PIREP Straw 3 times 2

Photo: The Pilatus Porter wearing a proud expression.

Photo: Another view of this beauty. Those seats were about to be removed to make space for 10 bales of straw.

Reporting from Finger Lake, again. I love it here. Tough life - satelite TV, hot jacuzzi, exquisite cuisine, ah the hard life. The Porter is waiting outside. I've flown in 17 bales of straw in two trips. I saw my life flash through my eyes in one of those terrifying aviation moments, but appart from that all went well.

Photo: Entering the soup. It was grey all the way down to 100 feet AGL. And even then we had only 1/4 mile visibility.

You see, fog settled over Anchorage and flying back from Finger Lake we entered the soup. I had to make an ils to rwy06L and the short final was a scary one because I wanted to land and we made contact with the runway lights bellow 100' AGL! I was carefuly descending when I sensed movement under the landing gear I looked to see if it was fog or the ground. When I looked back at the instruments I had descended from the glide path and was now too low. For a few instants, until the runway lights materialized, I was disoriented and expecting ground contact at any moment.

The take off from fogged-in Anchorage was uneventful and, as expected, the weather cleared altogether north of Anchorage, before Jewel strip.

Photo: Alaska 737 comes in through the fog while we wait for line up.

Snowboss, where do you need me next? I can fly the porter to McGrath and from there use whatever is more suitable to you.

Flight data:
Anchorage - Finger Lake: 01:10
Finger Lake - Anchorage: 01:00
Anchorage - Finger Lake: 01:00
Aircraft flown: Pilatus Porter (did I mention this baby has air conditioning?? I'm flying in short sleeves here!)

Rui