..started on Saturday and Intellicast(.com) showed a huge squall line across Kentucky and Tennessee so we aborted and looked at Sunday which early on didn't appear much better.
We launched on Monday with the 496 tuned up and flew over at leat 100 miles of fog covered mountains in Georgia and Tennessee and fairly clear further on.
Wednesday was a different story on return to Georgia...it didn't look good in Kentucky and Tn but it slowly became VFR and before the mountains, Brian and I agreed to deviate and head more westerly as the 496 recommended.
For those of you still on the fence about whether or not to buy a 496/696, I can assure you that it is/was the best decision I ever made and you'll never regret it unless you don't do fairly long cross-countries. It made the return in spite of bad wx in places, a non-event.
Regards
Very interesting post, since we were headed to Osh on Sunday and came back on Wednesday.
On Sunday, we awoke to see a line of storms from Little Rock, Arkansas all the way up into Virginia. The line was about a hundred miles north of my home field - VPC (Cartersville, GA - Just NW of Atlanta). Despite the radar info, my buddy and I arrived at the airport at about 6:30, packed the airplane and went to the FBO to surf back and forth between about 5 different weather resources on the web.
The plan was to wait until an area in the line began to dissipate, pile in the airplane and head that way without XM but with the assistance of FlightWatch, if necessary. A key was that if an opening presented itself in TN, we were only 30-40 minutes away.
And about 9:30 things started to thin out just north of Huntsville, so we headed that way and confirmed things with the FSS as we got close to Huntsville. Yep, decent VFR into Kentucky and beyond, with just a few showers en-route. So we went that way, got sprinkled on briefly, and didn't see any more rain until Ripon.
At Ripon, the town was getting hammered by a rainstorm when we arrived. We detoured a half mile east, bullseyed the railroad tracks and followed the procedure to an uneventful landing at Oshkosh, followed by a long, long taxi around the whole campus before finally reaching HBC.
And then we enjoyed a couple of excellent days at Oshkosh...
On Wednesday, we briefed at Osh, noted a lot of rain and convective stuff in Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky, plus more slightly SW of Atlanta. We launched at about 10:30 Eastern with the idea that we could detour West and make an end-run around everything except what might meet us near Atlanta.
We stopped in Aurora, IL for fuel, checked weather again and headed South still planning on making an end-run to the West if necessary. In Central IL, we checked in with FlightWatch and updated the tentative plan to include a stop near the Ohio River if there wasn't a VFR corridor free of convection and significant rain.
As we neared the river, we followed up with Flightwatch, and found that the weather had dissipated substantially. There were only a couple of convective areas between us and home, so we pressed on. As it turned out, at 8,500' we were above a couple of scattered/broken layers, but a few tops were near or above our altitude. Those were scattered widely and didn't prevent us from seeing the convective stuff from a long way away and keeping well clear.
None of it posed a problem and we arrived home at a little after 3:00.
No doubt that XM is a wonderful tool, but the FSS has essentially the same information and with some planning, good strategy, and decent tactics, XM isn't an absolute *must*.
But it sure is nice, and I'm always tempted to spend the money for it...
Pierre took my wife up for her first small plane ride on a day with a lot of weather in the area. When they landed I was informed "we need one of those Garmin GPS's with weather." I'm just finishing up our new panel with the new 696 front and center.
