After a great breakfast at the Fort Peck Hotel, the Crew headed back to Glasgow International Airport with hopes of getting to our various destinations today. The plan was for Greg to take Tony to Kalispell for a flight out to Salt Lake City and then home to Washington, DC. Jill, Kari, Kim and I were to head south through Gillette and Casper, WY with the goal of reaching Rock Springs, WY and the South Pass in the early afternoon, crossing into Utah early tomorrow morning and then home by Sunday evening. I'm teaching a course on Monday morning so it's kind of important to stay on schedule. However, as anyone who's ever flown with the FOD on these expeditions, we won't take any chances where safety is concerned.

From the outset, it seemed rather unlikely that our plans would work out. The skies were overcast and it was pretty windy when we got to the airport this morning. The National Weather Service has a field office at Glasgow, so the Crew took advantage of the situation and met with the weather folks there who were extraordinarily courteous and helpful in letting us check out their screens and various weather outputs. I have to say it was rather strange to sit in Montana and watch Hurricane Katrina build strength in the Gulf of New Mexico. Having spent some time in Bay St. Louis, Gulfport and of course New Orleans, I can imagine what these low-lying areas are in for when this monster hits. Fortunately for us, even a storm this large doesn't seem to be capable of influencing weather along our route just yet, and we'll probably get home in advance of any peripheral impact; unless of course the storm track moves more to the west towards Texas, which seems unlikely at this point.

After the weather brief, Greg decided to try to make Kalispell, MT and land somewhere short if the weather didn't cooperate. Ultimately, it didn't cooperate and he and Tony ended up in Billings, where Tony was able to get a flight out anyway. It's a little ironic, because as we discovered too late, Skywest flies out of Glasgow and he probably could have flown to Salt Lake City from there.

So shortly after Greg and Tony took off, 399SP and 722RJ headed south under cloudy, but high skies. We got to Gillette, WY with no problem. The old Peabody mine appears to still be in operation, and after all these years it's still strange to see the depth of coal (50-80 feet thick) that they have in the western states. In Indiana, we used to strip 100 feet of overburden to get down to a coal seam that was 3-4 feet thick. I had the opportunity to come work at Gillette early in my career and I remember that my friend Dan Carter's father was once Mayor of the town.

After refueling at Gillette we headed south on a track to Rock Springs, WY. The skies were getting darker and the ceiling started coming down pretty quick. After about a half hour in the air, it was readily apparent we wouldn't make Rock Springs today. We started to look at options and this is where having two pilots in the cockpit makes a big difference.

In both our aircraft, the non-flying pilot started looking at maps and computing distances for alternate routes and airports. We discussed our options between the planes on 123.45 mhz. This was because a dark band of thunderstorms lay directly along our route of flight to the southwest and you didn't need radar or a stormscope to figure out we weren't going that way. We were due east of the Crazy Woman VOR when we noticed about five distinct columns of virga dropping down from a front pushing at us from the Bighorn Mountains to the west. There were still clear skies to the south and east so we widened out our track that direction. Based on the information we had gathered at the NWS station in Glasgow, we knew that that we might have to make a large looping detour east of Denver to get away from the weather. As we headed ninety degrees away from the storm track we noticed the first lightning strikes beneath the virga; not real frequent, but after a few minutes one appeared to have started a forest fire in the trees and brush below.

We managed to stay well away from the weather and decided to make a precautionary landing at Casper, WY, about a half hour's flight time from our position. That turned out to be a very wise decision. Although we could have continued south and east in clear weather (there are plenty of airports along the Platte River in that direction), when we were directly east of Casper and turned inbound, the weather over the Bighorns decided to try to get to the airport before we did.

We had some pretty stiff winds when we landed and the FBO crew suggested we hanger our planes for the night. That turned out to be a wise decision as well; the winds were from the southwest at 30 gusting to 40 knots when we got in the courtesy car for the hotel. Five minutes after we checked into our rooms, the storm hit with horizontal rain, hail and wind gusts to 60 mph. We had managed to dodge the storm by about thirty minutes. That might not seem too close to some people, but we were glad to see it pass on the ground.

As I type this up, the rain's stopping but the skies are still dark. I just stepped outside for a little bit and it is noticeably cooler. I'm constantly reminded that it's much better to be prepared and cautious than lucky and I appreciate even more the weather briefings we got from the crew at the NWS in Glasgow, MT. Once again, our FOD Crew worked together today in the air and the flight had a safe conclusion; far short of our destination but we'll try for that again tomorrow.

Flight Operations

This last flight from Gillette, WY to Casper, WY was the most amazing weather flight of the entire trip. We skirted in between massive squall lines of thunderstorms traveling from the SW to NE at 12kts, with much lightening striking on both sides of our flight path. It was beautiful, and amazing to see such intense weather so close. Not long after we landed, a huge thunderstorm full of lightening with very strong winds and rain surrounded us. The Sioux Indians called this the Thunder beings from the West.