So here I sit at an FBO.....

cowman

cowman

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Cowman
They said it would happen, I knew it would happen, yet somehow it never sunk in. I'm sitting here in the FBO at c35 reloading the radar on my iPad every 2 minutes hoping the thunderstorms between me and home will move out of the way.

And the one thing I can't get off my mind is... if I had an IFR rating I'd have left early this morning and avoided them entirely. So, yeah I suppose I need to figure out where to start on that.
 
Yep... Did that in May. Ended up sleeping overnight in a lazy boy in the "quiet room" of the FBO. I have a rating, but I'm not current at all.
 
We've all been there and done that at some point in our flying careers.
 
cowman said:
They said it would happen, I knew it would happen, yet somehow it never sunk in. I'm sitting here in the FBO at c35 reloading the radar on my iPad every 2 minutes hoping the thunderstorms between me and home will move out of the way.

And the one thing I can't get off my mind is... if I had an IFR rating I'd have left early this morning and avoided them entirely. So, yeah I suppose I need to figure out where to start on that.
Click to expand...

Not even an IFR flight plan can safely navigate thru squall line
thunderstorms.
 
cowman said:
They said it would happen, I knew it would happen, yet somehow it never sunk in. I'm sitting here in the FBO at c35 reloading the radar on my iPad every 2 minutes hoping the thunderstorms between me and home will move out of the way.



And the one thing I can't get off my mind is... if I had an IFR rating I'd have left early this morning and avoided them entirely. So, yeah I suppose I need to figure out where to start on that.
Click to expand...


And even with a ratings, there are times you still don't go... :(
 
Save yourself 3 minutes. The radar updates every 6 minutes :)
 
HoChunk casino is close ....
 
CTLSi said:
Not even an IFR flight plan can safely navigate thru squall line
thunderstorms.
Click to expand...

No but it could have gotten me out of the 800' clouds in Chicago early enough to get in before the storms were a factor..... or just have left yesterday like I wanted but couldn't for the same reason.
 
The year it took me 3 days to get home from Osh to the DC area was the tipping point for me. I had it before the next Osh.
 
If this will dissipate or move over by 7ish I have a shot.

I'm thinking it's best to avoid running into this after dark..
FM190200 18004KT 4SM BR OVC030
 

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cowman said:
If this will dissipate or move over by 7ish I have a shot.

I'm thinking it's best to avoid running into this after dark..
FM190200 18004KT 4SM BR OVC030
Click to expand...

Oh, just fly through that gap there...... :no: .
 
This view of blue sky and perfectly good airplane is taunting me.
 

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dans2992 said:
Well, even the long way around would still get you home quicker than spending the night...
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Yes.... I've been calling that one "plan Charlie".

Even if I'm stuck here, at least I'm not in Chicago.
 
Depending on what the animation looks like, that gap might be fly-able.
 
Time to get your IFR ticket. Gives you the opportunity to leave early and break through a layer,before afternoon weather kicks in.
 
dans2992 said:
Depending on what the animation looks like, that gap might be fly-able.
Click to expand...

I suspect so, but I lack the experience and confidence to actually try it.

At 4:30 the red areas were bigger and there was lightning, it's smaller now and moving along albeit slowly. Remaining optimistic....
 
I got my IFR wet for the first time yesterday flying home from Kankakee, which is about 80 miles south of Chicago. It's definitely worth it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Go when you're comfortable. My first cross country saw me delayed two hours until I felt confident the weather had moved off. All while my girlfriend and her two young kids milled around wondered what was so awesome about this aviation stuff. It was after that flight I understood the get-there-itis stuff.
 
See if you can find a CFI at the FBO to give you your first instrument lesson while you wait.
 
You're on the wrong side of the state. Nice over here by Lake Michigan.
 
I've slept on the couch at Limon. At least it was warm with hot & cold runnning water in the bathroom and a working phone. I've slept in the hangar when the roads were closed due to snow storms. Got a nice comfy couch in there. I learned the hard way many years ago after sleeping on the floor of the Holiday Inn in Frisco when the tunnel between ski areas & Denver was closed due to weather. It's miserable sleeping on the floor in ski clothes and your jacket as the only pillow.

I did a short talk last night at a local CAP meeting. The two day course was Mission Scanner (sit in the back, look for whatever, take photos if needed...) and my talk was titled "What's not in the Regs, Forms, or Manuals".

1. Be prepared to be stuck someplace for 24 hours. If you are on any meds, take 1-2 day supply with you.
2. If you cannot be away from home for 1-2 days unexpectedly, don't volunteer for a real mission.
3. Just because you have a Nomex flight suit doesn't mean squat if you're wearing synthetic underwear that melts to your skin at high temps (e.g. fire) [actually this is in CAPM39-1 but who ever reads that stuff?]
4. Choice of ForeFlight, WingX, Garmin Pilot, Jeppesen, etc is a personal and religious decision.
5. CAP is 501(c)3 so keep records of travel, meals, etc. Can make a lot of impact on Schedule A on your tax return.
6. If you've got electronic equipment with you (ANR headset for example) bring extra batteries!
7. If using a tablet, make sure it's fully charged. Unlikely to find a place to charge it.
8. High altitude? Then bring your own cannula for the O2 tank. Do you really want to use someone else's dirty hadkerchief?
 
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dans2992 said:
Well, even the long way around would still get you home quicker than spending the night...
Click to expand...

Shoot the gap. Done it many times. Maintain your personal minimums and stick to them. Mine are 3 mile vis, 1,000' clouds. Go for it.

You'll see the heavy stuff, just fly around it.
 
cowman said:
I suspect so, but I lack the experience and confidence to actually try it.

At 4:30 the red areas were bigger and there was lightning, it's smaller now and moving along albeit slowly. Remaining optimistic....
Click to expand...

Its your call, but if the red is shrinking the system is dying, I'd be in the air looking for a hole.
 
Geico266 said:
Shoot the gap. Done it many times. Maintain your personal minimums and stick to them. Mine are 3 mile vis, 1,000' clouds. Go for it.

You'll see the heavy stuff, just fly around it.
Click to expand...

1,000' ceilings, or 1,000' from the clouds (presumably vertically, and 2,000' horizontal)?

Either way, nothing wrong with visually picking your way around stuff, just not very effect at night (sun is setting right about now).
 
"It's better to be down here, wishing you were up there instead of up there wishing you were down here."
 
Times like this is why I have an iLevil to feed ADS-B weather to WingX. It has saved a lot of flights for me that I would have otherwise aborted. Obviously there are times where you still have to delay a flight or abort all together even with the ADS-B weather, but it sure works great for picking your way around pockets of weather.

The evening I made the flight from the attached WingX screen capture, 30 minutes earlier all of the nasty stuff on the left side of the screen was right down my desired flight path. I made the screen capture on climb out. I had just changed screens and unfortunately caught it before the screen had finished redrawing.

Good luck with the weather and getting on home. :)
 

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MickYoumans said:
Times like this is why I have an iLevil to feed ADS-B weather to WingX. It has saved a lot of flights for me that I would have otherwise aborted. Obviously there are times where you still have to delay a flight or abort all together even with the ADS-B weather, but it sure works great for picking your way around pockets of weather.
Click to expand...

That actually brings up something interesting. I have a gen1 stratus and was using it. However, due to low clouds I wasn't ever any higher than 2500 MSL and I don't think I was getting good signal. I was getting METARS/TAF data but radar wasn't loading properly... I just saw large blocks where it was trying to draw radar but it just wasn't good enough to be useful. I have little doubt if I had been able to climb a little higher it would have worked fine but I didn't really have that room without doing a lot of cloud dodging if I could at all.

I knew there were some low ceilings along my route and some activity near my destination when I left. I'd figured there was a good chance I'd do exactly this before even starting the engine. I really wanted out of Chicago and I figured if I only got halfway home that would make it more likely I could find a gap to shoot the next day. The first part of the trip went pretty much as expected, cruising 2000-2500 to maintain 500 below. Up ahead things looked darker... not scary dark but darker and I knew storms might be ahead. That's when I found my ADS-B had failed me. I pressed on for a bit, pulled out my phone and found a 3g signal and opened foreflight on it hoping for radar data that way. About this time I noted a nice big runway a couple of miles off my right wing. Took few miles to get a radar picture as cell signal was poor and about this time the airplane was starting to get tossed around a bit. This was making it hard for me to hand-fly, operate the phone, and consider my radar picture at the same time and that was sort of the last straw. I decided I'd better just turn around and land on that nice big runway, then I could safely pull up some weather and consider my situation. If it looked OK still, I could just take off again and continue. If not, then I was on the ground.

I'm posting this from a motel room. Thing is this is only my second trip more than an hour from home as a private pilot and the worst weather I've taken off into. I believe a more experienced pilot might have picked their way through this safely but I didn't feel confident that I could spot a thunderstorm ahead with an overcast ceiling barely more than 500' above me if I flew into rain with reduced visibility.... and I promised myself and my wife before I started going on these trips that I'd be a big chicken and err on the side of caution with these things. So I think I made the right choice. Sure would like to be sitting with my wife and playing with my puppy right now though.
 
Cowman: you probably would have been fine had you tried it, but you can't know for sure. What you can know for sure is that right now you're alive and well, in a motel room, and you made an executive decision to wait for better weather. Nothing at all wrong with that.

I just joined a flying club and, as a low time pilot, I'll have more of these types of decisions soon. And my expectation is that I'll make good decisions and come out of it for the better.

Nice work. Give us the full debrief once you're home. :)
 
Conservative decision making is always the right call in aviation. I feel that flying is very safe as long as you obey the rules, keep your airplane well maintained and fly within your capabilities and comfort zone. You certainly made the correct decision. A flight is not worth risking your life over when you are not comfortable with the conditions.

I usually get good ADS-B reception on my iLevil just as soon as I get above the tree line on climb out and certainly by pattern altitude. If you were not able to get good reception on your Stratus at 2500 feet, the conditions must have been really poor and were certainly not what you want fly in. I know you would love to be home with your family but look at it this way, you will never forget this flight! ;) Adversity makes for some of the best memories. :)
 
cowman said:
If this will dissipate or move over by 7ish I have a shot.

I'm thinking it's best to avoid running into this after dark..
FM190200 18004KT 4SM BR OVC030
Click to expand...

I'm betting that 90% of that is not reaching the ground and you could navigate around it visually. I had a radar look a lot like that on a hop between MLI and MCI in my Viking - and I had a flight plan to go around teh storms to the south to get around them and when I took off it was almost a direct actual flight wiht only a couple of deviations for the build ups . . .

But you are PIC for this flight and you made the right call . . .
 
cowman said:
That actually brings up something interesting. I have a gen1 stratus and was using it. However, due to low clouds I wasn't ever any higher than 2500 MSL and I don't think I was getting good signal. I was getting METARS/TAF data but radar wasn't loading properly... I just saw large blocks where it was trying to draw radar but it just wasn't good enough to be useful. I have little doubt if I had been able to climb a little higher it would have worked fine but I didn't really have that room without doing a lot of cloud dodging if I could at all.

I knew there were some low ceilings along my route and some activity near my destination when I left. I'd figured there was a good chance I'd do exactly this before even starting the engine. I really wanted out of Chicago and I figured if I only got halfway home that would make it more likely I could find a gap to shoot the next day. The first part of the trip went pretty much as expected, cruising 2000-2500 to maintain 500 below. Up ahead things looked darker... not scary dark but darker and I knew storms might be ahead. That's when I found my ADS-B had failed me. I pressed on for a bit, pulled out my phone and found a 3g signal and opened foreflight on it hoping for radar data that way. About this time I noted a nice big runway a couple of miles off my right wing. Took few miles to get a radar picture as cell signal was poor and about this time the airplane was starting to get tossed around a bit. This was making it hard for me to hand-fly, operate the phone, and consider my radar picture at the same time and that was sort of the last straw. I decided I'd better just turn around and land on that nice big runway, then I could safely pull up some weather and consider my situation. If it looked OK still, I could just take off again and continue. If not, then I was on the ground.

I'm posting this from a motel room. Thing is this is only my second trip more than an hour from home as a private pilot and the worst weather I've taken off into. I believe a more experienced pilot might have picked their way through this safely but I didn't feel confident that I could spot a thunderstorm ahead with an overcast ceiling barely more than 500' above me if I flew into rain with reduced visibility.... and I promised myself and my wife before I started going on these trips that I'd be a big chicken and err on the side of caution with these things. So I think I made the right choice. Sure would like to be sitting with my wife and playing with my puppy right now though.
Click to expand...

You may some day look back on this and wonder why you were so worried about the weather. But here's the important thing... You'll have that option. If you launched into weather you weren't comfortable with and it got as bad as you feared (or worse) you might not walk away from that situation. I'm firmly in the camp that you made the right decision and applaud you for doing so (and thank you for sharing the experience as well).

For what it's worth, I have an instrument rating and would be sitting right next to you at the FBO earlier today. I probably would've gotten a separate room at the motel, though... ;)
 
My first time "stuck" I decided to follow the adage..."when life gives you lemons". Made it my first IFR lesson with an instructor.

And my second time, rented a car and drove home. Got up at 4am and drove back. Saw a beautiful sunrise, and it was so calm and peaceful at that hour...no other traffic (and this is So. Cal. where using Flight Following means you don't even get to talk to your passengers!).

I guess we all have to build contingencies and "go with the flow" into our missions...even sometimes when we have an IFR.
 
Mistake Not... said:
"It's better to be down here, wishing you were up there instead of up there wishing you were down here."
Click to expand...


Also the adage: Pilots that fly in bad weather are usually buried on a sunny day.
 
Good choice,it's easy to say you could fly around the bad stuff. With the ceilings you described,you may not see the cell that you fly into. Good choice.
 
Good call. And you are alive this morning. Assuming in a weird twist of irony, the motel wasn't hit by a tornado overnight. That would be messed up.

Based on having only briefly glanced at your radar shot, I would have made the same decision.
 
I have the Stratus ll, and with the external antenna I receive ADS-B on the ground all over CO, even in the western Mtns.
 
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