Cloud Nine Rescue Flights

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