Most pilots associate the worst and most fearful flying weather with the winter months. Normally, I would agree, but this spring and summer seem to be an exception. In more than two decades of flying, I've never experienced as many delays and as much concentrated instrument flying as I have this year. One weather system after another has played havoc with the air traffic system in the upper Midwest and the Mid-Atlantic regions all year.
Early in the year I had two eventful flights to Florida in which I dodged thunderstorms, heavy rain, and low conditions hour after hour. More recently, I was left stranded by severe weather twice in one week—a first ever.
The decision to forego a planned trip or delay a return home is never easy. I'd like to tell you that I can make such decisions decisively and then confidently never rethink them. But that's usually not the case. Pilots who tell you otherwise are full of bravado and other stuff. Oh, sure, when Hurricane Whoever sways between you and the destination, it's an easy decision made without reconsideration, but usually go/no-gos are not so cut and dried.
Flying general aviation airplanes is all about flexibility. Fly yourself and you're not a slave to the airlines' schedules or the silly hub-and-spoke system, but when you go yourself you also must be flexible with your schedule because weather is more of a factor for us than for the airlines. Sometimes you control your schedule and sometimes you don't, but in the end you control when and where you fly; sometimes that means making the decision not to fly.
Getting to the EAA AirVenture 2000 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, looked as if it would be a challenge. The forecast charts showed a wide area of precip and thunderstorms for the Oshkosh area at about the time we planned to arrive. The night before our departure, a flight service briefer suggested we might have to go southwest from Frederick, Maryland, down to western Kentucky and then west of St. Louis before turning northeast to the Oshkosh area in order to avoid the predicted storms. Take a look at a chart and you'll see that route changes what should be a direct flight of some 570 nautical miles into one of more than 1,000 nm—not exactly the efficiency we were looking for.
By the next morning, things looked better. We couldn't go direct across Lake Michigan because of the weather, but a deviation south of Chicago and then up the west side of the lake would do it. We launched, confident that we'd be at the show by early afternoon.
However, our hopes dimmed when we crawled out of the airplane at the fuel stop in Kankakee, Illinois. A streak of oil down the right side of the fuselage was our first indication that something was amiss inside the engine compartment. Further inspection showed that the wet vacuum pump was leaking more oil than is typical for such installations. To make a very long story short, we flew the airplane 30 miles northeast to Griffith-Merrillville Airport just south of Gary, Indiana. There, the helpful staff at G&N Aircraft agreed to replace the pump, but they did not have the correct one in stock. A new one could be had by the next morning. We, however, needed to be in Oshkosh, so we rented a car and drove four hours.
The return proved to be equally as adventurous. Had we been able to fly out of the Oshkosh area early in the morning, we could have made it home before the thunderstorms cropped up in the afternoon. But by the time we drove from Oshkosh back to Griffith-Merrillville, serious thunderstorms already were scattered along our route, and they were intensifying by the minute. Except for one line of storms stretching from Buffalo across Pennsylvania and into West Virginia, the cells were scattered enough that we might have been able to get through had we had lightning detection equipment on board. Unfortunately, we didn't and so reluctantly I made the decision to spend the night in Merrillville, inconveniencing myself and the three others on board, plus our families at home. But in the end I fell back on my better-safe-than-sorry axiom: I'd rather be on the ground wishing I were flying than the other way around.
We departed early the next day for a smooth and uneventful flight home. I was in my office by late morning. By midafternoon a few of the small build-ups we had circumnavigated over Ohio and West Virginia had blossomed into big storms that rumbled through the Frederick area.
Rule number one of summer aviating: Fly early in the morning to avoid the storms.
Rule number two: Rule number one doesn't always work.
The following weekend, we flew to northwestern Pennsylvania to visit relatives. Saturday was a spectacular summer day—clear and cool with brilliant blue skies and a few puffy clouds. The forecast was for things to change overnight. A warm front was to push through the area the next day with rain ahead of it. I checked the forecasts throughout the day and evening Saturday. The weather guessers all predicted light rain to arrive into western Pennsylvania by about 9 a.m. with thunderstorms possible by late morning. We considered leaving Saturday night, but with the promising forecast for early morning we decided to get up early and head home Sunday—staying ahead of the weather.
I knew we were in trouble when I awoke at about 3 a.m. to the sound of heavy rain. It was still going strong at 5:30 a.m. By 6:30 a.m. I was watching The Weather Channel and talking to flight service. Thunderstorms with tops to 45,000 feet were scattered along our route to the south and southeast, moving east. Others were developing to the east over the Appalachian Mountains, preventing us from heading east and then dashing south ahead of the weather.
We had breakfast and waited it out. By late morning, things had not improved at all. The new forecasts came out at 1 p.m.—again not showing much promise for improved conditions before dark. One briefer did offer hope that by late afternoon we might be able to sneak in behind some of the weather and ahead of additional showers cropping up to the west. Oh, what to do?
Not wanting to risk a flight in the vicinity of thunderstorms without any lightning gear, I threw in the towel. We borrowed a car from my in-laws and trekked six hours home groundbound—a trip that takes just over an hour in the airplane. Of course, we never once had the windshield wipers on during the drive and saw no significant weather at all as we trundled along the Pennsylvania Turnpike and endured the infamous traffic jams at Breezewood, Pennsylvania, where the turnpike and Interstate 70 cross but don't intersect, relegating all I-70-bound traffic with a trip through The Town of Hotels, as Breezewood likes to call itself. Travelers call it the town of something else that begins with "H."
Aside from Christmas—when we have more stuff to lug than will fit into the airplane—we rarely have to make the drive anymore, and now we appreciate the ability to fly the route all the more.
Since I bought the Beech Bonanza a year ago, I've been debating about weather detection gear. Weather datalinked up to the airplane holds plenty of promise, and I've been waiting to see how quickly the technology emerges. Unfortunately, like many technology projects, the progress has not been as quick as originally predicted.
I've been evaluating an Echo Flight StratoCheetah system, which provides weather and e-mail in the cockpit via satellite link. It's good information, but the portable display is too big and cumbersome for most GA cockpits. Echo Flight introduced a smaller unit at Oshkosh, which should be shipping by October. It may be a convenient solution for getting near-real-time weather radar graphics in the cockpit. The ability to display lightning data is in the works, but without a definite time line.
The other reasonable choices are a BFGoodrich Stormscope or an Insight Strike Finder. One Stormscope model, the WX-500, will display the lightning data on my Garmin 430 and several other available moving maps and multifunction displays, which provides excellent situational awareness. Apparently, I'm not the only aircraft owner struggling with this decision. Several AOPA members stopped by the Millennium Mooney at Oshkosh to discuss the merits of one system versus another.
But even with all of the weather gear, there will still be days when you have to step back and make the go/no-go decision. Only you can make that call, based on your own capabilities and those of your airplane. It's one of the toughest and most important decisions you will make as pilot in command.
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