So, my adventure starts with a troublesome engine starter. For the past few months, I had noticed that the engine was hard to start on occasion. I thought at first it was the battery, but the symptoms indicated something different. When engaging the starter, the solenoid would click, but the starter wouldn’t turn. This would happen a few times, but then it would click and start fine. This led to the conclusion that either the starter was failing, or the much cheaper solenoid was the culprit. A flying buddy of mine, Ralph Inkster, had a new one he could spare, so I bought it from him.

Thursday evening, June 23, was warm and calm, so I took my newly acquired solenoid and headed north to Carstairs, where I keep the Christavia. On the drive north, I noticed a Cessna 120 idling in front of a small homestead on the west side of Highway 2 just south of Crossfield. I had noticed the farm there before and had even noted the “T” hanger-like building, but didn’t realize a Cessna 120 hid inside. I had driven past the farm hundreds of times before, so I was a bit surprised that it was there. As there was no easy way to pull in, I simply filed it as an interesting fact that would need further investigation at a later date.

I arrived at my hangar and got to work on the solenoid. What should have been a 20-minute job stretched into an hour when I realized that the holes from the old solenoid were about half a diameter out from those on the new one. Of course, this would have been a quick fix with a drill, but I had taken home the drill I usually leave in the hangar and forgotten to return it. Instead, I had to file the mounting hole into a slot with a rat-tail file, taking considerably longer, especially when curled up at an awkward angle under the panel. With that job done, all that was left was to test the new solenoid. The easiest way to do that was to go flying, of course.

The weather was calm, with a 5-knot breeze out of the south and blue skies overhead. There had been talk of a front coming through, but I assumed that had already passed as there was a line of thunderstorms on the eastern horizon about 30-40 miles away. A few cumulus clouds were building to the west, but nothing looked worthy of worry.

I decided to go for a quick run to Olds/Didsbury, about 10 miles north, and practice some circuits. On my third take-off, I remembered the Cessna 120 I spied earlier and decided to head the 20-25 miles south and check it out. As I passed by Carstairs, I noted that the cumulus clouds had grown a bit more and had moved closer, but they still didn’t appear threatening. I continued south to the spot I sighted the 120 and found the farm again. Sure enough, just west of the highway was a trim little north/south airstrip. I circled a few times and noted that the hangar doors were closed, so I turned my sights back to Carstairs. The cumulus clouds had turned into one cloud that was looking a little black underneath, with some light rain falling over the town of Carstairs, about a mile or two west of the airstrip. I flew through the rain shower before turning east to cross over Carstairs’s 34/16 grass runway.

All along, I was keeping a close eye on the ponds and lakes below to gauge the wind speed and direction. It remained a steady 5-10 knots out of the south. Without too much concern for the winds, I crossed center field and joined a left downwind for 16. I had considered doing a bit more flying, but figured it would be better to get on the ground and get the plane back in the hangar before it started to rain there.

Flying a normal circuit, I turned final and passed Alex Fox’s home, which sits about a mile north of the button to 16. The windsock in front of his house was still showing a 5-knot southerly breeze. As I got to the half-mile final point, the plane was hit by a freight train out of the west! The plane bucked up about 100 feet, and the right wing went up into a 45° bank! The plane started drifting rapidly to the east and towards the trees and hangars that line the east side of the strip. A 30° right crab straightened out the plane, and a glance at the sock revealed a 30-knot wind out of the west! There was no way the Christavia could handle that, even with a super-pilot at the controls!

Fortunately, there is a crosswind strip at the south end of 16/34. I continued in the overshoot and climbed to about 500 feet AGL half a mile south of the end of 16 before turning to join a left downwind for 25. Unfortunately, the sky had opened up with rain at this point. I still had good visibility of about 5 miles through the hardest of the rain, but forward visibility through the rain-swept windscreen was severely restricted.

Once on downwind, I glanced at the airspeed indicator, which showed 60 knots. The GPS showed 95 knots, giving me a 35-knot wind. Fortunately, it would be right on the nose for landing. With that sort of groundspeed, I had little time to think on downwind or base, but when I got established on final (with only a 20-25 knot groundspeed), I had all the time I needed to assess the situation and my options.

Before I continue, I have to describe the approach to runway 25. From the button ahead to where it intersects the button of 34, the runway slopes downhill about 30 feet in about 300 feet. This is wonderful when taking off, but not so great when landing. From the button heading east is another hundred feet, with the slope continuing up another 10 feet to the road. Along the east side of the road are the power lines! Although marked with balls, it still makes for an interesting obstacle. Finally, the windsock sits in the northeast corner of the runway intersection. The runway is about 1500 feet long, which is usually plenty as it’s only used when a strong crosswind makes 34/16 unusable.

And so, with this in mind, I came up with a plan. With good visibility out of the side windows, I’d continue the approach, watching the power lines out the side. The runway was visible but obscured through the 65-knot rain pounding on the windshield. Fortunately, I’ve used the runway enough to have a good idea of what I was seeing without needing the details. I planned on continuing the approach feeling out the turbulence as I got closer to the ground. If I was too high or it got too turbulent, I’d overshoot and head west out of the area and find a strip nearby to lay up until the weather passed.

Despite the adrenaline coursing through me, the approach was progressing surprisingly well. I passed the power lines with about 50 feet to spare and continued with the approach. By the time I passed the windsock, I was about the same height as the sock, putting the wheels about 10 feet off the ground. Using the front windshield to make sure I was lined up with the runway and the side windows to gauge my height, I flared at the right height and settled onto the ground with a surprisingly gentle touchdown. With only about 20 knots of groundspeed when I touched, I was stopped in about 150 feet, even without the brakes. I sat there for what seemed like an hour (although it was really less than a minute) and waited for my pulse rate to slow and to gather my wits.

Next came the taxi. I had to backtrack 25 and then taxi nearly the entire 2800 feet of 34 to get back to the security of the hangar. In my mind came the teachings of my father and his insistence on using the controls to ensure that the tail remained planted on the ground and the windward wing would be forced down. The 180° turn to backtrack 25 held two surprises. First was just how easily the plane handled the now 40-knot winds. The second was to discover that I was only 250 feet from the intersection, the same intersection I had passed at 10 feet above the ground! Boy, did I ever stop short.

The crosswind taxi up 34 continued to prove quite stable. There were a couple of moments where full rudder and brake were needed to keep her straight, and on a couple of occasions, I felt the left wing start to lift a bit, but it was quite manageable. As I made the turn onto the ramp, I thought I saw a figure through the rain-streaked windshield, hunkering in the lee of the big hangar. As I kicked the plane west in front of my open hangar, I realized that the figure was Mike Sweere coming to help. I quickly shut down and exited the plane, anxious to push it back in the hangar before the wind permanently jammed it in! As I climbed out, I heard Mike yell, ”That was CRAZY!!!” Usually, the uphill push to get the plane back in the hangar is a bit of a strain, but between the adrenaline still pumping through me and the 40-knot wind helping us out, it went in very easy. From shutdown to hangar door closed couldn’t have been more than two minutes!

The rain stopped about 10-15 minutes after I had the plane in the hangar, and the winds subsided to about 20 knots out of the west, but the temperature had dropped a good 10°C. In hindsight, it was obvious that the front, which I thought had passed through earlier, had just hit with a vengeance. About once a year during the summer, we get a fast-moving cold front out of the west that clips along at 30-40 knots. Often they are marked by an extreme wind speed increase and direction change along with a murky yellow cloud of dust that it picks up off the ground as it passes over the farms. Since it’s been unusually wet this spring, the normally dry air was quite moist, allowing this cloud to grow from a few small cumulus clouds to a full-grown cell in a matter of 20 minutes, directly over the field. Being directly underneath it, I couldn’t see just how tall the cell was growing and how dangerous it was becoming.

And dangerous it was. Here in Calgary, 30 miles south of Carstairs, the winds associated with the front knocked over trees! However, there were no thunderstorms here. Fortunately, my story ended well, with a renewed confidence in both my skills and the abilities of the stout little Christavia. With only about 1000 hours total and with less than 600 on the Christavia, I am by no means an experienced pilot, but I guess I’ve developed enough skill (along with a good dose of luck) to dodge the bullet on that landing!

Oh, by the way, the starter solenoid proved not to be the fix for my starting issues… but that’s another story.