One of the names on the list was Hal Shevers, founder of Sporty's Pilot Shop. I had to let Hal know I wasn't going to be able to make lunch and the presentation of the Flying Editors' Choice Award to Sporty's in recognition of its DVD-based pilot training programs. I wasn't sure how Hal would take my decision to cancel my flight to Batavia, Ohio. Because I am a senior editor of Flying magazine it's often incorrectly assumed that I can deal with conditions that might have less experienced pilots waiting out the weather.
The afternoon of the day before the flight, I had loaded my airplane, updated the databases in the UPS-AT MX20 and GX60 and the Trimble Approach Plus GPS and plugged in the Reiff preheat system. I had sorted out the en route and approach charts I would need for the trip and arranged them so they would "fall readily to hand" as airplane reviewers used to write about cockpit controls. The airplane was ready to go. It was up to the weather.
At a little after 1:00 a.m., the morning of my planned flight, when Julia Roberts got ready to announce that her good friend Denzel Washington had won the Oscar for best actor, she said, "I love my life!" Her comment was in the back of my mind as I went up the stairs to my office and opened Destination Direct's flight planning software on my computer and asked it to get the weather for my trip to the Batavia, Ohio, Clermont County Airport (I69).
The nonstop flight to Sporty's with a 20-knot headwind worked out to about four-and-a-half hours-right at the far edge of my acceptable leg length. The outlook briefing indicated I wouldn't be traveling under VFR rules, and the winds aloft forecast promised the trip could be as much as an hour longer than my initial flight planning had indicated.
In fact, the forecast was for marginal IFR conditions, meaning I would require an alternate. The planned direct course went right over Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a bit east and south of Pittsburgh, and since it was at just about the halfway mark, I plugged it in as a fuel stop. I listed Latrobe (LBE), Pennsylvania, as the required alternate for Johnstown and Covington (CVG), Kentucky, as the alternate for Sporty's. I had Destination Direct file the flight plans for the two legs and went to bed.
