VFR in the mountains - a cautionary tale, especially for us flatlanders

Salty

Salty

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Salty
I meant to share this experience awhile back and never did, but a recent thread reminded me of it. This is one of those "I mostly fly in Florida where AGL = MSL for the most part" and never considered this scenario.

Trip was departing from Florida with a fuel stop in Kentucky / West Virginia mountain area. Aircraft is not IFR capable. Every airport within 200 miles of my planned stop was both forecast and actual VFR at my time of arrival. Not marginal, full VFR. So, I'm thinking I'm good to go, easy sailing. Nope.

Here's the scenario. When I arrived, The cloud bottoms were definitely VFR above the airport, but there was no way to get into the valley safely while VFR. The clouds were just barely above the mountain peaks. I flew to my alternate - same problem. Picked another alternate - same problem. In the end, I circled around and found a way down through the clouds into the valley and landed safely, but I was at the point where my only alternative was going to be to fly an approach without proper gear and pray. Not a good place to be. I'm not real fond of circling around with mountains around, in an area I've never been before. If I'd known the area, I'd probably have had more options. It was probably my most tense flight to date, I was sweating bullets.

I'm glad I plan for an hour spare fuel even when I'm VFR, or it might have been a bad situation.
 
MauleSkinner said:
Just out of curiosity, did you consider backtracking to open country?
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Yes, but the mountains were even higher behind me. This was my second fuel stop, so it's not like I had the range to get back south of the mountains.
 
texasclouds said:
I wonder what the minimum vectoring altitudes are for those airports. Maybe could have called ATC to get through the layer.
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Yeah, I would have engaged ATC for sure for vectors, but thank God it didn't come to that.
 
texasclouds said:
Which airports? What are ya flying?
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You'd think it'd be burned into my memory, but I'd have to dig through the log to see. Maybe I'm blocking the memories. ;)
 
Pretty common up here in Tennessee north Carolina area to be solid overcast on one side and clear or scattered on the other.
Metars by ads-b or xm tend to tell the take and provide ample warning though.
 
It kind of helps reinforce what I've heard a lot of people say: they only wanna do mountain flying on calm wind, CAVU days, or darn near.
After my high DA/mtn flying course last year near Denver I waited for 2 days that were supposed to be pure VFR to get OK weather so I could try on my own. Even though the METARs were generous my visual scan in the air failed the eyeball test and I didn't venture in further.
Glad your situation worked out OK. A healthy fear and sweating bullets in a situation like that is a lot better than a cavalier "I'll cut right through it" attitude.
 
Good story. Thx for sharing. Made a bucket list cross country 2 years ago and quickly learned "vfr'" does not always mean it's ok to fly, for a number of different reasons. After flying in sunny CA for 30 years, I was not at all prepared for the weather crossing this country. Especially, the vfr weather.
 
Salty said:
The cloud bottoms were definitely VFR above the airport, but there was no way to get into the valley safely while VFR. The clouds were just barely above the mountain peaks. I flew to my alternate - same problem. Picked another alternate - same problem. In the end, I circled around and found a way down through the clouds into the valley and landed safely, but I was at the point where my only alternative was going to be to fly an approach without proper gear and pray. Not a good place to be. I'm not real fond of circling around with mountains around, in an area I've never been before. If I'd known the area, I'd probably have had more options. It was probably my most tense flight to date, I was sweating bullets.
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Been there, done that.!!! Got ya heart rate up a little, did it.?? :lol:

Seriously, glad you made it under Ok, and hope you learned something,
 
Lndwarrior said:
Good story. Thx for sharing. Made a bucket list cross country 2 years ago and quickly learned "vfr'" does not always mean it's ok to fly, for a number of different reasons. After flying in sunny CA for 30 years, I was not at all prepared for the weather crossing this country. Especially, the vfr weather.
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And as you know, California is not always sunny, especially along the coast, and the state includes both the highest and lowest terrain in the lower 48.
 
Palmpilot said:
And as you know, California is not always sunny, especially along the coast, and the state includes both the highest and lowest terrain in the lower 48.
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In my mind there is a certain consistency in CA weather. Probably due to the moderating effects of the ocean .

From my limited experienced it seems there was much more randomness to the weather east of the Rockies. Not that I really know....
 
Salty said:
I meant to share this experience awhile back and never did, but a recent thread reminded me of it. This is one of those "I mostly fly in Florida where AGL = MSL for the most part" and never considered this scenario.

Trip was departing from Florida with a fuel stop in Kentucky / West Virginia mountain area. Aircraft is not IFR capable. Every airport within 200 miles of my planned stop was both forecast and actual VFR at my time of arrival. Not marginal, full VFR. So, I'm thinking I'm good to go, easy sailing. Nope.

Here's the scenario. When I arrived, The cloud bottoms were definitely VFR above the airport, but there was no way to get into the valley safely while VFR. The clouds were just barely above the mountain peaks. I flew to my alternate - same problem. Picked another alternate - same problem. In the end, I circled around and found a way down through the clouds into the valley and landed safely, but I was at the point where my only alternative was going to be to fly an approach without proper gear and pray. Not a good place to be. I'm not real fond of circling around with mountains around, in an area I've never been before. If I'd known the area, I'd probably have had more options. It was probably my most tense flight to date, I was sweating bullets.

I'm glad I plan for an hour spare fuel even when I'm VFR, or it might have been a bad situation.
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I had the same issue in Alaska, Sitka was reporting VFR but the entrance to the channel was foggy as anything. Checked my weather and decided to make a go for it, and it worked out, but those are scary decisions. On a side note, not enough fuel to go anywhere else so I was committed regardless. I was mentally prepared to land at or nearby any beach on this journey. But things did workout, albeit many deviations to the plan en route did occur. We made decisions together using the best foreflight data we had available to us.
 
Cautionary tales abound.
As a young under 250 hr pilot starting instrument training, I had a VFR flight from Southern Illinois to Atlanta’s Charlie Brown airport departing late afternoon. All the reporting points were good VFR as I passed Nashville dodging the seemingly high radio towers, and a bit later, past Chattanooga. As nightime is now affecting the flight and undeterred since my past nightime VFR flights were glorious, I am starting to pick up wisps of cloud layer. As there were few ground lights that were seen , I became uncomfortable checking my engine performance not knowing I was chasing updrafts and downdrafts over the mountains. The undercast was becoming more prominent now, and with less than an hour to go, feeling less secure, I fortunately did what I was trained to do-a 180. Now the overcast was solid but up ahead there seemed to be a bright lit area ahead, and unbelievably, the whole of Chattanooga was free of that cloud deck. An overnight stay in Chattanooga, to live and fly uneventfuly to my destination was fortunately the end of the story.
 
Lndwarrior said:
In my mind there is a certain consistency in CA weather. Probably due to the moderating effects of the ocean .

From my limited experienced it seems there was much more randomness to the weather east of the Rockies. Not that I really know....
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General aviation pilots do die in bad weather in California. Here's a relatively recent example. :(

 
This is why *long* cross country flights are great learning experiences. While much about the NAS is consistent everywhere (and good thing, too), the terrain we fly around and the weather it causes can vary widely, and there's just a ton of things out there to be seen and experienced.

It's also why I like to say that you need to continually push your personal envelope to become a better pilot, but only push one corner at a time. That means, when you take a really long trip the first time, or visit areas that are unfamiliar to you, it's best to do so in an airplane you know really well.

Now get outta the nest, little birds! :)
 
Salty said:
I meant to share this experience awhile back and never did, but a recent thread reminded me of it. This is one of those "I mostly fly in Florida where AGL = MSL for the most part" and never considered this scenario.

Trip was departing from Florida with a fuel stop in Kentucky / West Virginia mountain area. Aircraft is not IFR capable. Every airport within 200 miles of my planned stop was both forecast and actual VFR at my time of arrival. Not marginal, full VFR. So, I'm thinking I'm good to go, easy sailing. Nope.

Here's the scenario. When I arrived, The cloud bottoms were definitely VFR above the airport, but there was no way to get into the valley safely while VFR. The clouds were just barely above the mountain peaks. I flew to my alternate - same problem. Picked another alternate - same problem. In the end, I circled around and found a way down through the clouds into the valley and landed safely, but I was at the point where my only alternative was going to be to fly an approach without proper gear and pray. Not a good place to be. I'm not real fond of circling around with mountains around, in an area I've never been before. If I'd known the area, I'd probably have had more options. It was probably my most tense flight to date, I was sweating bullets.

I'm glad I plan for an hour spare fuel even when I'm VFR, or it might have been a bad situation.
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I am not poking you in the eye on your post. Too many private pilots have poor weather knowledge - too many CFIs too.

You should really take this flight as a warning your weather knowledge is lacking and sit down with an experienced CFI for remedial training in both weather theory and services.
 
Clip4 said:
I am not poking you in the eye on your post. Too many private pilots have poor weather knowledge - too many CFIs too.

You should really take this flight as a warning your weather knowledge is lacking and sit down with an experienced CFI for remedial training in both weather theory and services.
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Too bad nobody will instruct me because I’ve had an accident.

As usual, you miss the entire point of my post. Also, as usual, you are wrong in your assessment.

I have better than average weather knowledge. To suggest I need “remedial” training is, despite your bleating that it’s not, nothing more than an lame attempt to “poke the eye”.

Because you prove to be too dense to see it without assistance, I will spell it out for you. The entire point of my post is that I recognize that I have gaps in my knowledge. We all do, even those that think they know everything.
 
It be like that sometimes. For bonus points, add freezing temps.

I think self-deception is easier when you see green VFR dots and friendly TAFs everywhere, priming us to make a "go" decision prematurely. I had one like that a couple weeks ago. A line of thunderstorms was supposed to roll through in the evening, but we'd be back well before then. The TAF was calling for a scattered layer at 5k. No problem, if it's scattered, we'll go over, and we can always go under. Launch, and there's a scattered layer at like 2000. Ok. Eventually we get over another layer at 5k. The clouds seem to have arranged themselves into streets, parallel to the approaching front. We can see the ground below us, and blue sky above us, and the clouds, but the spaces in between look like skim milk. After lunch, we ended up flying the whole way home at 1500. Blech. After I landed, I looked up the sounding:

IMG_0937.jpg
I was too preoccupied by the thunderstorms to notice the garbage temp/dewpoint spread below 10k. It was safe, it was legal, it wasn't particularly stressful, but it certainly wasn't the pleasure flight I thought I was signing up for.
 
George nailed it.

Inadequate weather knowledge, OR FAIL TO USE WHAT YOU HAVE, is the problem that leads us into marginal or worse flights.

Local knowledge of the micro climates in Florida, West Virginia, or the rocky mountains is important if you are going to fly there.

As a pilot who has crossed the Appalachians many times, understanding the local patterns, and the time of day, has kept me in legal and safe flight there most of the time. I once had an interesting conversation with an FAA flight service station employee about a marginal arrival at his airport. After we analyzed my plan B and C, he agreed that I was properly prepared to maintain safety, even though my arrival had been right at the edge of legal and safe. An hour later, the flight would have ended at a different airport, legal and safe, but farther from my destination.

The skewT-log P chart that George posted is Greek to me, but the underlying weather conditions are familiar. High relative humidity is one of the most dangerous conditions for VFR flight. True for flat land and mountains.
 
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Salty said:
Too bad nobody will instruct me because I’ve had an accident.

As usual, you miss the entire point of my post. Also, as usual, you are wrong in your assessment.

I have better than average weather knowledge. To suggest I need “remedial” training is, despite your bleating that it’s not, nothing more than an lame attempt to “poke the eye”.

Because you prove to be too dense to see it without assistance, I will spell it out for you. The entire point of my post is that I recognize that I have gaps in my knowledge. We all do, even those that think they know everything.
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What I read was you learned from flight. Then you come back in this post and defend your better than average weather knowledge. If there was a plan to increase your weather knowledge in the first post, it must have been in really fine print.

In case you don’t know, average pilot’s weather knowledge is really poor. Learning is a change of behavior, I kinda think it is best when the of risk life isn’t part of the learning process.
 
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texasclouds said:
I wonder what the minimum vectoring altitudes are for those airports. Maybe could have called ATC to get through the layer.
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He was non-IFR airplane and the altitudes required to contact ATC in that area are not near the surface.
 
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GeorgeC said:
It be like that sometimes. For bonus points, add freezing temps.

I think self-deception is easier when you see green VFR dots and friendly TAFs everywhere, priming us to make a "go" decision prematurely. I had one like that a couple weeks ago. A line of thunderstorms was supposed to roll through in the evening, but we'd be back well before then. The TAF was calling for a scattered layer at 5k. No problem, if it's scattered, we'll go over, and we can always go under. Launch, and there's a scattered layer at like 2000. Ok. Eventually we get over another layer at 5k. The clouds seem to have arranged themselves into streets, parallel to the approaching front. We can see the ground below us, and blue sky above us, and the clouds, but the spaces in between look like skim milk. After lunch, we ended up flying the whole way home at 1500. Blech. After I landed, I looked up the sounding:

View attachment 132576
I was too preoccupied by the thunderstorms to notice the garbage temp/dewpoint spread below 10k. It was safe, it was legal, it wasn't particularly stressful, but it certainly wasn't the pleasure flight I thought I was signing up for.
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  • What are some of the disadvantages of the Skew-T Log-P diagrams:
  • Available generally twice a day (00Z and 12Z), character of weather can change dramatically between soundings.
  • Sounding does not give a true vertical dimension since wind blows balloon downstream
  • Sounding does not give true instantaneous measurements since it takes several minutes to travel from the surface to the upper troposphere
 
Without getting into some of the tools, here are two truisms about mountain weather.
1. Mountains generate their own weather.
2. Even if (1) wasn't true, a 4000' reported ceiling at a valley airport might mountain obscuration at the ridges.
 
I have no problem flying up and down the valley IFR, but in the mountains? Nope. On paper, I could make some of the MEA's in the Sierras in my Turbo Arrow. In practice, there is no way in hell I'm going to be in IMC at those altitudes. Icing is no joke.
 
Clip4 said:
  • What are some of the disadvantages of the Skew-T Log-P diagrams:
  • Available generally twice a day (00Z and 12Z), character of weather can change dramatically between soundings.
  • Sounding does not give a true vertical dimension since wind blows balloon downstream
  • Sounding does not give true instantaneous measurements since it takes several minutes to travel from the surface to the upper troposphere
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The model output above is available at any lat/long and at any time of interest, down to one hour granularity.

That said...
"It's only a model." - Patsy
 
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geezer said:
The skewT-log P chart that George posted is Greek to me, but the underlying weather conditions are familiar. High relative humidity is one of the most dangerous conditions for VFR flight. True for flat land and mountains.
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So you claim @Salty doesn't know the weather, but a skew-t is greek to you. got it. High RH is dangerous? We'd never fly in FL during the summer. He used decent WX tools to make the flight and the forecast was off. Shared the experience with the group. Not sure the high horse is justified.
 
Hang 4 said:
So you claim @Salty doesn't know the weather, but a skew-t is greek to you. got it. High RH is dangerous? We'd never fly in FL during the summer. He used decent WX tools to make the flight and the forecast was off. Shared the experience with the group. Not sure the high horse is justified.
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Since you are the weather expert, here is what the FAA officially says about Skew-T in the FAA-8083-28 Aviation Weather Handbook, section 25.3.2.1 (new from the FAA in 2022), “The diagrams are intended for, and used by, meteorologists as part of their analysis of the atmosphere and formulation of various forecasts”.

I realize Skew-T has a cult like following of pilots, but Skew-T is not included in any FAA pilot training handbooks. The average pilot would be much better served learning weather theory and the common FAA weather products than venturing in to Skew-T.

Unfortunately, the cult promotes Skew-T to pilots that lack fundamental weather theory and weather services knowledge and it’s a disservice to GA.
 
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Not to be complaining about above posts re Skewt-LogP charts, I do not expect most pilots to have skills for that type of info. George pointed out that in hindsight, he could have expected the conditions he encountered.

I have flown several thousand miles in Florida, several times well west in the Keys. High humidity is cause for extra vigilance, but flyable. One of the most un advertised risks on low pop up cumulus days in the winter months are the hundreds of soaring buzzards and hawks that have migrated there. My wife and I had 7 in sight at one time, swinging in small circles in the rising air. With the poor visibility of such days, they are only in sight for a mile or so, 30 seconds at 120 KN, being much smaller than airplanes, and universally UNDER and in the shade of the cloud. We probably passed in sight of over a hundred in about an hour. Returning from the Keys one year, IFR plan, but the ground in sight, the controller advised that the advancing cold front had intensified, and there was no longer gaps, so I canceled at Frostproof and continued the next day, sparkling cool VFR conditiions, with just flight following and a VFR plan.

Flying into Panama City another year, after sundown, the forecast was ground fog, and I asked my controller to contact the tower, and request a notice at the first appearance of ground fog. About 50 miles out, the bad news came, I revised my plan to the nearest airport, called a cab, and stayed overnight. The conditions where we stayed were just a little bit lower humidity, we went foggy an hour after checking in at the hotel.

High humidity does not mean do not fly, it means use more caution, and always have a pre planned B and C. Enough fuel in the tank to get to an area with no weather issues is the final alternative.

Days with otherwise good VFR conditions, but high humidity, are the ones that produce unexpectedly bad local problems, whether in Appalachia, the mid west, or Gulf coast. Even the Pacific Coast has its magic changes from muggy to cloud, with just a small change in temperature or barometric pressure.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Without getting into some of the tools, here are two truisms about mountain weather.
1. Mountains generate their own weather.
2. Even if (1) wasn't true, a 4000' reported ceiling at a valley airport might mountain obscuration at the ridges.
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Especially if one doesn’t understand a TAF is only forecasting conditions within 5 sm of the airport
 
Salty said:
Trip was departing from Florida with a fuel stop in Kentucky / West Virginia mountain area. Aircraft is not IFR capable. Every airport within 200 miles of my planned stop was both forecast and actual VFR at my time of arrival. Not marginal, full VFR. So, I'm thinking I'm good to go, easy sailing. Nope.
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What about the area forecast and forecast discussion?
Salty said:
Here's the scenario. When I arrived, The cloud bottoms were definitely VFR above the airport, but there was no way to get into the valley safely while VFR. The clouds were just barely above the mountain peaks. I flew to my alternate - same problem. Picked another alternate - same problem. In the end, I circled around and found a way down through the clouds into the valley and landed safely, but I was at the point where my only alternative was going to be to fly an approach without proper gear and pray.
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So...I'm a bit confused about how you got into this situation. Did you fly over an undercast?
 
dmspilot said:
What about the area forecast and forecast discussion?

So...I'm a bit confused about how you got into this situation. Did you fly over an undercast?
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Yes, there was a broken layer below. It was broken even at my destination, actually it was scattered in many areas. but not to the point where I was comfortable circling through a hole without knowing the topology in that area. I could easily get below the cloud layer - if I wasn't worried about slamming into a mountain peak on the other side of the hole I was descending through, or being stuck in a valley I couldn't get back out of and didn't go all the way to my destination. I did actually drop down into a valley a couple times where the clouds allowed, until I realized it wasn't the valley my airport was in, and had to go back up. Again, not a situation I find appealing.

As I said, I did in fact find a hole big enough with cloud bottoms high enough that I could get under it without fear of CFIT, but I'm not happy about the situation I put myself in. I had not sufficientlly considered the danger involved in getting through a broken/scattered layer in unfamiliar terrain. I thought, hey it's broken/scattered and every airport around is VFR. This works perfectly fine in Florida.

It was not a matter of not understanding the weather. Nor was it a matter of the forecast being wrong. It was a gap in my knowledge of how the existing weather would impact me in that specific scenario / location. At the time, it seemed to me safe to assume with 3000 foot ceilings and scattered forecasts in the area, I'd be just fine. I do not hold that opinion any longer.

On my way back home, I flew around this area as the weather was much the same. It took an extra 30 minutes to get home, but I was much more safe.
 
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Salty said:
Yes, there was a broken layer below. It was broken even at my destination, actually it was scattered in many areas. but not to the point where I was comfortable circling through a hole without knowing the topology in that area. I could easily get below the cloud layer - if I wasn't worried about slamming into a mountain peak on the other side of the hole I was descending through, or being stuck in a valley I couldn't get back out of and didn't go all the way to my destination. I did actually drop down into a valley a couple times where the clouds allowed, until I realized it wasn't the valley my airport was in, and had to go back up. Again, not a situation I find appealing.

As I said, I did in fact find a hole big enough with cloud bottoms high enough that I could get under it without fear of CFIT, but I'm not happy about the situation I put myself in. I had not sufficientlly considered the danger involved in getting through a broken/scattered layer in unfamiliar terrain. I thought, hey it's broken/scattered and every airport around is VFR. This works perfectly fine in Florida.

It was not a matter of not understanding the weather. Nor was it a matter of the forecast being wrong. It was a gap in my knowledge of how the existing weather would impact me in that specific scenario / location. At the time, it seemed to me safe to assume with 3000 foot ceilings and scattered forecasts in the area, I'd be just fine. I do not hold that opinion any longer.

On my way back home, I flew around this area as the weather was much the same. It took an extra 30 minutes to get home, but I was much more safe.
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One other thing I let fool me. There were plenty of other GA aircraft flying about that day in that area. That doesn't mean I should have been.
 
Salty said:
Yes, there was a broken layer below. It was broken even at my destination, actually it was scattered in many areas. but not to the point where I was comfortable circling through a hole without knowing the topology in that area. I could easily get below the cloud layer - if I wasn't worried about slamming into a mountain peak on the other side of the hole I was descending through, or being stuck in a valley I couldn't get back out of and didn't go all the way to my destination.

As I said, I did in fact find a hole big enough with cloud bottoms high enough that I could get under it without fear of CFIT, but I'm not happy about the situation I put myself in. I had not sufficientlly considered the danger involved in getting through a broken/scattered layer in unfamiliar terrain. I thought, hey it's broken/scattered and every airport around is VFR. This works perfectly fine in Florida.

It was not a matter of not understanding the weather. Nor was it a matter of the forecast being wrong. It was a gap in my knowledge of how the existing weather would impact me in that specific scenario / location.
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I realize the plane was VFR. Are you an instrument rated pilot and did you have charts with you?
 
Salty said:
Yes
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I realize you were in the land of few airports, but they also don’t have much traffic. One option to your CFIT issue would have been to navigate to an airport with an IAP. If the was a hole over the airport, and descend in a hole within circle to land protected area, which at an airport with Cat C would have been over 5 miles wide and the ASOS would have given you the bases.
 
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