Deming, New Mexico, was a good place to stop. Granted, their fuel price was not what I expected from my AirNav printout, but the printout was a week old, and fuel prices are going up pretty fast. Besides, the guy gave me a discount for cash, and then ANOTHER discount when he saw that it was REAL cash (and not a check?)! End of a trip ? empty the wallet of excess currency, ya? know. But it was a good place to stop and assess the weather and route up ahead, as moisture and convection were afoot, and fuel is always a great thing to have when dealing with either.
I?d left Big Bear Lake in Southern California at the crack of early?well, as early as someone adjusted to the time zone after a week could reasonably accomplish. Wheels were off the pavement at 0615, and knowing that there would be a two-hour time change to home made for a long day. The trip out, just a week before, had been long and hot ? winds weren?t very cooperative, and a stop for fuel in Casa Grande featured a brush with vapor lock on the restart due to the insane temperatures. Climbing back to altitude without tripping the oil temperature alarms took about half the distance to our destination, so my goal on the return was to fly early and get farther east before stopping to reload. Leaving the mountains just after sunrise and staying high until almost halfway home made sense. (There was actually enough fuel on board to make it to Pecos, TX with an hour remaining, but since Pecos was under a yellow area of precipitation most of the morning, I figured it might be wise to stop earlier.)
The weather pattern across Texas for the past month or more has been dry to the south, with a line of weather spread from Dallas west-southwest across Midland and down to El Paso. Hot and dry to the south, and wet to the north. Since our route of flight has to cross that line in West Texas, the XM weather becomes almost a NoGo item if it isn?t functioning. I watched it all the way across the southwest desert, and was surprised to see that the disturbed area of weather actually seemed to be losing strength as the morning went on. METARS for Pecos and Ft. Stockton showed improvement, but with lingering scattered stuff below 1,000? ? indicative to me of post-storm ?trash? clouds. It?s easy to get sucked in under those because the visibility looks good, and suddenly the terrain rises while the bases stay the same, and you quickly become an ?I learned about Flying from That? author?if you manage to turn around.
The thing I hate about working my way around that type of weather is that it can be hard to tell if it is going to ?cook off? again, and build some big storms. Along with that concern is whether you try to stay on top, or slip down below, avoiding the showers visually. In the case of this weather pattern, I knew that we?d be under clear skies well before reaching the Texas Hill Country, but since we were dealing with the remains of thunderstorms, the ?on top? option would most likely have us running in to clouds we couldn?t out-climb ? even in an RV. Underneath works if you have more than legal clearance of course, but as mentioned above, it can quickly go to worms, especially with hills like the Davis Mountains to deal with.
The good news was that the way around to the south ? Van Horn, Marfa, Alpine, and the Big Bend area looked to be free of precipitation. But?.was it really clear, or was it just so far into the desert that there simply isn?t any radar coverage? Satellite pictures on XM are (in my opinion) fairly misleading, but they did tend to show the cloud cover less heavy that way, so it looked to be a good bet to cross El Paso, then turn southeast. With good escape routes back west, there was little risk in having a look. The fact that the detour would closely follow Interstate 10 made it doubly comforting.
As I left the Newman VOR, headed for Salt Flats, a broken layer of cumulous appeared along the route at our altitude. Seeing good sunshine on the ground beyond, I elected to go high and try to correlate what I saw with the radar returns we saw on the XM. This worked for about 70 miles, until I was faced with growing walls of cloud and a climb higher than I wanted to go, or a descent through one of the few remaining holes I could see ahead. Preferring to descend and stay in the good visibility, I picked my way down and headed directly for Marfa, the ceilings a good 2,000 ? 3,000 feet AGL. Hills and mesas rise all along the route, but staying clear was exceptionally easy. It was dark towards the showers shown on the XM, and lighter towards the order ? a good sign that the radar was correct. We bounded along with beautiful scenery and relief from the glaring sun as we rounded the southern edge of the showers near Marfa, then headed east-northeast to Junction. Ragged clouds getting close to the hills coincided with the sky going broken to scattered, so I climbed back up on top for a cruise to Kimball County to top off before the run home to Houston.
The morning radar returns had left me with considerable concern about whether or not we?d make it home in one day, but that didn?t stop us from launching, and seeing what happened. The fact that the showers dissipated rather than grew, coupled with a nice route around the mess (as you can see from our SPOT track) made for an easy completion to the trip. IFR? Well, as I have stated many times I don?t like IFR near storms. Out there in west Texas, you could probably get ?Deviate as required? pretty easily, but if you can do it on your own, and see beautiful territory as well?why not?
Oh yeah ? the ?drought? we?re having in Houston? Hot, dry, miserable?but the west Texas desert is in full bloom, with lots of green splashed among the mountains. Must be nice?.
Paul
I?d left Big Bear Lake in Southern California at the crack of early?well, as early as someone adjusted to the time zone after a week could reasonably accomplish. Wheels were off the pavement at 0615, and knowing that there would be a two-hour time change to home made for a long day. The trip out, just a week before, had been long and hot ? winds weren?t very cooperative, and a stop for fuel in Casa Grande featured a brush with vapor lock on the restart due to the insane temperatures. Climbing back to altitude without tripping the oil temperature alarms took about half the distance to our destination, so my goal on the return was to fly early and get farther east before stopping to reload. Leaving the mountains just after sunrise and staying high until almost halfway home made sense. (There was actually enough fuel on board to make it to Pecos, TX with an hour remaining, but since Pecos was under a yellow area of precipitation most of the morning, I figured it might be wise to stop earlier.)
The weather pattern across Texas for the past month or more has been dry to the south, with a line of weather spread from Dallas west-southwest across Midland and down to El Paso. Hot and dry to the south, and wet to the north. Since our route of flight has to cross that line in West Texas, the XM weather becomes almost a NoGo item if it isn?t functioning. I watched it all the way across the southwest desert, and was surprised to see that the disturbed area of weather actually seemed to be losing strength as the morning went on. METARS for Pecos and Ft. Stockton showed improvement, but with lingering scattered stuff below 1,000? ? indicative to me of post-storm ?trash? clouds. It?s easy to get sucked in under those because the visibility looks good, and suddenly the terrain rises while the bases stay the same, and you quickly become an ?I learned about Flying from That? author?if you manage to turn around.
The thing I hate about working my way around that type of weather is that it can be hard to tell if it is going to ?cook off? again, and build some big storms. Along with that concern is whether you try to stay on top, or slip down below, avoiding the showers visually. In the case of this weather pattern, I knew that we?d be under clear skies well before reaching the Texas Hill Country, but since we were dealing with the remains of thunderstorms, the ?on top? option would most likely have us running in to clouds we couldn?t out-climb ? even in an RV. Underneath works if you have more than legal clearance of course, but as mentioned above, it can quickly go to worms, especially with hills like the Davis Mountains to deal with.
The good news was that the way around to the south ? Van Horn, Marfa, Alpine, and the Big Bend area looked to be free of precipitation. But?.was it really clear, or was it just so far into the desert that there simply isn?t any radar coverage? Satellite pictures on XM are (in my opinion) fairly misleading, but they did tend to show the cloud cover less heavy that way, so it looked to be a good bet to cross El Paso, then turn southeast. With good escape routes back west, there was little risk in having a look. The fact that the detour would closely follow Interstate 10 made it doubly comforting.
As I left the Newman VOR, headed for Salt Flats, a broken layer of cumulous appeared along the route at our altitude. Seeing good sunshine on the ground beyond, I elected to go high and try to correlate what I saw with the radar returns we saw on the XM. This worked for about 70 miles, until I was faced with growing walls of cloud and a climb higher than I wanted to go, or a descent through one of the few remaining holes I could see ahead. Preferring to descend and stay in the good visibility, I picked my way down and headed directly for Marfa, the ceilings a good 2,000 ? 3,000 feet AGL. Hills and mesas rise all along the route, but staying clear was exceptionally easy. It was dark towards the showers shown on the XM, and lighter towards the order ? a good sign that the radar was correct. We bounded along with beautiful scenery and relief from the glaring sun as we rounded the southern edge of the showers near Marfa, then headed east-northeast to Junction. Ragged clouds getting close to the hills coincided with the sky going broken to scattered, so I climbed back up on top for a cruise to Kimball County to top off before the run home to Houston.
The morning radar returns had left me with considerable concern about whether or not we?d make it home in one day, but that didn?t stop us from launching, and seeing what happened. The fact that the showers dissipated rather than grew, coupled with a nice route around the mess (as you can see from our SPOT track) made for an easy completion to the trip. IFR? Well, as I have stated many times I don?t like IFR near storms. Out there in west Texas, you could probably get ?Deviate as required? pretty easily, but if you can do it on your own, and see beautiful territory as well?why not?
Oh yeah ? the ?drought? we?re having in Houston? Hot, dry, miserable?but the west Texas desert is in full bloom, with lots of green splashed among the mountains. Must be nice?.
Paul
