Jeff
April 9th 04, 08:50 PM
I hate this weather we are having, I had a flight planned to
Sacramento, California from las vegas yesterday, planned to leave out at
about 4pm so we could enjoy the time of the day when its right before
the sun goes down where its just perfect for flying and the sun going
down makes everything kinda pretty.
the entire day yesterday was beautiful, called FSS 4 hours before
flight, they said its beautiful, called an hour before flight, they said
its looking good, wind was only 5 kts, aloft at 10,500 was only 6 kts
but that they reported possible rain NW of my route but it should not be
a factor and once I got to bakersfield it would be beautiful.
lifted off at 4pm, winds were now 13, still no biggie, the turbulence on
the climb out was moderate with shifting winds from the mountains, no
biggie it will go away once I climb up a bit, at 10.5 it was still
pretty bad, my wife told me, she shouldn't have eaten before we took
off.
Then in front of us we could see what looked like allot of rain, the
temp suddenly dropped to zero in what seemed like an instant, my wife
was clutching her seat, so I told her, make a decision, do you want to
keep going or go back, flying is suppose to be fun, if your not having
fun we can go home. she told me, she did but she did not want to fly
through the turbulence again, I said, well, we have 2.5 hours left of
flying, the weather has been wrong so far, so either we plan on 2.5
hours of this or 30 minutes of it, its your choice. then we saw the
lightning in front of us and to the left, so that made the decision for
me, lightning, visible moisture, outside temp at zero. Turned and our GS
went from 137 kts to 178 kts and the wind on landing was 20 G28.
The weather so far today, beautiful ...perfect. - but we got commercial
tickets to Sacramento last night just in case the forecast for today was
going to be wrong also.
Man, and yesterday started out so perfect.
Sacramento, California from las vegas yesterday, planned to leave out at
about 4pm so we could enjoy the time of the day when its right before
the sun goes down where its just perfect for flying and the sun going
down makes everything kinda pretty.
the entire day yesterday was beautiful, called FSS 4 hours before
flight, they said its beautiful, called an hour before flight, they said
its looking good, wind was only 5 kts, aloft at 10,500 was only 6 kts
but that they reported possible rain NW of my route but it should not be
a factor and once I got to bakersfield it would be beautiful.
lifted off at 4pm, winds were now 13, still no biggie, the turbulence on
the climb out was moderate with shifting winds from the mountains, no
biggie it will go away once I climb up a bit, at 10.5 it was still
pretty bad, my wife told me, she shouldn't have eaten before we took
off.
Then in front of us we could see what looked like allot of rain, the
temp suddenly dropped to zero in what seemed like an instant, my wife
was clutching her seat, so I told her, make a decision, do you want to
keep going or go back, flying is suppose to be fun, if your not having
fun we can go home. she told me, she did but she did not want to fly
through the turbulence again, I said, well, we have 2.5 hours left of
flying, the weather has been wrong so far, so either we plan on 2.5
hours of this or 30 minutes of it, its your choice. then we saw the
lightning in front of us and to the left, so that made the decision for
me, lightning, visible moisture, outside temp at zero. Turned and our GS
went from 137 kts to 178 kts and the wind on landing was 20 G28.
The weather so far today, beautiful ...perfect. - but we got commercial
tickets to Sacramento last night just in case the forecast for today was
going to be wrong also.
Man, and yesterday started out so perfect.