Waypoints

AOPA Pilot Editor in Chief Thomas B. Haines flies a Beechcraft A36 Bonanza.

Shortly after earning an instrument rating 17 years ago, I began flying more and more trips where weather was a factor in the planning and decision making. And although you might think that the rating means you would find yourself flying in weather a lot, it really is a license to figure out how to stay out of the weather. The rating allows you to go out and develop the knowledge and skills to deal with certain types of weather when you encounter them, but the objective for most instrument pilots flying light airplanes is to plunge into the weather only when necessary, such as to complete an instrument approach. En route, though, you'll see pilots go to great lengths to avoid flying in instrument meteorological conditions (IMC).

Under some conditions, flying in IMC can be fun and challenging; it also can be boring and tiring. Hours of droning along in a mild warm front dominated by stratus clouds are about as dull as it gets — and can be unnerving for passengers anxious to see the ground or blue sky. Ending such a flight by flying a well-executed instrument approach to reasonable minimums, though, can make it worthwhile. Seeing the runway approach lights and then the runway materialize out of the murk and mist after hours in IMC is a very satisfying sight. Drop the conditions at the destination to minimums and throw in a minimum fuel situation — and maybe a couple of turns in a holding pattern while others give it a shot — and the needle on the angst meter can rise considerably.

Thunderstorms in the forecast or nowcast get every pilot's attention. As I write this, investigators are attempting to determine what led famed test pilot A. Scott Crossfield to fly into a Level 6 thunderstorm in Georgia in April. The results were predictable. His Cessna 210 came out of the bottom of the clouds in pieces.

As has often been written in these pages, the objective whenever convection is around is to stay visual. Lightning detection and especially datalinked Nexrad images can be a tremendous help, but conditions can change rapidly and you can quickly find yourself someplace where you don't want to be, as Bruce Landsberg describes in " Safety Pilot Landmark Accidents: Working a Hole" on page 82.

Ready to retreat

Whenever convection is forecast or existing along the planned route, one should be prepared to chuck plan A and default to plan B. Plan B may be to land. If landing short of your destination — perhaps staying overnight — isn't in your planning, you should be chocking the airplane, heading for the airline terminal, and untying your shoes.

A recent flight up the East Coast from the Sun 'n Fun Fly-In in Lakeland, Florida, to my home base at Frederick, Maryland, had me primed to execute plan B. In the end, I simply got the bugs washed off the airplane while I watched some spectacular weather unfold along my route.

For several days, forecasters had predicted that a major weather system would develop over the Tennessee Valley and march eastward in time to impact my Saturday morning flight home. They were right. On Friday, the system sparked to life and touched off tornadoes that killed 12 people in Tennessee, just a week after another storm had caused similar havoc in the same region. Overnight the system crept toward the coast, but remained over the mountains of the western Carolinas and Georgia. The weather along the coast was beautiful, but all of that was forecast to change later in the day as the system trekked that way.

I lifted off from Lakeland at 8 a.m. into mostly clear skies with just a little mist around. Turning toward the north the tailwind kicked in and at 7,000 feet I was tooling along with a groundspeed of more than 200 knots. Headed up or down the East Coast, I often stop at Florence, South Carolina, for fuel, which was my plan this day. But with the tailwind, I found I could fly much farther north if needed; in fact, the fuel computer suggested I could make it home nonstop, landing with fuel right at legal minimums — but that assumed a straight route and that the tailwind would remain for the entire flight; I wasn't game to chance it.

Nonetheless, the tailwind was especially welcome because this day I was racing the weather. The only way to make it all the way home without a significant delay and possible overnight stay was to stay ahead of the massive front bearing down on the coast.

Although I've made lots of challenging instrument trips over the years without datalinked Nexrad, I've become spoiled by having it and wonder how many trips I would make without it now. On this day it was particularly helpful. By zooming the range out on my Garmin GNS 530, I could see the entire weather complex stretching up the coast. A few areas of red pocked the yellows and greens gradually moving eastward.

By the time I got to northern Florida, I was beginning to question whether Florence was the best choice. Still flying in perfectly clear conditions, I believed I would beat the weather to Florence, but if the weather moved in while I was on the ground, there would be no escaping until it passed by. I began to look for alternatives farther north and east. My first choice was Richmond, but the datalinked METAR showed the conditions there were 200 feet overcast. Just to the south, Norfolk was reporting clear skies, but winds out of the south at 17 knots gusting to 22. The forecast for the early afternoon included the possibility of thunderstorms. Based on my groundspeed, I could be in and out ahead of the forecast storms. Meanwhile, the Washington, D.C., area near my destination was engulfed in light to moderate rain, but was not forecasting thunderstorms.

I called air traffic control and requested a change in destination and a reroute to Norfolk. However, shortly after entering the new destination into the Garmin, I noticed a large, red cell accelerating away from the rest of the weather front. It seemed to be zeroing in on Norfolk. Over the next 45 minutes, I watched on the Nexrad as the isolated cell was drawn to Norfolk like a bee to nectar. It appeared that the cell and I would get to Norfolk at about the same time. Again, even if I beat it there, I might be trapped on the ground for some time until things cleared up, but by then the rest of the system might have moved in, further blocking my route. Time for plan C.

Using the METAR information coming in through the datalink, I discovered that Wilmington, North Carolina, was still clear; earlier forecasts didn't include significant weather there until the end of the day. I changed destinations once again for Wilmington.

On the ground, I watched on Air Wilmington's weather display as the lone cell — traveling at 60 knots and with tops to 45,000 feet — engulfed Norfolk. A call to flight service confirmed that by waiting an extra 30 minutes on the ground, I could continue up the coast behind the cell, but still ahead of the rest of the system.

A cup of coffee later, I was back in the air. By the time I got to Norfolk — cruising at 203 knots groundspeed — it was covered with just scattered clouds; the cell had blown itself out over the Atlantic. Light turbulence kicked in as I progressed up toward the Chesapeake Bay. Finally, just south of Salisbury, Maryland, I entered the weather I had been avoiding all day. In this case it was light to moderate rain with only a little turbulence. It was comforting to see only green and a little yellow on the Garmin display and no strikes nearby on the Stormscope.

After less than an hour of plowing through the rain showers, I broke out at the outer marker on the ILS approach to Frederick. Minutes later, I pushed the airplane back into the hangar and grabbed a rag to easily remove the well-soaked bugs on the still-wet wings.

All in all, I had considered four different fuel stops and was prepared to land anywhere along the route to simply wait it out, if necessary. Weather along the coast was clear, giving me many places to go if the line of storms progressed more rapidly than forecast. Of the nearly five hours of flying, only about one was actually in the weather. The rest of the time was spent doing what a lot of instrument-rated pilots do — attempting to stay out of the weather.

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