear, I could see that the overcast was to low in the west end of the valley to get under comfortably, so we we turned back east to land at Sportsman Airpark in Newberg. Here we could wait for the overcast to breakup, or call for a ride if it came to that.

Once on the ground at Sportsman, I called over to Twin Oaks to state the obvious that we would be late returning, then made a call to my boss, who I was overdue for a meeting with, and fill her in on our status. I knew she would be good with it.

After hanging around the office and ramp for an hour, the clouds began to break up north of us, and we launched back into the air for Twin Oaks.

Approaching the pattern, I talked with a pilot friend of mine that we'd seen on the ramp prior to departure, just now taking the runway. Apparently we had gotten out that morning just prior to the conditions becoming IFR, delaying their departure.

We got back to work a little later than expected, but it was a fun morning.