IFR: Back in the Saddle (Again) and Storm Stories
After some discussion and change of destination, instructor M and I were back in the plane and getting our clearance to launch into the clouds and rain. The ceiling was broken clouds at a little over 2000 feet, and a ceiling at 6000 feet. But it was changing as the cold front, still a long ways west, pushed into the area. We’d changed destinations from the west to the south to avoid possible embedded thunderstorms.
Now, the plane that I own 1/5 of has a nice, but older, GPS, one VOR with localizer and glideslope, and one ADF for the approaches you want to be masochistic about. No stormscope, no radar, and no Garmin NextRad WX report. In short, if there’s a thunderstorm or heavy convection, we can’t see it.
We did the usual departure, M taxied us to the runway while I put the route into the GPS. We did all the usual stuff and were soon off and climbing into the lower-hanging scud below the clouds. Potomac ATC turned us soon and the route I’d put into the GPS wasn’t valid anymore, we were on radar vectors.
Forward visibility was lousy, maybe a mile if you spotted me half of it. The raindrops made graceful curves as the slipstream hit the windshield. To the west on the right it was may be 2-3 miles and darker, to the left it was at least 10 miles with patches of blue. ATC kept calling traffic ahead, I kept reporting IMC forward. I was saying in the terse pilot-ATC talk that it was their job to keep us clear. It wasn’t completely closed in on all sides, but nor was there enough ground to be visible for navigation either. IMC (Instrument Meterological Conditions), but not whiteout.
We got to our 5000 foot cruising altitude, and we were set, it was raining ahead, but we’d been in and out of the rain several times. Not a problem.
I commented, “It’s much smoother up here in the clouds than it is below them.”
M was non-commital, “Sometimes, but not always. Depends on the clouds.”
He started to discuss this more, but of course, the rain started increasing. The view from the sides diminished and went away. M said he could still see ground directly below us, but that wasn’t much use. The view went pretty much gray. And the smooth air started getting vexing.
As the rain increased and the air got bumpier, we didn’t need radar to know we were in some denser part of the storm. ATC got a query about the weather from another airplane and we listened.
I was trying to keep altitude and heading, but kept having to trim up and up, at one point we had full power, 10 degrees nose up and were going down 700 feet per minute. Given normal conditions this would have been at least a 700/min climb if not more. We were in a 1400 fpm or greater downdraft.
We got out of that without getting more than a couple hundred feet of my altitude, but my heading was messed up with all that yanking on the yoke. And the rain was distracting too. It was loud enough that we had to raise our voices some to talk and we both have ANR headsets.
ATC was telling the other plane that there were strong echos between two points about 8 miles apart and further south. Checking those points on the GPS’s moving map, we were pretty much right there. So th stronger weather had come in sooner rather than later. Back at the FBO, a couple people were watching our route on FlightAware.com and saw us turn around in a good-sized patch of yellow radar echos.
As soon as the other pilot was done, I called ATC and told them we wanted to return home. They gave us a 180 degree turn and we headed back.
They vectored us to our home localizer, and we did the now-usual in and out of rain on the way back. In some areas, it was beautiful to see the wisps of clouds hanging like prayer flags of the tops of the hills. The lines of higher clouds created canyons in the sky I wanted to explore. Once I could do it more competently.
As we intercepted the localizer, we came into some turbulent cumulus clouds again. And we were closer to the airport I thought at first. I needed to descend quickly and the roiling air made it difficult to track the localizer and descend at a controlled rate. Bigger planes have it easier, the greater weight gives them more inertial and they get bounced around less. My plane weighs less than the VW bug that I and my friends picked up in high school.
We broke out of the clouds suddenly about 2 miles or so from the runway and way too high. I wasn’t looking at the altimeter then, but it looked like maybe a thousand feet too high, higher than traffic pattern. I had two options: descend and go around; or slow, descend, and land. I chose the latter and reserved the former as a fall back.
I slowed to flap speed, dropped all the flaps, and pushed the nose over. We descended fast at 80 mph and made the second half of the runway. My plane has 40 degrees of flaps. Putting them all down is pretty much like putting out a small parachute. Successful landing, but of courseit would be good if I’d kept the centerline alignment better.
It’s clear that my slow flying summer with few lessons (for maintenance and other reasons) has taken its toll. We have more scheduled lessons next week. I’m close to done, but not yet at passing level, nor at my comfort level either. But it was a useful lesson and I got to see the inside of those yellow radar echos. I don’t want to see the inside of the red radar echos.