Danged Weather

SCCutler

SCCutler

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Spike Cutler
Was about to head to the 'drome yesterday to launch to T82 from ADS, when the "dissipating" line of thunderstorms got new life. Try in the morning.

Morning's here, and there's a persistent line of thunder that I have to get past. Would I try it if I had XM? Dunno. But I won't, today. And then there's the "how to get home" for Monday. Arggh.

Driving. And you just *know* that, once we hit the road, the weather's gonna improve markedly.

Oh well.
 
SCCutler said:
Was about to head to the 'drome yesterday to launch to T82 from ADS, when the "dissipating" line of thunderstorms got new life. Try in the morning.

Morning's here, and there's a persistent line of thunder that I have to get past. Would I try it if I had XM? Dunno. But I won't, today. And then there's the "how to get home" for Monday. Arggh.

Driving. And you just *know* that, once we hit the road, the weather's gonna improve markedly.

Oh well.
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Sorry to hear that, Spike. Goes to show that even an instrument ticket won't get you there every time.

If you want to swing by Nebraska quick I'll loan you my G396 w/XM.:rolleyes:
 
Well, it's all about personal minimums, and not breakin' 'em.
 
On the way up to Wisconsin we were just ahead of a cold front moving in from the west. As a matter of fact, it was just off our left and to the right was clear. There were breaks in it, but I wouldn't have wanted to fly through the large system unless there was a clear break. We could clearly see where the cells were and what the NEXRAD said. We gave several pireps to center where the NEXRAD showed large cells and we could see the tops were about our altitude at FL190. They were also isolated buildups someone could easily fly around--these were popping up in front of the front <g>.

Long story short, I would not use NEXRAD to break through a large systemic front. It's too far behind where things actually are. Maybe a storm scope with NEXRAD, but on board radar is what I would prefer. Several times our on board radar showed things were past or behind us or tops were lower. NEXRAD painted where it was 15 or 20 minutes ago and gave no top info.

My 2cents.

Hope you get out of there. We'll be flying back in it Sunday.

Best,

Dave
 
Or...you could be in Hotlanta where we haven't seen rain since Noah. A few cumulus clouds and haze it about it for us. I WANT RAIN.
 
I got lucky with that front. I was going to cancell my flight when one last weather check showed the front had lost almost all of its energy. I flew throgh it witout hitting a drop and had a smooth flight (except for a 5 min stretch at the front edge when the wind changed.
 
Well, we did drive, and in the process determined: (1) we could have made it in, albeit with a GPS approach in bumpy clouds, and (2) we'd still be worrying about the wx on Monday for going home.

Sad thing- there are a couple of low water crossings on the road to our "neighborhood" and there was a search and rescue team encamped next to it (water was still going over the road as well, about 1' deep). They told me, sadly, that they were there to hopefully recover the body of a soul who had been swept away upstream. Much very, very heavy rain down here.
 
Hey Spike! F.I.L. said they had 11" in one day, and expecting more, record spring deluge in the hill country.
He mentioned the SUV in the creek too, a 21 y.o. male who was on his cell phone with his mother at the time, last words "...in trouble, OMG!" very, very sad. Must heed those warning signs.
(Hey, how are you connected??)

SCCutler said:
Well, we did drive, and in the process determined: (1) we could have made it in, albeit with a GPS approach in bumpy clouds, and (2) we'd still be worrying about the wx on Monday for going home.
Sad thing- there are a couple of low water crossings on the road to our "neighborhood" and there was a search and rescue team encamped next to it (water was still going over the road as well, about 1' deep). They told me, sadly, that they were there to hopefully recover the body of a soul who had been swept away upstream. Much very, very heavy rain down here.
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WX was calling for up to 20 inches (!!!) in the hill country over the weekend. They've backed off a bit on that. We still got a couple of inches last night here in San Antone, several roads are closed due to high water.

I was concerned about getting home Friday night - AA had cancelled about 80% of the Thursday schedule through DFW, and the weather wasn't looking great for Friday. In the end, we were only 15 +/- minutes late on both legs... the first one because they had no gates available at DFW for us, and we sat... and sat on the tarmac for 20+ minutes.
 
wsuffa said:
I was concerned about getting home Friday night - AA had cancelled about 80% of the Thursday schedule through DFW
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I was sitting in the airline terminal in KIAH Thursday evening waiting for my flight back to KDEN and heard a couple flights to Dallas cancel. Our flight was delayed about an hour and a half because the inbound airplane was delayed. Once we got going we took this nice detour. Shows that even airlines don't mess with that weather.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/FFT147/history/20070525/0159Z/KIAH/KDEN
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Hey Spike! F.I.L. said they had 11" in one day, and expecting more, record spring deluge in the hill country.
He mentioned the SUV in the creek too, a 21 y.o. male who was on his cell phone with his mother at the time, last words "...in trouble, OMG!" very, very sad. Must heed those warning signs.
(Hey, how are you connected??)
Click to expand...

More rain today, and I guess that fellow was who they were looking for on Baron's Creek. Sad times.

I am connected with a Sprint card loaned to me by a friend, which I tried to use a few weeks ago with no success, but now find that, if I sit upstairs, on the sofa, facing the front of the house, but straight ahead, not angled at all, it sometimes works. Funny.

More rain today, water over the road again, much damage to the roadbed adjacent to the low water crossings. Had I flown, i would have gotten in pretty easily I think, but with the WX as it has been, would have been fretting greatly about getting home tomorrow, so I am way done worrying about driving instead of flying.

Clouds here were very dramatic, Wagnerian-looking things.

Fun day with Keith, non-POA pilot friend and his wife, eating, trying (unsuccessfully) to fix my lawn mower, wandering, eating, drinking Merlot and beer (in stages, not together) and learning a bit about "geocaching," a hobby Keith and his wife share.

Nice day.
 
Everskyward said:
I was sitting in the airline terminal in KIAH Thursday evening waiting for my flight back to KDEN and heard a couple flights to Dallas cancel. Our flight was delayed about an hour and a half because the inbound airplane was delayed. Once we got going we took this nice detour. Shows that even airlines don't mess with that weather.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/FFT147/history/20070525/0159Z/KIAH/KDEN
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There's no difference between actual and proposed time stretches considering the detour. I wonder if they updated the times at the last minute for the modified route or the route was considered after departure.

What were the original departure and arrival times?
 
KennyFlys said:
There's no difference between actual and proposed time stretches considering the detour. I wonder if they updated the times at the last minute for the modified route or the route was considered after departure.
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Their filed route, or at least the one they got in their initial clearance (JCT4 JCT FST CME LAA QUAIL5) more or less resembles the route we took, so they (or ATC) probably preplanned it that way due to the weather. That would account for the similarity in times. If you look at the bottom of the page you will see that the previous two days flight were 25 minutes shorter.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/FFT147/history/20070525/0159Z/KIAH/KDEN

What were the original departure and arrival times?
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Departing KIAH 1915 CDT, arriving KDEN 2045 MDT. However, I'm pretty sure the times airlines advertise are block to block not takeoff to landing.
 
Yeah, that weather kept me grounded this weekend too. It's just so damned frustrating that after prepaying for my flight lessons and having a 3-day weekend with 6 hours of plane and instructor time scheduled, I only got to log .4 hrs of flight time while doing 2 circuits around the pattern and 3 hours of ground instruction. Hopefully next weekend will be better.
 
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