Pilotage

Weather is the wild card in lightplane flying. Even when the desire, ability, and opportunity to fly merge, the weather can exercise a veto by throwing up any of several no-go meteorological objections. It may be an absolute dictator, but as every pilot learns, the weather also is a fickle dictator. Be it good, bad, or indifferent at the moment, the weather will be something else again soon. When the Greek philosopher Heraclitus observed some 2,500 years ago that "all is flux, nothing stays still," he could easily have been referring to the changeable nature of the sky.

My family and I were counting on the changeability of weather as we cooled our heels in a small town northeast of Atlanta, waiting for the fog to lift. We were in the waning hours of a long holiday weekend featuring five families totaling 17 people, all of us staying in the house of my brother and his wife, whose patience was also waning.

The flight north from Florida several days earlier had been spectacular. A strong high-pressure system parked on top of Atlanta seemed to scrub all vestiges of hazy humidity from the Florida atmosphere. Even at the relatively low cruising altitude of 6,000 feet (to avoid headwinds higher up), we had a beautiful view of the peninsula.

We landed in the starlit darkness and, along with other flying families converging on Gwinnett County-Briscoe Field that evening, unloaded our gear and awaited our ride.

The long-range forecast called for the clear air to be displaced by a large area of clouds and precipitation that would move across the Southeast over the weekend. Conditions would improve on Sunday, according to the forecast, although scattered storms might linger over southern Florida. I reviewed the information with a jaundiced eye. Long-range forecasts are like presidential election polls—they often bear little resemblance to the actual results. This time, however, there would be no contesting the outcome because the forecast turned out to be correct, if not conservative.

Friday arrived accompanied by a solid sheet of high, gray clouds and a steady, chill wind. The rain began late in the day and continued through the night. Saturday's lingering fog made it easy to decide to stay an extra day. The forecast for Sunday was for rapidly improving conditions, although the front would still be making its way south across Florida.

As predicted, the fog had disappeared by Sunday morning and the overcast was expected to begin breaking up. However, the radar report showed considerable precipitation in Florida, including some thunderstorm activity moving west to east along the front. In fact, flight service cited two convective sigmets affecting my proposed route. Heraclitus' law favored a continuation of my do-nothing approach. The weather eventually would change. We'd waited this long to start back; what was a few more hours, I told my brother and his wife. They smiled, although a little thinly, I thought.

Midday the sun began to blink through breaks in the overcast. Flight service confirmed my personal observation that the weather was fine for flying south from Atlanta, at least until reaching central Florida. I probed for more information from the flight service briefer and learned that ceilings in the affected areas of Florida were running around 2,000 feet msl, with some stations reporting lower because of showers and thunderstorms. Visibility under the clouds was consistently reported at around 10 miles.

With no radar or lightning detection equipment on board, I wasn't going to penetrate clouds that might be concealing thunderstorms. Yet, from my Florida flying experience I knew that rarely is the weather totally lightplane hostile. It's almost always possible to circumnavigate thunderstorms, or fly VFR underneath cloud bases. The proof is in the statistics at my home airport, Page Field in Fort Myers, Florida. A five-year analysis showed that the airport enjoys visual meteorological conditions 95 percent of the time. The midday briefing convinced me that if I couldn't fly through the clouds draped across central Florida, I probably could scoot underneath them. Besides, it would be at least two hours before we reached the reported weather, and the weather can change a lot in two hours. Wasn't it Heraclitus who noted, "Nothing endures but change"?

Scattered clouds in Atlanta became clear skies by Macon, and we enjoyed an unobstructed view of south Georgia tree farms and swamp land. Nearing Gainesville, Florida, I asked Jacksonville Approach for higher to climb above a line of low, dark clouds. From our 9,000-foot-high perch I could see an undercast developing, and an extensive area of higher clouds to the south.

A check with flight watch for the latest en route weather prompted a recommendation from the briefer to divert southwest toward the Tampa-area, where the reported weather was far better than the Level 3 precip along my intended route. But I knew I would face a big problem negotiating IFR routing through Class B airspace associated with Tampa International and St. Petersburg-Clearwater International. My solution was to ask for an approach into Brooksville, north of Tampa; cancel when below the bases; and proceed VFR south along the coast.

It all sounded great until I descended and discovered that the 10-mile visibility reported by flight service had deteriorated to marginal VFR.

Nothing personal against Brooksville, but I had no desire to land there. It was simply a convenient place for me to transition from airway-cruising IFR to coastline-tracking VFR—or so I thought. I asked the Tampa Approach controller for a change in destination to Tampa International. My new plan was to land at Tampa to check weather and hit the restroom, although not in that order.

Meanwhile, the weather was again in a state of flux. Both the ceiling and visibility were on the rise in the Tampa area. I could see airplanes in the distance turning onto the final approach course and lights ringing the dark waters of Tampa Bay to the south. "Gee," I thought, "with the weather improving, maybe I can press on."

I asked the approach controller if it was possible to get IFR routing to Fort Myers rather than land at Tampa. The controller testily responded that he had no time to work out such routing, and I would endure a lengthy delay (most likely an indefinite hold at a fix west of the airport out over the water, at night) until he found the time. I was going to invoke Al Gore's admonition—"Well, you don't have to get snippy about it!"—then thought better of it. Instead, I requested a vector to St. Petersburg/Clearwater International Airport a few miles south. Rather than get back in the queue for Tampa, I'd take my chances with St. Pete-area controllers.

The weather was getting better all the time. We were below the base of the overcast and I could now see the endless string of lights that is Interstate 75 at night, as well as a couple of beacons from airports to the south. I asked St. Pete about continuing IFR south to Fort Myers. No luck. I'd have to call flight service and file a flight plan, he said. In the meantime, fly heading two-seven-zero and hold at a fix over the water, at night. I know when I've been beaten. We landed at St. Pete.

In the 30 minutes we spent on the ground at St. Pete, the weather continued to move and improve. The low stuff was headed east-northeast, leaving behind a well-defined ceiling and unlimited visibility below. Although VMC prevailed on the last, short leg, I filed and flew IFR.

I thought I knew enough about Florida weather to outsmart it on the homestretch of an otherwise excellent round trip, but I should have known better. When it comes to the weather, Heraclitus got it right yet again. "Much learning," he said, "does not teach understanding."