Cloud Nine Rescue Flights

Archive for the ‘Flights’ Category

I’d aimed for having two transports in December. Kylie Troy of the Animal Adoption League had eMailed me with a request for a transport up to Syracuse, NY, a run that I had done before for her on previous occasions. Frequently, we’ve had to combine transports with multiple senders to fill the plane. In this case, Kylie eMailed me with a list that was larger than I could carry! Because the health certificates issued for the dogs expire after 10 days and I knew we wouldn’t be able to transport the remaining dogs in that time frame, it was expecially important to  make an accurate estimation of how many animals we could take rather than just having her bring all of the dogs and we’d fit in as many as we could. Health certificates represent work and expense on the part of the sender, so we want to make sure that if a health certificate is obtained, that it gets used. I looked at the sizes of the dogs being sent, and we agreed on 15 dogs that we believed would fit. I knew it would be a tight squeeze, but believed they’d all fit without an issue.

This girl received lots of love from her foster dad, but it was time for her to head off up north to find her forever home.

We planned the transport for Sunday, December 13th. We normally do transports on a Sunday, which allows a flight down Saturday and also spending some time with the senders. This time is frequently spent discussing future transports and how we can do things better, as well as important social interaction. It’s always nice to get to actually spend time with the people you’re working with, especially since we’re based all over. Additionally, there were several events in Rock Hill on Saturday that I wanted to attend to get to meet with some more of the animal rescue leaders and volunteers from the area. However by Friday morning it was clear that Sunday’s weather was not looking good, with freezing rain predicted on the ground and at altitudes across the entire route of flight, plus low clouds that were forecast to be at or below minimums for instrument approaches into the airports I would be landing at.

It was a chilly morning, but everyone still bundled up and came out to bring the dogs to the Rock Hill airport and help get them loaded up and ready to go.

This may present a question to some people. We state that when others can’t fly, we still are. Winter snow and summer thunderstorms don’t deter us. That is true, but safety is always of paramount concern and there is no airplane built that can fly anytime in any condition (although some come pretty close). When forecasted conditions are less than required by instrument approaches and freezing rain is predicted, then that’s an indication that you may not be able to safely leave the ground. Changing the day of a transport is not an easy decision, especially a day earlier. It means that the senders have to make sure the animals are ready a day earlier and get to the airport that day, and the receivers have to be able to receive the dogs on that new day. The media needs to be contacted and informed of a change in schedule. It also means last-minute changes to flight planning.

We had plenty of volunteers who came to pick up the dogs in Syracuse!

Fortunately, Kylie was able to work all of these details out for senders and receivers, and the transport was a go for Saturday, which looked to be much better weather wise. Since this was Friday morning when I made that call, it also meant that I had to prepare last-minute for flying down to South Carolina. After work (yes, I do have a day job!) I headed home to pack my bag, and then to the airport to hop in the plane and fly down south. The winds were howling, but it was a perfectly clear night with not a cloud the whole trip down. I got there in time for a late dinner. Jackie Kyles, who’s not only someone I’ve worked with in the past on transports but is also Treasurer on Cloud Nine’s Board of Directors, was kind enough to let me stay at her house. After dinner we all went to sleep, as it was still going to be an early morning.

The dogs were ready to deplane in Syracuse!

Saturday morning we woke up and headed to the airport. Both CN2 and WBTV were there to do stories on what we were doing, and did very positive stories on Cloud Nine, our mission, and the epidemic of animal overpopulation. It was quickly evident that getting all these animals packed in would be just as much of a challenge as I thought it would be. By the time we had virtually all of them loaded there was one left, Abby, who ended up being my copilot! I don’t just have that sticker up there for show!

See, dog really IS my copilot!

With the dogs loaded, I fired up the engines and we headed for Syracuse. As I was flying along it quickly became evident that this schedule change was a good move. One could not have asked for a better day to fly. There was not a single cloud in the sky the whole way from South Carolina to Syracuse, with smooth air the whole way and a slight tailwind. After a bit of flying around Charlotte airpsace, I managed to get cleared direct to Syracuse, and had an easy flight up.

Flying up with our very full load, but a beautiful trip!

Once in Syracuse, we unloaded the animals. Many volunteers came to help with unloading them! Larry Wilcox, who is Cloud Nine’s website designer, lives in Syracuse. He and his wife came to have lunch with me and meet face-to-face. Larry saw a news story on Cloud Nine the first time we came to Syracuse and wanted to help, so he volutneered his web-design skills to revamp Cloud Nine’s website. He’s done a great job, and I was glad to get to meet him and shake his hand.

The flight home was an easy one as well. It felt odd Sunday morning that I actually woke up in my house instead of somewhere in the South getting ready for a transport. When I took my dogs out first thing in the morning, it was instantly affirmed that making the trip Saturday was a good idea, as my entire property was a solid sheet of ice, with freezing rain coming down at a good rate. Throughout the day the weather remained in conditions that would not have been good to fly in. I was glad that we got this transport done when we did, and that we were able to get the 15 dogs moved. I’ll be heading back to Rock Hill right after Christmas, though, to fetch the remaining dogs and take them up to safety in Syracuse where they will be adopted out to loving new homes!

The flight up Saturday was as gorgeous as one could ask for, not a single cloud the whole way from South Carolina to Syracuse!

I’d like to thank everyone involved for another successful flight, and especially for handling the last-mintue changes to schedule so graciously. Kylie Troy and her group at the Animal Adoption League always make the transports a breeze. Karen Kukla and her team in Syracuse were on time and helpful on receiving. I’ll be seeing all of them again in a week when I finish the job and bring the remaining dogs up to Syracuse.

Here are links to some of the coverage we got!

CN2 News

Animal rescuer airlifts York County strays

Blue Skies,

Ted

Flying down to the Carolinas over a cloud layer on a beautiful day! When it looks ugly on the ground, this is what it looks like in the sky.

The shelter in Anderson, SC is always overfilled, having to put down 300 animals per week due to overpopulation. Rhonda Sims works tirelessly to save as many of them as she can, through both air and ground transports. In this case, she had a group that was ready to go north, it was critical that they be moved prior to Thanksgiving. Rhonda had a crew that turned out to be 12. Kylie Troy of Animal Adoption League had eMailed me earlier in the week asking if I’d have room for any dogs on an upcoming transport, and it turned out that with this load, there would be room for more. Amy Storms, who had previously delivered dogs to me in Spartanburg, SC for pickup, was to bring these two to Anderson.

Ever the caring one, Nickie kept the littlest one of all warm as we were loading up.

I loaded up the Aztec up on Saturday morning for the flight down to Anderson, South Carolina. The flight down was a beautiful one, right at the top of the clouds. Flying above a solid cloud layer is one of my favorite things, but flying right at the cloud tops is one of the most fun sensations. It’s one of the few times in flying that you truly get a feeling of just how fast you’re going, and it feels like sailing a ship on the high seas. On the way, I stopped in Chapel Hill, NC to pick up Trish Cates, Cloud Nine’s Chair of the Board. Despite having been an invaluable member of Cloud Nine’s team and having come to support transports several times on the ground, she had never been in the plane to see what a transport was like, which is something I want all of Cloud Nine’s volunteers to experience first hand.

Getting the dogs loaded up - always an adventure!

I picked up Trish, for whom this was her first flight in a small airplane, and by this point the clouds had cleared, for a perfectly clear flight to Anderson. You quickly start to gain an appreciation for the speed that an airplane affords you. Sure, you do have transit delays on both the originating and destination ends with getting to the airport, loading the plane, and then getting checked in at the destination airport and getting to your hotel or other destination, but Trish said the flight we completed in about 80 minutes would have taken her close to 6 hours to drive. How’s that for time savings?

Jackie holding another dog, ready to get loaded!

The crew at Anderson Aviation welcomed us. Having been to Anderson multiple times before, they’ve gotten to the point where they know us well. I have always been impressed by the hospitality we’ve received at Anderson. We borrowed one of their loaner cars, and headed to the hotel to check in and get settled for a bit before Rhonda and Larry Sims met us for dinner. Even though I’ve seen Rhonda a number of times over the past few months, it’s been a while since we had the chance to sit down over dinner and catch up. Rhonda is not only a great and dedicated coordinator who makes my life easy doing transports, she’s also one of my favorite people to talk to. We had a few discussions, but I’ll save the main content for later.

These guys were all loaded up and ready to go. I warned the receivers in Manchester that they were "extremely cute", not just garden variety cute. They had been found in horrible filth initially, but were nursed back to health.

I wanted to get a good night’s sleep, and so called it an early and headed to bed. The next morning, Trish and I made it back to the Anderson airport with all our animals waiting for us. It was a gray and rainy morning. We kept the animals in the cars as long as possible, and started loading them up, being sure to put the animals heading to Albany in the back of the plane to make for easiest loading and unloading. Loading went well and this case was a fairly easy task without complications. The fact that we use a flexible configuration of cages makes loading generally fairly simple, even with large numbers of animals.

"HI!" These guys were great passengers for the flight, wanting to lick me the whole time through the cage.

Once we were loaded up, Trish and I fired up the engines and headed off into the skies. Despite it being rainy in Anderson, the weather the rest of the trip was actually better than expected. We did a quick turnaround in Chapel Hill, NC to drop her off. She’d never been in a small airplane before, but liked it tremendously and now is interested in learning herself. As a flight instructor, I think I can help her arrange that! I continued on my way up to Albany. The trip was uneventful, with there either being no clouds, or else flying above them. Approaching Albany there was a low cloud layer, but it cleared up right before the Albany airport, making for an easy visual approach.

Me with two of our passengers who deplaned in Albany.

Once on the ground in Albany, we taxied over to Million Air, the FBO at Albany. We had originally received confirmation of one news station coming to do a story on our trip, but that was canceled due to some confusion. After unloading the four dogs whose destination was Albany, we refueled and then found out that Channel 10 was intending on coming to do a story! I called the reporter back, and explained that due to a change in plans we arrived earlier than the press released originally stated. She promptly hopped in the car and came out to the airport.

Getting the cages loaded back into the Aztec.

This created another issue, for which I want to extend a great deal of thanks to Million Air and Albany Airport. Frequently there are rules regarding the presence of media on airport grounds, and especially of anyone not a pilot, passenger, or airport employee on the flight line. Seeing as I hadn’t expected for any news crews to show up, I hadn’t called to make arrangements for media crews to be allowed on the field. The staff of Million Air contacted Doug Myers, media representative for the Albany Airport, who happily worked with us to ensure that we could conduct our interview, before sunset no less. Their efficiency and willingness to help was commendable, and I can’t thank them enough for being such a great help.

Marie from WTEN news in Albany came to the airport to do an interview and did an excellent story on Cloud Nine!

With the interview complete, I hopped back in the Aztec with the remaining dogs heading up to Manchester. I love dropping off animals in Manchester. Not only are the staff of Wiggins Airways very friendly, but the Manchester Animal Shelter always comes out to greet in full force! For a load this large especially, there were a number of volunteers waiting from Manchester Animal Shelter, who quickly took the dogs and got them on their way back to the shelter. Manchester Animal shelter does an excellent job of getting animals adopted out in short order. Given the extremely cute nature of these, I’m sure they will be no exception. Adam Bezanson was also there, and came to return the cages he borrowed from me, plus give me a ride to dinner. We had a nice dinner, and I then hopped back in the Aztec for the flight home. Transports to Manchester end up making for long days, but they’re well worth it.

Engines fired up, and off to Manchester we go to drop off the remaining dogs!

This was one of the smaller transports in terms of numbers we’ve done out of the past few, but nevertheless was very successful. Things went together well, and I was happy to not only get these animals transported, but also get the word out about the problem of animal population to Albany, where we’d not yet received any media attention. See the link below for the story, I was pleased with how it turned out. Thanks to Marie Luby from Channel 10 in Albany for coming out to cover the story, and publishing such a positive story about what we do. She was great to work with, and is a true credit to the journalism profession. http://www.wten.com/Global/story.asp?s=11555091 Oh, I needed to talk about what Rhonda and I discussed at dinner. Among other things, we talked about upcoming transports. I had fully planned on doing a transport over Christmas weekend, and told Rhonda about this. She gave me that smile that only she can, and said “Theodore, I’d like to book the tickets for that flight.” She’s taken to calling me Theodore when I make her day. We discussed a bit further, and we’ll be back in Anderson on December 27th, giving some animals the best Christmas present of all: a chance at a new home.

The news crews got some final footage of me taxiing out and taking off, just as the sun was setting.

Blue Skies, -Ted

It’s hard for me to believe the last transport Cloud Nine performed was in the beginning of October. We’ve been anything but idle for the remainder of October, though. We spent a lot of time focusing on getting our organizational structure more sound, getting some solid plans in place to ensure transports continue, fund raising, and plane maintenance. You may recall that after much reliable service, the plane decided it was time for some TLC, which it got. I’m pleased to say that it’s back in the sky and better than ever!

Flying down to Kinston, North Carolina above the clouds

During the downtime, I talked with several people regarding getting transports going for the remainder of the year. One of them was Joanna Shertzer of Encore Pets. She initially had a request for five dogs, which then grew to 11 going to East Smithfield, PA, Middletown, NY, and Manchester, NH. Kylie Troy, an expert and finding dogs to add to any and all transports, then asked me if I might have room for a batch of 10 6-week old puppies! We always have room for puppies, especially such tiny and cute ones! Better yet, they had to go to New Hampshire!

Everyone was excited to get to go on a flight!

I invited a friend of mine from New Hampshire, Adam Bezanson, to come along on this transport. He flew to Williamsport, and we flew down to Kinston, NC on Saturday, November 14th. Adam has met me in Manchester on several of my drop-offs, and previously did a “Cloud Nine Connection” flight from Manchester up to Maine, but hadn’t been along for a complete transport. The flight down was a good one. Even though on the ground there was a fairly low cloud layer, above the clouds the sky was perfectly clear, plus we were getting a decent tailwind up at 12,000 ft. We had to shoot an instrument approach through the thin cloud layer into Kinston, and were on the ground without any problems.

"How on earth am I going to fit all these dogs in?!" We had a full load for sure!

Sunday morning we arrived at the Kinston airport bright and early at 8 AM, ready to load up our passengers for the flight up to Scranton, PA, which was a convenient point for the shelters from East Smithfield and Middletown to meet. I had the pleasure of getting to meet Joanna, who was as cheerful in person as she was on the phone and in eMails! Additionally, she presented me with some donations that her group had managed to raise to help Cloud Nine, which was greatly appreciated! At first I was concerned with the number of large dogs I saw getting walked (which was more than the 11 we were supposed to pick up). Fortunately, some of the dogs were just along for fun and not coming. Whew! There was definitely not room for 14 large dogs on the flight! One of the puppies had gotten adopted the night before, so only 9 were getting sent up north on this trip, making for a total load of 20 dogs.

Goodbye, Droopy! You're heading off to a better place!

We got to loading the plane, which was an exercise in proper packaging. While it’s fairly routine for us to fit close to 20 animals and we had 23 in for the Georgia Puppy Caravan Part II without fitment issues, but we generally don’t have 11 fairly large dogs in one transport. It took a little extra time to figure out where to put everyone, but we managed to get all 20 in! For 10 of the large dogs, the trip was going to be relatively short, only heading up to Scranton, PA. What would be 9 hours in a car ride (and more when split among multiple drivers with stops, bathroom breaks, feeding, etc.) was a short, under 3-hour flight. After an emotional farewell from many of the volunteers who were there (many of these dogs had been fostered by the volunteers who brought them to the airport), Adam and I hopped in the mighty Aztec, fired up the engines, and were in the air, heading back north.

One of the nine puppies transported from North Carolina to New Hampshire

It was another gorgeous day with perfectly smooth air and not a cloud in the sky, after a few puffy clouds low to the ground on departure. However the one significant cloud on the entire trip happened to be parked directly over the airport in Scranton, PA, requiring us to shoot an instrument approach in. Once on the ground, we were greeted by Michelle Stymacks of Animal Care Sanctuary and John from Pets Alive in Middletown, NY. After getting the dogs unloaded and sorted, we made a quick turnaround and headed back to Cloud Nine’s home base of Williamsport, PA. We still had 10 dogs on board, but that was one large dog and the 9 puppies. Adam had left his plane in Williamsport, and still had to fly home to New Hampshire, so he’d kindly offered to do yet another “Cloud Nine Connection” flight, and bring those dogs to New Hampshire. I greatly appreciated this, as it afforded me some more time to take care of cleaning out the plane and cages to prepare for next week’s transport.

Thanks to everyone who made his trip a success!

This was one of our most successful transports in my mind. Although we had a bit of trouble getting fitment figured out, we managed to get all the animals fit in the plane successfully. Additionally, we made a great new friend in Joanna, who I hope we will have the pleasure of working with again. While all of us do this for the animals that we save, having good people to work with makes it much easier and allows us to get more accomplished. I’d like to extend a great thanks to Joanna and her volunteers who came to Kinston to help out on the transport, Candace Christopherson, Lindsay Williford, Diane Degnan, Julie Tiso, Sandra Humphrey, and Adrianne Forbes. Additionally, I’d like to thank Jim and Joanne Thompson from J and J’s Homeless Pet Rescue, who sent some of the larger dogs along. Thanks to everyone for their hard work to make this transport go smoothly and save 20 wonderful dogs! Depsite popular belief, the transport itself is the least time-consuming part of the whole operation. It’s all the leg work that goes into the transport that is truly time-consuming for all involved. I’d especially like to thank Joanna for helping to bring some donations into Cloud Nine, which helps keep us flying!

In Scranton, PA to unload 10 of the animals. The other 10 will be heading on to New Hampshire.

I’d like to thank everyone who helped make this transport a success. A lot of behind the scenes and planning work goes into making these transports a success. Thanks to Joanna Shertzer of Encore Pets who I worked with on this transport, and her volunteers who came out to help load us up on Sunday, namely Candace Christopherson, Mgr. of Carteret County Humane Society; Lindsay Williford, from Live Oak Vet Hosp.; Diane Degnan, Encore Pets; Julie Tiso, Encore Pets; Sandra Humphrey, Encore Pets; Adrianne Forbes, Encore Pets. Also Jim and Joanne Thompson from J and J’s Homeless Pet Rescue, Washington, NC who brought in three of the animals, and Kylie Troy of the Animal Adoption League, who coordinated the nine puppies to fill the load, to Adam Bezanson for providing the “Cloud Nine Connection” flight up to Manchester, NH, and to the receivers, Michelle Stymacks of Animal Care Sanctuary, John of Pets Alive, Journey Ewell of Manchester Animal Shelter, and Rae Tucker, also in Manchester. Last but certainly not least, Trish Cates, who’s been volunteering with Cloud Nine and keeps us running smoothly by taking care of all the items that I don’gt have time or knowledge how to do, who came down and kept the loading going smoothly.

Thanks for flying with us! Now go find your forever homes!

We aren’t done for the year yet, though! This coming weekend I’ll be flying down to South Carolina for another transport, and we’re in the works for another transport or two in December, with one special surprise transport in the works. I don’t want to jinx it by talking about it too much, but if it happens, you’ll be sure to hear about it here!

Blue skies,

-Ted

I knew that October was going to be a busy month, and there likely wouldn’t be much time for transports. It was important to me to get at least one transport in during October, although I wasn’t planning on a transport this weekend as there was a gathering I wanted to attend in West Virginia. However, I had two people contacting me for transports – Jean Schnurr and Rhonda Sims. It turned out that their two transports together would about fill the plane, and another dog from Kylie Troy completed the load. It looked as though it would be doable via both parties meeting in Columbia, South Carolina, and three drop-off points: Philadelphia, PA, Manchester, NH, and Bath, ME (actually Wiscasset).

Getting ready for taking back off!

I woke up dark and early in West Virginia at 5:30 AM and walked out of the hotel to the cold airstrip before the sun had considered getting out of bed itself. After pre-flighting the plane and being ready to go, I fired up the engines, got the heater going, and took off on my way down to South Carolina, aiming for arrival prior to the scheduled 9 AM meeting time. It was a beautiful morning to fly, and a few hours later I landed in Columbia, SC for the pickup.

In-flight, a packed airplane filled with lucky animals heading to a bright future!

In Columbia, we were faced with the packaging challenge of fitting the 14 dogs and 3 cats into the Aztec. It was a tight fit, but we managed to get them all in. Unfortunately the loading took longer than planned, and as such we departed about 30 minutes late. We weren’t able to make up any time in the air, but also didn’t end up any later by the time we landed in Philadelphia to drop off the 5 dogs that were deplaning there. I had the opportunity to meet Julie Schnurr there, along with the rescues taking the animals being dropped off there that she had coordinated. We talked about the conditions that the animals had been pulled out of. These were outdoor shelters without much protection from the elements for the animals, and were not good conditions for the animals to be kept in.

The MAMAS shelter in South Carolina.

Another view of the MAMAS shelter. This is where Jean Schnurr pulled animals from.

After talking to the Philadelphia ABC station who came (see link below), we got back in the sky to try to make up some time. After initially getting a bad routing from air traffic control, we managed to end up going direct to Manchester, and managed to successfully make up the 30 minutes lost initially, making for an on-time arrival in Manchester. Journey Ewell of Friends of Manchester Animal Shetler took 7 animals, including the 3 cats that were on board.

Dixie with Pat. It's hard to tell who's having more fun!

After completing the drop-off in Manchester we headed up to Wiscasset, ME to drop off the remaining 5 dogs that were going to Julie Damon of Beau Buddy Rescue. A few weeks prior, my friend Adam Bezanson had flown three dogs up to her when I stopped in Manchester to help reduce some of my flying time, as it had been a long day of flying, however this was the first time I got to meet her. She was eager to take these 5 dogs, who she believed she’d get adopted out quickly.

Ty, our big boy who sat in the back of the plane, having some fun in Philadelphia before heading up to Manchester.

It was a long day, but not over yet. I still had to get back to Pennsylvania, only to find out that the starter on the right engine had decided to give me fair warning it was time to replace it soon, as it didn’t want to start the hot engine after a quick turnaround. On these big old aircraft engines, cold starts are much easier than hot starts (fortunately), so we got dinner locally while the plane cooled off and would (hopefully) have an easier start. Sure enough, the right engine started right up once it had been given a chance to cool off, and we were back in the air, headed home. A new starter was added to the list prior to the next flight, but we got home after 11 hours of flying in one day, and traveling over 1500 miles.

Dropping off animals in Wiscasset, ME.

This was a very successful transport. We managed to get 17 animals transported, some that came out of an even worse state than they’re normally pulled out of, and were able to complete a transport for October. Unfortunately, this past weekend’s transport was canceled (the first transport I’ve canceled for any reason in the year I’ve been doing this) as when we went to change the starter, we found the exhaust system also needed some significant attention. While the Aztec has been extremely dependable and seved us well, it, like all mechanical devices, needs maintenance from time to time. It’ll be back up and running in time for the next transport, however that won’t be until November at some point. I’ll make another post detailing the reasons for that shortly, as there are several factors involved. I’m also happy to report two of the adoptions that have come out of the transport. Ebony and Chi were both adopted from Friends of Manchester Animal Shelter, having found their forever homes!

Ebony with her new mom, who looks very excited!

Chi the Chihuahua with her new parents

Here’s the link to the story from the ABC Station in Philadelphia:

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=7048124

Blue Skies,

-Ted