What a day

My father had agreed to donate his station wagon to me as I wanted something to
serve as a Lowesmobile. The problem was he lives about 250 miles from me on the
Atlantic coast. A friend of mine offered to drive the car back for me. "I
know", I said, "let's fly down and you can drive back". Well, since he wants to
learn how to fly he wasn't going to turn down my offer. The problem was that I
work on weekends and he generally works during the week. He did have Tuesdays
off, so that was when we were going to do it.

Last Tuesday was a no-go due to his wife. But this Tuesday (yesterday) would be
OK... IF I could find an airplane and IF the weather would cooperate. Well,
when I visited my local rental emporium, there was only one C-172 available for
all day Tuesday. I'd never flown that particular bird, but what the hell. I
signed up to fly it. Unfortunately, it was scheduled for early in the morning
so I couldn't get it until 1100. Well, you takes what you can gets.

Now all I needed was some reasonable weather. Anybody who lives in the
southeastern US knows the atmosphere was very unstable yesterday. There was
high pressure to the north but a strong low in the Gulf of Mexico pumping huge
amounts of moisture into our area. We were scheduled for scattered showers and
thunderstorms all day long. I would have preferred to get an early start to
avoid most of the convective activity but that just wasn't in the cards.

I woke up yesterday morning at 0330 to the sounds of my dog retching. I should
have taken that as an omen of the pleasures to come. I never really managed to
get back to sleep after that. We had a heavy rain shower around 0500; I heard a
few rumbles but never saw any flashes. By 0830 I could see patches of blue so I
thought maybe I'd give it a shot. I gave FSS a call. There was a pretty good
storm going on in the area I was planning to fly to with a clear area
afterwards, then another area of cells. We figured by the time I got down there
I could slip between the two convective areas. I filed my flight plan and drove
to the airport as soon as my buddy arrived at my house.

As I preflighted the aircraft I was struck by how ragged out it was. Old radio
stack; the panel trim on the right side of the airplane hung down in front of
the engine instruments. We spent a good five minutes looking for where to plug
in our headsets. This thing was ooooold. The ASI was in both MPH and knots;
the radios were some off brand which reminded me of the old ARC Cessna radios.
"Where in the hell is the DME?"

"That's one", I thought.

It took a few minutes to figure out how to get the proper frequencies into the
proper radios but I finally managed it. It didn't help that most of the labels
on the front of the radios were worn off. Ah, well.... time to blast off.

I took off without further incident and picked up my clearance in the air, then
started heading east. I punched numerous clouds during the multistage climb but
no turbulence to speak of. So far, so good. About halfway to the first fix,
the #2 nav-com crapped out dead. No lights, no sound, nada. "That's two."
Problems are starting to stack up. I hit some heavy rain which amazingly did
not wash the dried bugs off the windshield. I continued on.

I hate flying IFR with only one radio and no DME. What a PITA.

I managed not to lose my way and finally cancelled my flight plan when I was
sitting on top of the grass strip I was looking for. The landing was
uneventful. I wish I could say the same for my ride back.

Anyway, my father picked us up and took us to DMV where we transferred the title
to the wagon and I bought new license plates. Then back to the airport.
Normally I would have at least stayed to eat but I didn't want to hang around if
there was convective buildups.

This time I did it without a flight plan. I learned long ago that it's better
to stay low when there are thunderboomers around and that's not compatible with
most IFR flight plans. The MEA for the victor airway was 5000 feet, which was
exactly where I didn't want to be. I climbed to 2500 feet and leveled off.
That put me below the bases and in pretty good shape to use the Mark I
Weatherscope (my eyeballs).

Sad to say, that didn't last more than part of the way. I popped in and out of
clouds but then I went solid. Then it got REALLY dark. Then all hell broke
loose. I'm glad I was alone because it wasn't pretty. Anyway, as I'm here to
write this story you know how it turned out. I went in and out of heavy rain
numerous times. The airspeed indicator began to become erratic.

One thing that was kind of interesting was that when I pushed the instrument
panel trim out of the way to peek at the oil pressure and temp gauges I found
the oil pressure was resting on the very bottom of the green and the oil temp
was sitting at the very top of the green. The next color in both cases was red.
I chose to interpret that as I was at the limits of the green rather than
entering the red zone. The eternal optimist, I guess.

I went through one more paint stripping rain storm and then I spotted my home
airport. The ASI indicated I was flying at 30 knots on final. I've got to
complement Cessna for building such solid flying characteristics in their
C-172s... in fact, it felt like I was a little fast. My landing was a tad long
so there must have been a tailwind. G

When I got inside the FBO I pulled up the current radar screen and saw lots of
red all across my route of flight, Hell... I could have told them that.

But the best part of the day's flight was there was no film at 11. Every day a
new adventure...



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN

VE

"Mortimer Schnerd, RN" wrote

The ASI indicated I was flying at 30 knots on final. I've got to
complement Cessna for building such solid flying characteristics in their
C-172s... in fact, it felt like I was a little fast. My landing was a tad
long
so there must have been a tailwind. G

When I got inside the FBO I pulled up the current radar screen and saw
lots of
red all across my route of flight, Hell... I could have told them that.

Did you give the FBO hell, about having such an outdated, broken down,
%#$!&*% piece of sh*t on the line? I know I couldn't have withheld some
(read many) choice words.
--
Jim in NC

Morgans wrote:
Did you give the FBO hell, about having such an outdated, broken down,
%#$!&*% piece of sh*t on the line? I know I couldn't have withheld some
(read many) choice words.



I did mention my concerns, yes.



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN

VE

"Mortimer Schnerd, RN" wrote:

snip
I learned long ago that it's better
to stay low when there are thunderboomers around and that's not compatible
with most IFR flight plans.

Interesting observation, given that you are based in the south where haze
is so prevalent.

I seem to have better luck flight planning around the 12-15,000 foot range
in the Northeast US, which gets me above the three-to-six mile haze layer
and often times, above the forming TCUs so that it is easier to spot the
monster thunderstorms.

In any regard, happy to read that there was a pleasant outcome to your
trip.

--
Peter
























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Peter R. wrote:
I learned long ago that it's better
to stay low when there are thunderboomers around and that's not compatible
with most IFR flight plans.

Interesting observation, given that you are based in the south where haze
is so prevalent.

I seem to have better luck flight planning around the 12-15,000 foot range
in the Northeast US, which gets me above the three-to-six mile haze layer
and often times, above the forming TCUs so that it is easier to spot the
monster thunderstorms.

I agree. I'm in NC and fly primarily between 7k and 10k although 11 and
12k is often the key when jumping crotches. I just can't get up higher
profitably on most trips. Even though that altitude puts me in the
cloud canyons I prefer to see the storms in clear air.

Down low is no fun when the visibility is limited and when it's tough to
gage storm strength. It's one thing to avoid the big rain shafts but
when you can't see the tops, it's hard to tell when you may be under or
too close to a big one that decides to unload on your back (heavy rain,
lightening, hail). Plus up high it tends to be smooth and allows my
precious cargo to sleep. Down low is work. And you have to keep track
of those ground obstructions.

Great write-up! Thanks Mortimer.

Sad to say, that didn't last more than part of the way. I popped in and
out of clouds but then I went solid. Then it got REALLY dark. Then all
hell broke loose. I'm glad I was alone because it wasn't pretty.
Anyway, as I'm here to write this story you know how it turned out. I
went in and out of heavy rain numerous times. The airspeed indicator
began to become erratic.

What a hair-raising story!

One thing I've had beaten into my head is to never, ever mess with
thunderstorms. Unless they are widely scattered (the norm around here in
summer) we'll stay on the ground.

There's a good article in Plane & Pilot this month about flying near
thunderstorms, and one line (and I paraphrase) stuck in my craw: "Whether
you're an airline pilot, a weekend warrior, or Bob Hoover himself,
thunderstorms are the 'great equalizer' of pilots. They will kill everyone,
regardless of piloting skill."
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Peter R. wrote:
I seem to have better luck flight planning around the 12-15,000 foot range
in the Northeast US, which gets me above the three-to-six mile haze layer
and often times, above the forming TCUs so that it is easier to spot the
monster thunderstorms.



Those FBO beaters would require JATO assist to reach those altitudes. I'm stuck
in the muck.




--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN

VE

Maule Driver wrote:
Down low is no fun when the visibility is limited and when it's tough to
gage storm strength. It's one thing to avoid the big rain shafts but
when you can't see the tops, it's hard to tell when you may be under or
too close to a big one that decides to unload on your back (heavy rain,
lightening, hail). Plus up high it tends to be smooth and allows my
precious cargo to sleep. Down low is work. And you have to keep track
of those ground obstructions.



Ground obstructions? G




--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN

VE

Mortimer Schnerd, RN wrote:
snip
This time I did it without a flight plan. I learned long ago that it's better
to stay low when there are thunderboomers around and that's not compatible with
most IFR flight plans. The MEA for the victor airway was 5000 feet, which was
exactly where I didn't want to be. I climbed to 2500 feet and leveled off.
snip
Sad to say, that didn't last more than part of the way. I popped in and out of
clouds but then I went solid. Then it got REALLY dark. Then all hell broke
loose. I'm glad I was alone because it wasn't pretty. Anyway, as I'm here to
write this story you know how it turned out. I went in and out of heavy rain
numerous times. The airspeed indicator began to become erratic.

I'm glad you're still with us Mortimer. This is a classic example of
pressing onward VFR into IMC. You got lucky.

Would you do anything differently if you had it to do again?

-R

This is a classic example of
pressing onward VFR into IMC. You got lucky.

I assume, since he appears to be rated, that he got a popup clearance
rather than bore into the clouds VFR and then post to Usenet about it.

Jose
--
Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no universe.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.