[Ironflight]

I need to start this story a few day ago, with the long range forecast for the east half of Texas. I was scheduled to head up to Dallas (from Houston) on Friday, and could return Saturday. On Thursday, it looked like a ?24 Hour Low? was going to form up over the area, causing light drizzle and skuzzy weather, but move out by late mid-Saturday, leaving the rest of the weekend fairly nice. Well, Friday didn?t deteriorate quite as fast as forecast, which should have been the first clue that the timetable had shifted a bit. Saturday morning in Dallas dawned low and rainy ? with little chance of anyone going anywhere without Cat III capability. I started looking at Sunday (the originally-predicted ?Clear and Sunny Day?, and it looked quite promising. The DFW area was supposed to dawn clear, and Houston was to come up to MVFR by 0900. Piece of cake!

Unfortunately, the weather service seemed to be in more of a rush than Mother Nature. We woke to low ceilings and fog (no rain at least), and terminal forecasts amended overnight which slipped the clearing trends closer to noon. That was alright with me ? Houston was to be MVFR starting about 1100, and by noon, the entire route should be clear. Still?it sure didn?t look like it was supposed to out the window. We dawdled a bit with breakfast and chatting until about 1000, then checked the forecast again. ?Did we say clearing by 1000 in the Dallas area? Oh, couldn?t have been us? the forecast is for MVFR by NOON!? Ahah?.weather guessers always do that ? amend the forecasts to match reality, then claim they said that all along! We finally headed for the airport about 1000, my theory being that hanging around an airport is never a bad deal?.and when it clears, you can leave immediately! (I also believe that if you?re trying to get someplace, you have to start taking steps in that direction, or you?ll never get there.)

Sure enough, as we drove in to the airport on the northeast side of Dallas (T31 to be exact) from out in the country, we actually started to see splotches of blue, and by the time we?d had a bite to eat and gotten to the airport, it was positively clear ? overhead, and to the west. All the west side reporting stations were clear, and the south side airports were showing trends in that direction. The clearing trend was supposed to be from the west, so even if the timing wasn?t right, the concept was working out OK. The Hill Country was clear, so I knew I could go southwest (I know, I know?.Houston is Southeast!), so I formed a little plan to take off, and if I didn?t have a clear route south, I could go around the north side, maybe stop to chat with folks at Northwest Regional or Hicks, and carry on south from there. If the clearing line continued its trend, I could eventually turn east in to the Houston Metro area and home. They were predicted now to go VFR by 1300.

OK, ok, I know that some of you are asking ?Paul, didn?t you just put in a Dual AHRS upgrade to your EFIS, and an autopilot capable of shooting fully coupled approaches? Why the heck don?t you just file IFR?!? Well, you?d have had to look at the Weathermeister forecast to understand ? it was completely blood-red this morning., That?s LOW IFR. How low? How?s 100 feet sound? That?s a little low for my taste ? and I would be willing to bet, most IFR RV?ers ? and there was little point in going in to have a look, since the local ILS that we like is out of service right now. Sometimes, IFR is just not a reasonable option?.

But the heck with IFR, I had blue sky, said goodbye, and blasted off to the south. I immediately saw that I didn?t need to go north and west ? south would work out just fine. The clouds we not far to the east, and south of the Metroplex, they curved around westward, but I could see the edge out in that direction. I engaged the autopilot to keep me under the class B, and twisted the knob on the EFIS to fly an arc around the inner circle of the airspace. My new plan was to head for College Station, where we keep a car for Louise ? if I could get in there, but not home, I could leave the airplane, drive home, then ride back up with her in the morning to pick up the plane. The TAF for KCLL was calling for VFR by 1:20?oh, wait a minute, they amended that to 2:00! Still, I was cruising along down low (3000? ? head winds up above!) for a change, and watching the clouds evaporate in front of me. It almost seemed like a trench was opening up right down the magenta line that ended at College Station. It was clear and a million over Mexia, so I knew that was a good retreat, and I could see to Austin, so I could always head for the hills. Bt the clearing trend continued in front of me ? right up until I got about 30 miles north of KCLL. I pulled the power back to about 45% to slow down and give the weather time to improve. That had the side benefit of making my ?fuel remaining? time climb to over seven hours ? very comfortable reserves!

At that point, the low clouds went solid, and the ATIS was calling 4 miles and 300 overcast. I was listening to the Tower - the regional connection (Colgan) called the Tower for a clearance to Intercontinental, and when he?d copied it, he was told to expect a release in forty minutes! Houston Approach wasn?t taking many arrivals, as everyone was missing and they were stacking up. Nope, not going IFR in to there ? even if they?d take me! I looked at the 696 and saw that Fayette regional in Lagrange (Best Little ?Bleep? House in Texas?.) was ?Few @700?, so I changed plans again, headed that way. I figured I?d mosey down that way as a good ?out?, maybe pick up some gas, then see if I could get back to KCLL for that car. Or, maybe I?d get lucky, and the clearing would actually happen. Oh yeah ? another TAF amendment for Houston ? Maybe it would be MVFR by 1500?..it was now 1400, and I didn?t see many new cracks in the undercast?..

Paul

 

[Ironflight]

The Rest of the Story...

Fayette Regional was indeed clear, and I was surprised to realize I’d never been there before. Deserted, but clear, and the self serve pump was working. On the theory that you can never have too much gas, I topped up. When I’d slowed down to kill some time before, I pulled the power back to 45%. The fuel computer said I had a remaining endurance of six and a half hours at that point – Heck, I could have gone to El Paso with the fuel on board! No danger there, except excessive duty hours. After filling up, I decided to check in with Louise at home. I told her my plan, and she said ”but Paul, it’s clear here now, at least to the north! Blue sky!” She must have wondered where I went as I quickly closed the phone and hit the starter. Clear? That must be a hole – and it might or might not last. I was only 30 minutes out at the most, and I wasted little time in getting airborne, programming the route in the climb. I didn’t go high – 3,000’ was fine, and I was over the edge of the overcast by Eagle Lake. I could see the hump in the clouds over a power plane south of Sugerland airport, and the cluster of 2300’ towers on the southwest side of Houston were standing proud above the tops (which were about 1200-1500’ msl). Sure enough beyond the towers I could see a dark line, a canyon in the tops. It looked to me to extend northwest from about our home field, over Hobby, then on towards northwest Houston. I listened to approach, and sure enough, Hobby was clear, whereas West Houston was reported by a departing Skylane to be 400’ overcast. I watched a Hawker jet get vectored below me onto the GPS 35 approach to Sugarland as I descended to get under the Class B. This undercast was LOW – I was well above it at 1800’. I began to step down a little to be ready to descend if I got to VFR before the field.

Another glance at the 696 showed Hobby and Ellington both reporting “few”, and that confirmed what I was seeing, My new plan was to fly over the break in the clouds, and see if I could make a normal, VFR descent and approach to home. If not, I’d be right on top in the clear, turn around, and head for clear skies. I really had little choice, because the reported ceilings were still too low for my comfort on an IFR approach. I might be talked in to shooting an ILS in to Ellington under these conditions – but not when my autopilot and associated systems were still in what I considered to be a checkout phase. Again, the fuel was plentiful – the real benefit of the RV if you want to go check things out – your retreat can be 500 miles away, and still reachable.

Today, I was living right. As I watched the distance remaining tick down to a few miles, I crossed over the edge of the rift, and there I was, two miles west of my field, good visibility, and all the neighborhoods around bathed in sunlight. There was no wind, so the rift wasn’t moving, but it wasn’t very big either, extending maybe a mile beyond home base. I descended, entered the pattern, and made a nice squeaker. I saw hangar doors opened as I taxied past, neighbors sitting out front - not very long after I shutdown, a few neighbors were venturing into the sky. They should have asked me however, for they all came right back - the hole wasn’t big enough to leave the pattern for more than a couple miles. But hey, they’d been stuck on the ground for a day – I knew how they felt!

Dealing with weather is without a doubt the most interesting and challenging thing I have learned in three and a half decades of flying. Knowing how to plan for retreat, and how to save fuel to make that retreat robust is something you pick up (unfortunately) by getting yourself a little scared a few times. The RV is a great machine, as I said, for going to have a look – but only if you KNOW that you have a safe place to go if “Plan A” fails. Counting on a hole in the middle of a cloud field – not a good thing. Being ready to take advantage of it if it is there? Priceless!

Paul