Waypoints

Editor in Chief Tom Haines has been flying for personal and business reasons for more than 20 years.

The small town where we live traditionally celebrates Independence Day with a fireworks show on July 3. This year it proved a good move as we sprawled on the grass with hundreds of others to enjoy a spectacular summer evening. Like fine jewels decorating the landscape, fireflies treated us to a pre-fireworks show. Mother Nature didn't limit the show to the ground, though. Overhead, a meteor shower streaked the inky black sky. We were lucky. The evening of July Fourth, rains drenched many fireworks displays in the Mid-Atlantic region.

As the fireworks punctuated the night sky, a small airplane droned around the area, obviously taking in the sight from the air. As the airplane continued its circuits around the rockets' red glare, my mind raced ahead to the next day when we were planning an early morning flight to launch a minivacation. Would the weather hold long enough for us to get to our first destination in north-central Pennsylvania? And then, would the forecasted weather system move through by the following day when we were to continue on to Burlington, Vermont, for a few days of exploring the Green Mountains? And how about our return home two days after that?

When planning a flight, it's tough not to obsess about the weather for days or even weeks in advance. I often write about using my airplane for personal and business trips, and I often get letters from readers who wonder how to deal with it all (see " Thunderstorms, Restricted Airspace, and a Dust Storm," p. 119). A few weeks ago I received a letter from a reader particularly anguished about weather decision making . A relatively new pilot, he wanted very much to use an airplane to journey to places simply not practical if you're limited to ground transportation. With an airplane, he felt he could take advantage of long weekends at new destinations not possible with today's busy work schedules that seem to make extended, relaxing vacations a thing of the past. Two weeks off — in a row? You've got to be kidding.

And while an airplane can shrink the distances, it can also raise the worry factor if you're on a tight schedule. So how do you leverage your hard-earned pilot certificate into business trips and memorable family vacations? As they say in Hawaii, "Hang loose!" You're saving time by flying yourself, so invest some of that time back into your schedule to provide a contingency if the weather doesn't cooperate. When leveraging a long weekend, I usually try to plan my trips for the last half of the week, leaving the weekend as a fudge factor on the end. Then, if the weather is a bust on the planned launch day, you can delay a day — maybe even going to the office on what was supposed to be a day off to catch up on some work that otherwise never seems to get done. Or, gasp, simply relax at home with a good book, watching the rain come down. Particularly in the summertime, it's not often that a significant weather system dominates an area for more than 24 hours. Chances are you can leave the next day — usually early in the morning to avoid afternoon thunderstorms. If your weekend is free, you can plan on staying an extra day to make up for the one you missed. Of course, you'll want to keep an eye on the skies and perhaps decide to come home on the original planned day if weather becomes a factor.

You'll find rental car companies and hotels surprisingly cooperative if you explain the situation — particularly if you'll end up spending the same number of nights as originally planned. If you have to scrap a vacation altogether, simply ask if you can have any room deposits held for a future visit rather than forfeiting the money. I've never lost any deposits that way. If you're renting an airplane for the trip, the FBO should understand the weather circumstances. Extending your stay may create scheduling conflicts with the airplane, but often they can be resolved with a little negotiating. You should never feel pressured to return home through questionable weather so that someone else can have the airplane.

But can you learn to enjoy yourself without obsessing about the weather while you're on vacation? Yes, if you work at it. The more often you travel by airplane, the easier it gets. You also become more confident and better at making weather decisions.

It used to be that aside from the occasional call to flight service and the six o'clock news, you were clueless about weather when away from home. These days, though, weather information is available at many, many locations. Even the smallest FBOs often have Internet weather connections or dedicated weather computers such as DTN. Thankfully, The Weather Channel is widely available at hotels, and I find it frustrating to stay at a hotel without it even if I'm not concerned about the weather. I'm not usually in favor of more regulation, but I would support legislation to mandate that The Weather Channel be available in every hotel room across the land — The Weather Information Availability Act of 2001 (The Haines Bill). It has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

Your days on vacation should not be spent glued to the tube, analyzing every word voiced by the weather guessers. The weather will be what the weather will be. Go hiking, biking, to the water park, museum, or whatever it is you do. Check the weather once a day, preferably in the evening after the new forecasts come out. Make your plans for the next day accordingly. Do you need to leave the next afternoon instead of the morning after that? Sure, there may be disappointment among friends and family, but in 20 years will it matter? Probably not. Those who travel with you often will soon adjust to the Hang Loose philosophy and will admire you for putting their safety first. With an airplane, the getting there becomes part of the adventure.

Fortunately, our Independence Day excursion worked out. We departed early on the Fourth and dashed through a few broken clouds for an hour or so to Bradford, Pennsylvania, to visit my sister and her family. We left early in the morning because I knew that thunderstorms were forecast by the afternoon. By early afternoon, heavy rains moved in and stuck around all day. The next morning scattered clouds and cool temperatures prevailed — just as forecast. However, a trough to the east was generating a few showers between us and Vermont. A couple of thunderstorm cells meandered south of our course in the Albany, New York, area. We took off and climbed to the assigned 5,000 feet msl. There we soon faced clouds and were granted a climb to our requested altitude of 7,000 feet. The tops ranged ever higher, but the Stormscope showed only the diminishing storms to the southeast. We plunged into a dark and juicy cloud to find one of those errant light showers and a couple of jolts of moderate turbulence. A climb to 9,000 feet put us above more of the clouds, and we soon popped out to find clear skies ahead. We were through the trough and could see the clouds associated with the front to the southeast. But for us it was clear sailing to Burlington.

The winds at altitude were strong, giving us a nice 25-knot push. The airport reported light surface winds so I knew we'd hit some shear on the way down. We skimmed across the Adirondacks and started the descent. As we approached Lake Champlain, the bumps started. It became a challenge to convince the Bonanza to both slow down and go down as we were tossed by the winds tumbling over the mountains just west of the lake. The turbulence continued all the way to short final for Burlington's Runway 15.

We parked at FBO AvCenter, the new name for what used to be Heritage Flight. Heritage Flight apparently still operates the flight school. We were about an hour early and our rental car had not arrived, so we walked the couple of blocks to The Parkway Diner — a real old-fashioned diner that's worth the trip. It's not one of those gleaming, sterile, contemporary pseudo-diners — this one was built in 1950 in Massachusetts and trucked to Burlington where it's been ever since. The food is good and hearty, just as it ought to be in an old diner.

We jumped into the rental car and headed south into the aptly named Green Mountains. Two days later, on Saturday, we emerged for the trip home through clear skies. We wanted a day at home before returning to the workweek, but Sunday was our backup if the weather on Saturday had turned ugly.

All in all, we racked up about six hours on the Hobbs meter. My highway trip planner shows that accomplishing the same outing by automobile would have required 22 hours of driving — hardly practical for a four-day getaway.

Much of what we do in aviation is by the book and regimented. Put that mindset aside when it comes to trip scheduling and you'll find yourself having a lot more fun.

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