So I'm not looking for an "is this legal" analysis. I am certain it is, student pilots take note, there's a reason why "1,000 ft above" is part of your cloud clearance rules.
I've found myself playing the VFR over the top card more and more on long cross countries and the results have been consistently the same- a very nice and smooth flight with absolutely no problems whatsoever and pretty scenery to boot. The first few times I did it, it was an "ok normally I wouldn't want to do this but in this scenario it makes sense..... " reasoning. Now it's becoming more along the lines of "Ok, we've done this before. scattered is not a ceiling, forecasts are for clear or few at the destination. These are VFR conditions, stop worrying."
I do not posses an instrument rating, although I have taken some training and intend to get it if I can find another instructor I can easily work with.
As the title says I'm looking for a sanity check from other pilots to get an idea if I'm just doing what one does to make cross country flights and exercising due caution or if I'm playing with fire.
So here's the flight I made yesterday, Jun 6.
KBUY -> KIOB. KIOB was just a fuel/rest stop. Final destination was 2I0, but that field was still reporting a low cloud deck early that morning and it exceeded my usual max leg distance of 3hours so I needed a fuel stop. Originally I had planned one closer to a direct course but VFR conditions seemed more solid further north so I changed the plan.
Weather when I woke up that morning around 7am looked good. Sky clear at our departure point with some IFR conditions from fog(I thought) across the flight path that were forecast to lift between 10am and 1pm. Forecasts at our departure point/destinations mostly said things like "clear below 12,000" "broken 18,000" with a few saying "scattered 4-6,000". Awesome. We'd had to stay an extra day due to some showers/thunderstorms that passed through the previous day. This looked like we were going to good to go. My wife and I had enjoyed our trip but we were ready to go home.... or at least her parent's house which was the final stop before home.
We didn't get to the airport until around 11 - noonish. The "fog" still hadn't completely lifted but I was sure it would, just taking too long. I had to turn in the rental car before incurring another day's charges and I still had to pre-flight and fuel the plane as well as load the baggage. I expected I'd have to wait a little bit at the FBO until the weather had cleared up for sure before leaving and I was OK with this. Sundown isn't until 9pm or so this time of year, we had one 2-2.5hr flight and one ~1.5hr flight to make and 8-9 hours to do it in. I wasn't even adverse to landing a the final destination after dark if need be. No worries.
So by around 12:30 I was checking the weather again. I started to become slightly worried as it was becoming clear the "fog" wasn't lifting and many of the stations were still reporting things like overcast-broken 2,000. The more common sky condition was "scattered-few 5000". My initially planned fuel stop was one of these. I did some re-planning and looking at the satellite views/forecasts/current conditions and decided that I could pick a different fuel stop farther north and avoid most of this. The destination was reporting scattered 5,000 with forecasts for sky clear across that area. Over the next hour most of the stations along the route were giving me similar with the odd holdout "broken 5000".
Now, on most trips the solution would be simple.... fly 4,500 drop lower if needed. However, anyone who plotted this on a chart may have noticed the course takes us over the Appalachians. My only mountain experience was from a week before when I'd cruised over them at 9,500 and looked at the little hills way down below. However, I was not at all comfortable with squeezing between a 5,000' cloud deck and mountainous terrain especially on a summer afternoon. I felt that I needed to go over the top here or not go at all. I'd initially planned on 8,500 but I was already expecting to need to go to 10,500 with 12,500 as an option should that not work.
I ended up sitting in the FBO another hour reloading the weather conditions. I was already 98% certain we could take off and be fine but there was still the odd METAR report of "broken" towards our destination with everything else trending scattered/few/clear. The forecasts were over 5hrs old at that point though so I wanted just a few more positive indications before launching into this. During this time the weather at our departure point had gone from clear to few to scattered... the holes were getting smaller but still clearly there. Forecasts finally updated continuing to predict sky clear or scattered 5,000 along the route and at the destination. Destination area weather was now a little better reporting scattered-few-clear across that area. My certainty was now at 99% that we'd be fine(I don't believe in 100%). I had developed a mental picture of a patchy layer of clouds with large holes and a few dense areas moving slowly.
So we departed from the field and I made a series of climbing turns to remain clear of the clouds and up through the hole we went. The tops were higher than I'd expected, but by around 9,000 or so I was above. Continued on up to 10,500.... there were still some cumulous poofballs sticking up kinda high and I didn't like my sight angle so up we went to 12,500. We were now at the highest altitude I've ever flown at which did give me pause but I'd been to 11,500 before and it was no big deal. This wasn't either. I still pulled out the pulse oximeter I keep in my flight bag a few times to be sure.
So mitigating factors: I had 4.8hrs of fuel for a planned 2.2(expected more like 2.5 with the headwinds). I was on flight following. I had at all times a hole of some sort that I could turn and fly down through. I have a stratus ADS-B receiver which I use to get updates of the weather ahead, including at the destination throughout the flight. I also, as always, got flight following.
The big danger of course would be the clouds closing up and not having a hole back down. The other, always present danger would have been an engine failure and not having a complete view of the ground. However for most of the flight I did have a view of part of the ground and had I been lower I'd have had less glide time so... that didn't seem like a big deal.
I figured worst case if the clouds did close up, I had fuel to search for a hole(and given the weather I surely would have found one further NW). Failing that I could always confess my sins to the controller and get guidance down through the clouds and a nasty letter to deal with. Not exactly plan A or B but a reasonable plan C.
I feel that the most important part of the ADM when going VFR over the top is how sure one is there will be a way down on the other side. This is the first time I headed for a destination that wasn't both reporting currently and forecast to be clear along with the surrounding areas. Still, scattered-few-clear isn't bad. It gave me pause though and the thoughts I had as I made my decision and proceeded through the flight lead to me starting this thread.
The results of the flight? Smooth, comfy... had to close up all the vents cause it was cold up there! As expected cloud cover thinned out the farther we went with occasional thicker patches. Easily found a hole down and landed at my destination as planned. I planned to post this so I took pictures partway through so you all can see what I saw and make judgements
These were taken all around the same time IIRC so you can see what I was looking at to my left, ahead, and right side. This was the "average" but there were areas of large clear holes and areas of thicker cloud cover.
And just for fun, destination field with sky in the background
I've found myself playing the VFR over the top card more and more on long cross countries and the results have been consistently the same- a very nice and smooth flight with absolutely no problems whatsoever and pretty scenery to boot. The first few times I did it, it was an "ok normally I wouldn't want to do this but in this scenario it makes sense..... " reasoning. Now it's becoming more along the lines of "Ok, we've done this before. scattered is not a ceiling, forecasts are for clear or few at the destination. These are VFR conditions, stop worrying."
I do not posses an instrument rating, although I have taken some training and intend to get it if I can find another instructor I can easily work with.
As the title says I'm looking for a sanity check from other pilots to get an idea if I'm just doing what one does to make cross country flights and exercising due caution or if I'm playing with fire.
So here's the flight I made yesterday, Jun 6.
KBUY -> KIOB. KIOB was just a fuel/rest stop. Final destination was 2I0, but that field was still reporting a low cloud deck early that morning and it exceeded my usual max leg distance of 3hours so I needed a fuel stop. Originally I had planned one closer to a direct course but VFR conditions seemed more solid further north so I changed the plan.
Weather when I woke up that morning around 7am looked good. Sky clear at our departure point with some IFR conditions from fog(I thought) across the flight path that were forecast to lift between 10am and 1pm. Forecasts at our departure point/destinations mostly said things like "clear below 12,000" "broken 18,000" with a few saying "scattered 4-6,000". Awesome. We'd had to stay an extra day due to some showers/thunderstorms that passed through the previous day. This looked like we were going to good to go. My wife and I had enjoyed our trip but we were ready to go home.... or at least her parent's house which was the final stop before home.
We didn't get to the airport until around 11 - noonish. The "fog" still hadn't completely lifted but I was sure it would, just taking too long. I had to turn in the rental car before incurring another day's charges and I still had to pre-flight and fuel the plane as well as load the baggage. I expected I'd have to wait a little bit at the FBO until the weather had cleared up for sure before leaving and I was OK with this. Sundown isn't until 9pm or so this time of year, we had one 2-2.5hr flight and one ~1.5hr flight to make and 8-9 hours to do it in. I wasn't even adverse to landing a the final destination after dark if need be. No worries.
So by around 12:30 I was checking the weather again. I started to become slightly worried as it was becoming clear the "fog" wasn't lifting and many of the stations were still reporting things like overcast-broken 2,000. The more common sky condition was "scattered-few 5000". My initially planned fuel stop was one of these. I did some re-planning and looking at the satellite views/forecasts/current conditions and decided that I could pick a different fuel stop farther north and avoid most of this. The destination was reporting scattered 5,000 with forecasts for sky clear across that area. Over the next hour most of the stations along the route were giving me similar with the odd holdout "broken 5000".
Now, on most trips the solution would be simple.... fly 4,500 drop lower if needed. However, anyone who plotted this on a chart may have noticed the course takes us over the Appalachians. My only mountain experience was from a week before when I'd cruised over them at 9,500 and looked at the little hills way down below. However, I was not at all comfortable with squeezing between a 5,000' cloud deck and mountainous terrain especially on a summer afternoon. I felt that I needed to go over the top here or not go at all. I'd initially planned on 8,500 but I was already expecting to need to go to 10,500 with 12,500 as an option should that not work.
I ended up sitting in the FBO another hour reloading the weather conditions. I was already 98% certain we could take off and be fine but there was still the odd METAR report of "broken" towards our destination with everything else trending scattered/few/clear. The forecasts were over 5hrs old at that point though so I wanted just a few more positive indications before launching into this. During this time the weather at our departure point had gone from clear to few to scattered... the holes were getting smaller but still clearly there. Forecasts finally updated continuing to predict sky clear or scattered 5,000 along the route and at the destination. Destination area weather was now a little better reporting scattered-few-clear across that area. My certainty was now at 99% that we'd be fine(I don't believe in 100%). I had developed a mental picture of a patchy layer of clouds with large holes and a few dense areas moving slowly.
So we departed from the field and I made a series of climbing turns to remain clear of the clouds and up through the hole we went. The tops were higher than I'd expected, but by around 9,000 or so I was above. Continued on up to 10,500.... there were still some cumulous poofballs sticking up kinda high and I didn't like my sight angle so up we went to 12,500. We were now at the highest altitude I've ever flown at which did give me pause but I'd been to 11,500 before and it was no big deal. This wasn't either. I still pulled out the pulse oximeter I keep in my flight bag a few times to be sure.
So mitigating factors: I had 4.8hrs of fuel for a planned 2.2(expected more like 2.5 with the headwinds). I was on flight following. I had at all times a hole of some sort that I could turn and fly down through. I have a stratus ADS-B receiver which I use to get updates of the weather ahead, including at the destination throughout the flight. I also, as always, got flight following.
The big danger of course would be the clouds closing up and not having a hole back down. The other, always present danger would have been an engine failure and not having a complete view of the ground. However for most of the flight I did have a view of part of the ground and had I been lower I'd have had less glide time so... that didn't seem like a big deal.
I figured worst case if the clouds did close up, I had fuel to search for a hole(and given the weather I surely would have found one further NW). Failing that I could always confess my sins to the controller and get guidance down through the clouds and a nasty letter to deal with. Not exactly plan A or B but a reasonable plan C.
I feel that the most important part of the ADM when going VFR over the top is how sure one is there will be a way down on the other side. This is the first time I headed for a destination that wasn't both reporting currently and forecast to be clear along with the surrounding areas. Still, scattered-few-clear isn't bad. It gave me pause though and the thoughts I had as I made my decision and proceeded through the flight lead to me starting this thread.
The results of the flight? Smooth, comfy... had to close up all the vents cause it was cold up there! As expected cloud cover thinned out the farther we went with occasional thicker patches. Easily found a hole down and landed at my destination as planned. I planned to post this so I took pictures partway through so you all can see what I saw and make judgements
These were taken all around the same time IIRC so you can see what I was looking at to my left, ahead, and right side. This was the "average" but there were areas of large clear holes and areas of thicker cloud cover.
And just for fun, destination field with sky in the background
