Atlanta, Georgia USA

We spent the better part of the morning degreasing the airplane, washing her and changing the oil from her powerful engines. Saying goodbye to a few good friends, the engines came to life once again just minutes after a cold front passed and the winds began to howl, dropping the temperature to 40F.

Our IFR departure took us into the cloud deck just above the runway and 15 minutes later and 11,000ft higher we were in the clear air once again. With a 40knot tailwind pushing us along, we arrived to the Atlanta area in just under three hours (680nm). Our approach to Greensboro(3J7) was textbook for the Fligth Sim pilot as we decended to 2700 in IMC armed with stopwatches and the local altimeter setting to combat the gusty winds and a 100ft overcast. A quick spin around the procedure turn and we were soon localizer inbound descending to MDA 400AGL. Needles centered and 90 knots with pea soup and no runway, our stopwatch runs out and with zero visibility, the alarm is an uncandid reminder that we must go-- and like ‘Midnight Cindarella’ Dreamcatcher abandons hope of landing and climbs on the missed approach.

Our next option is Peachtree 50 miles north with ceilings reported at 200 (3/4sm in fog) with the ILS in use. We decide to try our luck there and soon are over the marker inbound chasing needles against a shifting wind in the dark fog. With the wings rocking in turbulence, we soon arrive at the middle marker just 200ft above shopping malls, houses, parking lots, and who knows what else. Barreling down at over 100mph looking for some sign of a runway, certain that if we keep the needles centered, the folks who print the approach plates promise us there’s a runway, and nothing else ahead and just then, Chris Wall spots the lights at our 12:30 and only seconds later our wheels safely touch down on runway 20L---all within the matter of 7 very inconsequential seconds…

We’re on our last few legs before our arrival in Rochester New York, the official starting point of World Fligtht 2000. We’re currently in Atlanta awaiting safe passage to the north as the early settlers might have done west-bound in covered wagons just over one hundred years ago. Strange isn’t it, how, even though our aircraft is outfitted with state of the art equipment, and check hourly weather information from satellites thousands of miles above our heads, we are still hampered by the simple elements unchanged as the seasons themselves. And like the covered wagons before, we’re never sure what tomorrow will hold, what remarkable people we may find ourselves with, what the weather will hold or how far our travels might take us.

Maybe it’s that. The unknown--that unending quench for knowledge which makes us invite danger and leave the comfort of our home and surroundlings, take on adventure to not simply ask---but answer and understand, the very question itself…

I think Prufrock would have agreed: