IFR Pilots. Would you fly through it?

SteveC said:
If you were driving down the highway in a pickup truck and see some 2x4s lying in one lane, would you hit them or switch lanes?

:)
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It's got a HEMI! I just bought it and it's supposed to be indestructible! :)
 
Thar probably isn't putting out any rain. So ATC doesn't even know its there. And if your a poor freight dawg who has no radar and fly at night your prolly going to hit that at cruise speed because you'd never see it coming.
 
JEP said:
Or if you get one of them fancy Lear60's you can just fly right over it....:D

(and for all you technical freaks that feel the need to contradict everything, Yes I am aware that he may not be able to climb over that as it appears to be going Way, Way, up...) :p
Stone....

So not that you have been on the line 'per se' do you miss spending your nite in the soup? :sarcasm:
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Yeah, this one we probably could top...some out there we can't, but for the most part, if we can't top it, we go around it. There are hardly ever any systems where everything is topping above 40K+. One or two cells maybe, but not usually a whole line.

To answer your question, yes I already do miss spending my time in the soup. I miss shooting approaches everywhere...I feel like a slacker. I haven't shot an approach since I've been here (2 months on the line now, and about 80+ hours in the airplane). I miss being the boss, and the only one to worry about.

On the other hand, I like the paychecks. I like the time spent away from work being at home, on the beach, etc., not in coffee shops, at crashpads, and the like. I like a second engine. I like the power of the 60. I like being able to get away from the weather (or fires, depending on where you live:bandit:). There are goods and bads...I'm adapting to the change...:D

Anyways, back to topic...
 
calcapt said:
Why fly through it? There is a clear path on either side of it so again, why fly through it? Just because you could doesn't mean you should.

ATC can't vector you to fly through it unless you accept the clearance. "Unable due to weather" is a perfectly acceptable response. Remember, you are the captain.
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If there is an easy way around it, sure I'd take it. But like I said, depends on the situation, the aircraft and your altitude. If I can pick my way through the better looking part of the cloud, it wouldn't be too bad. I flew through building cumulous like that all the time with my instructor down in Jacksonville FL right after I got my PPL. I was scared to fly through stuff like that, but apparently my instructor didn't mind. We got the snot kicked out of us in a 172, even had pouring rain and ice coming through the vents, but usually in a minute or so we were out.

I was flying from TTN to HEF last year with a student on a cross country and we came across a pretty nasty looking building cumulous and request deviation around it, ATC in DC only gave us 10 degrees to work with because of arriving traffic at DCA. So, we picked the best looking side of it within 10 degrees and went through. Got rocked pretty good for a few minutes before came out on the other side. We were also at 6000'.

On a x/c flight in Florida right after I got my PPL, we had a thunderstorm to our left, and the restricted airspace of the Space center to our right, ATC wouldn't let us deviate anymore to the right and we ended up flying right underneath the Anvil. That sucked. :(
 
Airdale said:
If there is an easy way around it, sure I'd take it. But like I said, depends on the situation, the aircraft and your altitude. If I can pick my way through the better looking part of the cloud, it wouldn't be too bad. I flew through building cumulous like that all the time with my instructor down in Jacksonville FL right after I got my PPL. I was scared to fly through stuff like that, but apparently my instructor didn't mind. We got the snot kicked out of us in a 172, even had pouring rain and ice coming through the vents, but usually in a minute or so we were out.

I was flying from TTN to HEF last year with a student on a cross country and we came across a pretty nasty looking building cumulous and request deviation around it, ATC in DC only gave us 10 degrees to work with because of arriving traffic at DCA. So, we picked the best looking side of it within 10 degrees and went through. Got rocked pretty good for a few minutes before came out on the other side. We were also at 6000'.

On a x/c flight in Florida right after I got my PPL, we had a thunderstorm to our left, and the restricted airspace of the Space center to our right, ATC wouldn't let us deviate anymore to the right and we ended up flying right underneath the Anvil. That sucked. :(
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Ahh....I'm not really sure those are the best decision to make ever eh? Lawn darting one because you flew through weather your aircraft couldn't handle sounds a little bit worse than declaring and flying through the restricted airspace eh?
 
They open that restricted area if they have to. I've flown through there alot with the same weather you've talked about they try and sell you that the restricted area can't be changed but its basically a few phones calls and about 5 mins and you can go through it.
If you just say Roger and continue that will get you know where.
PIC isn't just a column in a green book.
 
Heard on Memphis Center a couple of weeks ago, on a particularly nasty weather day. CHQ**** had been denied a deviation for weather.

MEM: "CHQ****, contact Nashville approach now on 119.35"

CHQ****: "119.35, and we're deviating 20 to the right for weather"

MEM: "CHQ****, who told you that you could deviate to the right?"

CHQ****: "The Captain"

That was that!:buck:
 
Airdale said:
Depends on a few variables. What altitude you're flying at? What the radar is painting? Judging from the photo, its definitely a building Cumulous-soon-to-be-Thunderstorm, but I think the Storm still has a few hours of building before it matures......- I'd fly through it. Fun stuff! :)
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Radar is a tool you use when you can't see the cumulus clouds. This particular cell is well-defined and definitely growing. Not something to tangle with no matter what the radar "paints". It'll be fun right up until the time it's not fun anymore.
 
There is absolutely no way I'm flying through that.

I wonder how robot airplanes will fly around those to give a quality ride to the customers.
 
All I can say is that there are some MAJOR misconceptions on weather radar and weather systems on this thread. There is wreckage all over this country with people that thought the same thing.

Put this in the "classroom/sim experience can't buy this" category.
 
"Aw, man! There's just barely a green blotch on the NEXRAD--and no lightning for 20 miles!"

"And if we get into it really bad, we've always got the parachute that'll always save our necks!"

Yeah, that was really spoken to me by a new Cirrus pilot.:banghead: Some of those guys are "invincible."

My girlfriend won't swoon at my feet if I shave an hour or two off a trip I'm flying. That stopped a long time ago (actually, that never happened:confused:).


Divert around. No question. It'll add maybe 1-2 minutes to your total duration of flight, and even though ATC may answer you sarcastically and begrudge clearing the airspace for you, just remember: When the pilot screws up, the pilot dies; when ATC screws up, the pilot dies. No point in drilling a greasy smoking crater just because you're concerned ATC might think you're a wussie.


Airdale said:
On a x/c flight in Florida right after I got my PPL, we had a thunderstorm to our left, and the restricted airspace of the Space center to our right, ATC wouldn't let us deviate anymore to the right and we ended up flying right underneath the Anvil. That sucked. :(
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Airdale, obviously hindsight is 20/20 but was bailing out and doing a 180 an option? That might have been the "smart" play. For some reason, turning tail and running seems a harder option to take sometimes when you're actually "in the situation"....but no shame in bugging out and heading home...
 
That looks ugly! There's obviously no way of knowing how high it really is, but it looks like it's getting waay up there. It doesn't matter if the radar is painting anything or not; with that much vertical development in such a small area has the potential for really, really bad [dangerous] turbulence. There's no way I'd want to be the one to find out how bad it really is.

Some of the worst turbulence I've been in was in the Caribbean in building storms that didn't paint much on the radar, so the radar doesn't really mean jack to me in this situation. The radar lies a lot anyway. If this photo was taken out west, than that cloud/storm whatever is likely to be pretty dry, even if it's a building storm. A lot of the time we fly around out west with the gain turned up a little to account for the dryness of the storms--a similar radar return in Tucson and Miami can mean pretty different intensities.
 
NJA_Capt said:
All I can say is that there are some MAJOR misconceptions on weather radar and weather systems on this thread. There is wreckage all over this country with people that thought the same thing.

Put this in the "classroom/sim experience can't buy this" category.
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Well said. Most line pilots are weak on using radar, what it can and can't do for example or how to use tilt. It's been a big mistake to make radar something that is "learned on the line". It's not.
 
Doug Taylor said:
You can be my wingman any day.

But a chance of airframe ice, MDT-SVR turbulence and potentially hail to bust out your windscreen, no point in playing IFR-rated "stud" and blasting through it when it looks pretty simple to get around.

Safety -- questionable
Passenger Comfort -- negatron.

Well, that solves it for me.
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That is one of the biggest things I had to understand when flying 121. The guys up front can take the bumps better than the folks in the back. Sometimes we'll get some chop and the Cappy is always asking for ride reports higher and lower, along with everyone else. There are paying customers back there who want it smooth as possible.
 
mikecweb said:
Thar probably isn't putting out any rain. So ATC doesn't even know its there. And if your a poor freight dawg who has no radar and fly at night your prolly going to hit that at cruise speed because you'd never see it coming.
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I'm curious how you came to the conclusion that just because (hypothetically) there was no rain shooting out the bottom it wouldn't paint.
 
wheelsup said:
I'm curious how you came to the conclusion that just because (hypothetically) there was no rain shooting out the bottom it wouldn't paint.
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Because if ATCs radar is pointed in a Base Reflectivity mode (which is my understanding most of them are) the chances of them painting anything is slim to none.
 
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