Passion for Flight

It's getting late in the summer, the weather is still good for flying, and Oshkosh has passed. Where could you fly not too far from Texas to see something really interesting?  The answer is, "Iowa." You say, "Iowa?"  Yes, indeed. There is a most impressive event over the Labor Day weekend: The Old Threshers Reunion in Mt. Pleasant, IA. There you will see -- Huge steam tractors  of the early 20th century including a Case 110 hp steam tractor that is truly intimidating. 110hp Case Steam Tractor  -- Small stationary steam and early combustion engines of that period. -- Large stationary steam engines of that time, for power generation and refrigeration via ammonia compressors. Some of the equipment was  used into the 1980s, in particular the efficient and elegant "Corliss" steam engine.    -- Large early diesel engines for power generation.    -- Early locomotives pulling vintage  passenger cars on a two...

We have just taken o ff from Redmond, OR, in our Zenith 601HDS, N314LB. The Flight Service briefer has cautioned us about smoke moving from the Mt. Je ff erson area to the east exactly into our path. Fires Near Mt. Jefferson, Redmond, OR No problem, I think, and my friend Arie from Tel-Aviv, Israel, concurs. We saw this some years ago when Mt. Shasta was enveloped half-way up in smoke. As soon as we saw the smoke in the distance, we climbed high enough to be well above the smoke layer filling the entire valley below. With GPS we tracked the unseen interstate below, considering it an emergency landing site in case of engine failure.  But this time it is di ff erent. We are taking o ff directly into light smoke, which rapidly thickens as we proceed northbound. We can still see the ground, so this is still VFR. But we cannot climb, since doing so would obscure the ground, e ff ectively making this IFR conditions. What should we do, and how did we get into this fix? The s...