7 Oct 2006: When Fall Comes to New England

I planned to leave at 0700 for an autumn flight to Rutland, Vermont in the Green Mountains. The briefer at Bangor FSS stated that VFR flight was not recommended due to low ceilings and freezing fog at Rutland. However, the conditions were to improve by mid- to late morning and were much better southeast of the Green Mountains. So the backup plan was to head to Rutland via Keene, New Hampshire instead of using a direct route. If ceilings and fog were unmanageable, I could always land at Keene for breakfast; or, if that was fogged in, head back to Bedford. I had taked Rick, my CFII along to fly the plane if I decided to take some pictures.

The takeoff from Bedford was spectacular with the VSI pegged during the initial climb out in the cold air. As much as I hate waiting for de-ice and pre-heat, the visibility and climb performance is worth it. Bedford was overcast at 3,000 feet so I leveled off at 2,500 and turned to the northwest and rising terrain. Before getting to the area around Mount Monadnock, I'd need to climb to 3,500 feet. Ahead, there were numerous holes through the low overcast and in the distance you could see blue skies beyond the cloud layer shelf so I started up to cruising altitude, enjoying the pretty view of the low angle sun on the cloud layers.








Finally, the clouds started breaking up. To he north, Pack Monadnock and the southern tip of the Wapack trail could be seen through the mist.

Directly below, the cloud cover thinned enough to see some colors from the fall foliage.
In the distance we could make out Mount Monadnock, even though the summit was enveloped in a cloud.This mountain holds claim to being the second most climbed mountain in the world, behind Mt. Fuji in Japan. At 3,165 feet, it's certainly no Mount Everest but it sticks up as a lone hill about 2,500 feet above the broad valley below. In low visibility conditions, it'd good to know it's there especially since it lies almost perfectly on the line connecting Hanscom Airport in Bedford with Dillant-Hopkins Airport in Keene.
We stayed about 1,000 feet above the cloud deck and circled the mountain a couple of times. Flight Watch stated that Rutland was still reoporting freezing fog so there seemed little point to continue so I decided to land in Keene instead. My first approach was high so I went missed and came around a second time. This time the approach was much better. I think that the rising terrain near the downwind made me somewhat nervous so I kept the downwing higher than I should have. Also, I'm used to Bedford where a short final after a normal pattern is a rarity so I was just not aggressive enough on chopping power and getting down.
After departing Dillant-Hopkins, the cloud cover was thinning rapidly so we could get a little lower and get some pictures of the beautiful foliage surrounging the lakes southeast of the mountain. After 15 minutes of slowly cirling around the area, we set a course back to Bedford via Pepperell, my town, to get some more photos of the house.
On the way we passed directly over the small airport in Jaffrey, New Hampshire.

Once over Pepperell, I headed for the Nissitisset School which is the middle school in out town. There was supposed to be a soccer tournament there this weekend. The field lots were already almost full and players and parents were already on the fields.

After this, I swung to the south to follow the Nashua River to find my house. I circled a few times to get some photos of the neighbor's pond and house as a gift to them and finally increased power to climb and depart the area. Since I still had plenty of time, a quick landing at Fitchburg Airport seemed in order with breakfast at the Airport Restaurant. Finally, a quick takeoff and landing back home at Bedford.