Ernesto and the Hot Section
By Dick Karl
December 2006
 With tense trepidation, I watched the path of Hurricane Ernesto. For days prior to my son’s wedding in New England the storm lingered over Cuba. It was projected to get loose in the Gulf of Mexico, threatening our home in Tampa. Then the computer model shifted course eastward, away from home but towards the Atlantic coast and, ultimately, the Northeast. The guys and girls on The Weather Channel were whooping it up in anticipation.
Meanwhile, in Bartow, Florida, another potential hurricane was on the loose. I had taken our Cheyenne to Bill Turley of Aircraft Engineering for a hot section inspection on the right engine. The cost of the inspection was as unpredictable as the hurricane and potentially, for me at least, just as dangerous. Naturally, the right engine was the one that had traditionally started cooler, ran cooler, burned less fuel and was the epitome of a good running, mature PT-6. But it was time.
It felt as if the engine and the storm were alternating threats and I had no choice but to wait and watch and listen. Then came a call. New turbine blades were needed. There were 58 of them. At $226.11 a piece. “You can make a necklace out of one of the discarded ones,” said Turley. “A $13,000 necklace.” Ouch. I had been saving for this event, but this was going to be more than I had saved. (A note to readers who feel I am too rich and have too much fun: You are correct. Still, this would be an unpleasant surprise even to a Rockefeller.)
Next question: Would the engine be ready in time for us to take the airplane to the wedding? What about the path of the storm? If the engine were ready and the airplane back in service, would the weather make flying a newly reassembled engine unwise? How do I know everything has been bolted back together properly? Just in case, backup airline reservations were made.
By the Thursday before the wedding the airplane was back in the hangar in Tampa, but the projected path of the now downgraded tropical storm was squarely in our way. Tops to 450, hail and heavy rain were some of the distinguishing niceties of the system. I spent much of Thursday night trying to figure out a way to take the airplane and eschew the airlines.
Friday morning. There are many thunderstorms surrounding Tampa, despite the fact that Ernesto is now coasting in at the Virginia-North Carolina border, miles and miles away. A trip up the East Coast isn’t going to happen. Believe it or not, I decide that Louisville will be a good fuel stop for the trip from Tampa to Lebanon, New Hampshire. This is only 260 miles out of the way. I am determined to go and to go safely. What’s an extra hour or so? The winds in the mid-20s appear light. There are rain showers in Ohio and more are predicted. We’ll deal with them when we see them, I think.
Towering cumulus are visible on the drive to the airport, mostly out over the Gulf of Mexico, but there is definitely more activity than usual for a summer morning. As I load the airplane I can feel the wind shifting uncomfortably, first from the north, then the south, then the west. By the time I fill the thermos with coffee and walk back out to the airplane, there is an obvious thunderstorm just south of the airport and it is already raining. Jets are departing to the north, which looks clear—sort of. I urge my wife to hurry. “Let’s get out of here,” I say. She doesn’t like this. I feel the rain hitting the side of my face.
Strapped in and buttoned up, I start the “new” engine first. It starts hotter than it used to, but well within limits. The rain has picked up. The ATIS is old, still reporting clear skies with surrounding towering cumulus. I pick up our clearance to Louisville. I got my instrument ticket there in 1972—it will be fun to see Bowman Field again. By the time I get onto ground control I hear the controller tell another aircraft that the airport is closed to departures. “We’ve got a ground stop and we’re very likely going to turn the airport around,” he said.
Our backup scheduled airline departure time is an hour away. I sit tight. A regional airline turboprop shuts down and asks for an estimate of the delay. Thirty minutes, she is told. I sit, calculating. I just really want to go in our airplane.
 After 20 minutes airliners are starting to get approved for push back. We’re instructed to taxi to 18L. There are clear skies to the east. The Nexrad picture on the Avidyne MFD shows red along the west coast of Florida, but little beyond Cross City and nothing else all the way to Louisville. There’s rain in Ohio and Ernesto, of course, stretches his arm of mayhem inland from Norfolk all the way to the Alleghenies.
We’re cleared for takeoff; maintain 6,000, heading 180 degrees, the opposite of our destinations. A harried controller speaks sharply to an errant VFR light airplane. “Turn right to 270 degrees,” he instructs. The pilot wails, “That’s right into the storm.” The controller barks, “You’ve got converging traffic at one mile. I will not put you in the weather.” I decide to remain quiet.
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