On Aug 24, 1:43*am, Gezellig wrote:

What were your thought processes in deciding to chance this flight in
this kind of weather?

Very carefully.... I repeat very carefully as I do not have onboard
radar.

1. Flight was decided one hour before, and I had been monitoring the
radar trends 2 hours before even going to the airport. One last peek
at the radar while at the airport was where the decision to launch was
made.

2. No convective activity flared up in the three hours monitoring,
and none "downstream" at the time of departure.

3. Winds aloft were pretty constant from surface to cruise altitude,
no sharp transitional zones. Winds were pretty much the same
direction in my mind reducing what I call "directional wind shear".
Forecasted winds were below my personal limits and observed winds were
running averaging 15 knots on the surface.

4. Lowest reported ceilings were 2500 feet so the approach for me was
well above minimums at all airports I passed. One of my considerations
is to consider all airports in my flight path just in case an
emergency does happen is that all airports that have ILS approaches to
be above their minimums when there is wide spread rain like yesterday.

5. Lastely, but most importantly, there was no "get there itis".

Main reason wheels left terra firma was that I took another pilot who
is in instrument training and she wanted to experience what it was
like to be in the system. For me, touching clouds always good for
proficiency.

Dlevy: I could have deviated west to remain in the clear, but as it
turned out, the clear air had more turbulence then the clouds. Since
the radar returns were not showing any convective trends, I wanted
some IMC time.

Just before breaking out, is where I encountered the most turbulence
in IMC and that was not as bad as what I encountered in the clear air.