The mission: Fly from Houston to Carlsbad (NM) for the weekend to do some cave exploring with local experts (and RV pilots) Louise Hose (who co-wrote the geologists guide to Carlsbad Cavern) and Larry Pardue, long-time explorer of the cavern ? both having graciously volunteered a good time for visitors with airplanes!
The Challenge: March weather across Texas, providing interesting combinations of low fog and towering thunderstorms. Combined with a somewhat constrained schedule, the goal was to operate safely and still accomplish the trip.
The Vehicle: Well, the Valkyrie, of course! Eleven hundred pounds of Van?s finest design, equipped with an EFIS panel, triple GPS navigation, XM weather, and a good autopilot.
After watching the weather for several days in advance, it was clear that while there might be some storms around, the trip was do-able using all of the available information and tools. It seems counter-intuitive to some, but generally speaking, the worse the weather, the less likely I am to file IFR. I like IFR for getting in and out of airports with below-VFR weather caused by flat ceilings, mist and drizzle. As long as you follow procedures, maintain fuel margins and stay proficient, those are unlikely to kill you. Violent weather (or icing) however, are not places that I like to be buried in the clouds. In those conditions, I prefer to stay VFR ? on top if possible, or underneath (which eats fuel, so it is the second choice) if the visibilities are good, and safe minimum altitudes can be observed. If the weather is too bad to do that, then I sit and wait things out.
The conditions I had seen for several days were low clouds in the morning, with scattered thunderstorms, some along lines, forming in the afternoons. So my strategy for the trip out was to fly first thing in the morning, avoiding the violence of the afternoon, and accepting the ceilings and low visibility. This worked out perfectly on Friday, with a departure just at sunrise, with moisture-laden air, but respectable visibility and good enough minimums to land at my departure point (or nearby Hobby or Ellington) for an early mission abort. As I climbed out to my filed altitude of 10,000?, I enjoyed the rare humor of the departure controller joking with airline crews at the beginning of his shift. I imagine he gets less humorous as the day goes on. I was filed via airways which form an almost direct line between Hobby and KCNM, and I like that for the purposes of having intermediate waypoints in my GRT EFIS. The flight plan page will tell you the instantaneous predicted ETA and Fuel at Waypoint for every waypoint in the plan, and this gives me a good idea of if I might have to consider an early landing or divert. If you just go ?Direct Destination?, you don?t have any intermediate points, and lose a little flexibility.
The XM weather on my 396 was showing a thin line of showers over the hill country across my route ? very light remnants of thunderstorms of the night before. The forecast called for the potential for building more, but at 0800, I was between layers at 10K, in smooth air, and suffering only slightly from a wind that varied from 10 knots on the nose to 10 knots from the left. Weathermeister had predicted that this would be the case, so there was no surprise. Only slightly annoying was the fact that the METAR for KCNM dropped to a red flag on the 396 early in the flight ? low visibility and clouds right at ILS minimums looked like morning fog. Again, this was no surprise, and as I progressed, the predicted improvement came. The ability to see this happen while in flight is simply magic! The only weather I encountered was a few light drops of rain as I crossed the old showers, still in between layers, with good visibility and accompanied with a few bumps of moderate turbulence. I left that behind over Junction, TX, and came out into full sun with an undercast as I headed out over the plains.
As I approached KCNM, the METAR had risen to 5 miles and 500 feet, and although I had the ILS plate on my knee, center herded me into a hold over the VOR because he had a pair of B-1 bombers on a Low Altitude route that impinged on the approach area. I did two turns in holding as he tried to shuffle them out of the way, and finally cleared me for ?the approach?. ?What approach?? I wondered?.I guess I am too used to a carefully controlled radar environment?..not used to picking my own. Since I was already at the IAF for the VOR, I slid down the inbound course and broke out right as advertised at 500 feet AGL, lined up perfectly for runway 32L. Total flight time was 3+20, and I still had 1+30 fuel on board. I was met by Louise and Roger, another builder who was helping her troubleshoot a radio issue. Since I had arrived a bit early, I dove into the project, and while we didn?t solve it, we at least eliminated some potential causes. And sure enough a few hours after my arrival, severe thunderstorms with hail and tornadoes descended on the area - just as forecast. I sure was glad that Louise had found a hangar for the Val before my arrival!
The caving? Well, it was spectacular, and at the risk of overextending the good graces of our local experts, I highly recommend the trip to anyone with an interest. I did some caving and lots of climbing when I was young, and I had never seen anything quite as grand. On Saturday, we did some vertical rope work to explore a wild cave up in the Guadalupes, and I was delighted with the formations and size of the cave. The conditions were perfect, and when we exited the cave in the late afternoon, the weather was sunny and moderate, with a nice breeze wafting the scent of mountain trees across us as we packed up our gear. I haven?t had such a nice day in the mountains in years. Sunday?s trip into Carlsbad was something I will remember forever. It is not often that you get to go on a private tour lead by the person that wrote the guidebook (Louise), a person that did much of the exploring (Larry), and the former National Park Service superintendent (another Larry)! The stories alone were worth the trip, even if I hadn?t seen the cave. Ask Larry Pardue to tell you about reaching a passageway high in the ceiling of a massive chamber by using helium balloons to lift a thin cord up and over a stalagmite, and then using that cord to pull up a climbing line. And then CLIMBING that line in free space not knowing for sure the strength of the anchor! I could write a volume on the trip, but this is an airplane web site?..maybe I?ll have a few pictures later on.
The Challenge: March weather across Texas, providing interesting combinations of low fog and towering thunderstorms. Combined with a somewhat constrained schedule, the goal was to operate safely and still accomplish the trip.
The Vehicle: Well, the Valkyrie, of course! Eleven hundred pounds of Van?s finest design, equipped with an EFIS panel, triple GPS navigation, XM weather, and a good autopilot.
After watching the weather for several days in advance, it was clear that while there might be some storms around, the trip was do-able using all of the available information and tools. It seems counter-intuitive to some, but generally speaking, the worse the weather, the less likely I am to file IFR. I like IFR for getting in and out of airports with below-VFR weather caused by flat ceilings, mist and drizzle. As long as you follow procedures, maintain fuel margins and stay proficient, those are unlikely to kill you. Violent weather (or icing) however, are not places that I like to be buried in the clouds. In those conditions, I prefer to stay VFR ? on top if possible, or underneath (which eats fuel, so it is the second choice) if the visibilities are good, and safe minimum altitudes can be observed. If the weather is too bad to do that, then I sit and wait things out.
The conditions I had seen for several days were low clouds in the morning, with scattered thunderstorms, some along lines, forming in the afternoons. So my strategy for the trip out was to fly first thing in the morning, avoiding the violence of the afternoon, and accepting the ceilings and low visibility. This worked out perfectly on Friday, with a departure just at sunrise, with moisture-laden air, but respectable visibility and good enough minimums to land at my departure point (or nearby Hobby or Ellington) for an early mission abort. As I climbed out to my filed altitude of 10,000?, I enjoyed the rare humor of the departure controller joking with airline crews at the beginning of his shift. I imagine he gets less humorous as the day goes on. I was filed via airways which form an almost direct line between Hobby and KCNM, and I like that for the purposes of having intermediate waypoints in my GRT EFIS. The flight plan page will tell you the instantaneous predicted ETA and Fuel at Waypoint for every waypoint in the plan, and this gives me a good idea of if I might have to consider an early landing or divert. If you just go ?Direct Destination?, you don?t have any intermediate points, and lose a little flexibility.
The XM weather on my 396 was showing a thin line of showers over the hill country across my route ? very light remnants of thunderstorms of the night before. The forecast called for the potential for building more, but at 0800, I was between layers at 10K, in smooth air, and suffering only slightly from a wind that varied from 10 knots on the nose to 10 knots from the left. Weathermeister had predicted that this would be the case, so there was no surprise. Only slightly annoying was the fact that the METAR for KCNM dropped to a red flag on the 396 early in the flight ? low visibility and clouds right at ILS minimums looked like morning fog. Again, this was no surprise, and as I progressed, the predicted improvement came. The ability to see this happen while in flight is simply magic! The only weather I encountered was a few light drops of rain as I crossed the old showers, still in between layers, with good visibility and accompanied with a few bumps of moderate turbulence. I left that behind over Junction, TX, and came out into full sun with an undercast as I headed out over the plains.
As I approached KCNM, the METAR had risen to 5 miles and 500 feet, and although I had the ILS plate on my knee, center herded me into a hold over the VOR because he had a pair of B-1 bombers on a Low Altitude route that impinged on the approach area. I did two turns in holding as he tried to shuffle them out of the way, and finally cleared me for ?the approach?. ?What approach?? I wondered?.I guess I am too used to a carefully controlled radar environment?..not used to picking my own. Since I was already at the IAF for the VOR, I slid down the inbound course and broke out right as advertised at 500 feet AGL, lined up perfectly for runway 32L. Total flight time was 3+20, and I still had 1+30 fuel on board. I was met by Louise and Roger, another builder who was helping her troubleshoot a radio issue. Since I had arrived a bit early, I dove into the project, and while we didn?t solve it, we at least eliminated some potential causes. And sure enough a few hours after my arrival, severe thunderstorms with hail and tornadoes descended on the area - just as forecast. I sure was glad that Louise had found a hangar for the Val before my arrival!
The caving? Well, it was spectacular, and at the risk of overextending the good graces of our local experts, I highly recommend the trip to anyone with an interest. I did some caving and lots of climbing when I was young, and I had never seen anything quite as grand. On Saturday, we did some vertical rope work to explore a wild cave up in the Guadalupes, and I was delighted with the formations and size of the cave. The conditions were perfect, and when we exited the cave in the late afternoon, the weather was sunny and moderate, with a nice breeze wafting the scent of mountain trees across us as we packed up our gear. I haven?t had such a nice day in the mountains in years. Sunday?s trip into Carlsbad was something I will remember forever. It is not often that you get to go on a private tour lead by the person that wrote the guidebook (Louise), a person that did much of the exploring (Larry), and the former National Park Service superintendent (another Larry)! The stories alone were worth the trip, even if I hadn?t seen the cave. Ask Larry Pardue to tell you about reaching a passageway high in the ceiling of a massive chamber by using helium balloons to lift a thin cord up and over a stalagmite, and then using that cord to pull up a climbing line. And then CLIMBING that line in free space not knowing for sure the strength of the anchor! I could write a volume on the trip, but this is an airplane web site?..maybe I?ll have a few pictures later on.
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