flyingcheesehead
Touchdown! Greaser!
I didn't think a whole lot about this until we were discussing it in chat tonight, but now that I've thought about it, I've gotta post.
Last Sunday, after hitting 11 airports for the ConUS challenge on the way home from 6Y9, I had a weather dilemma. There was a large thunderstorm moving up from the south that was already over Madison. It was oriented mostly north-south, with the north end a bit farther to the west, and the heavy precip was along the east end. After watching it on a couple of previous stops, I took a longer look when I stopped at 63C, my last stop. Madison was still getting very wet, but wasn't getting the L4 and L5 stuff any more. However, the L5 was headed directly at 63C and there were no tiedowns there, so I decided to depart and if it really was crappy I'd land at RYV until I could get back to MSN. (63C was still good VFR, with menacing black clouds to the west-southwest.)
After departure I grabbed the ATIS and got a popup IFR plan from Madison Approach. I was cleared to MSN via radar vectors at 4,000, fly heading 140. Shortly thereafter, a Cessna 152 checked in VFR on the east-side freq (I was on west) but one controller was working both sectors so I did hear half the conversation, which was all that was needed. Here's what I heard:
"Cessna 469, squawk 04xx"
"Cessna 469, radar contact. Are you aware of the weather?"
"Cessna 469, be aware that I'm showing level 3 precip between you and the field and another aircraft just reported mile and a half visibility. Are you sure you want to continue?"
"Cessna 469, it looks like you passed the runway centerline. Fly heading 190, I'll vector you back onto final."
"Cessna 469, fly heading 210, contact tower now, 119.3."
This was for runway 21, so the approach controller vectored him the whole way in. I was shaking my head and thinking "there's a guy that's gonna make the news someday." I didn't think his idiocy would directly affect me, but then a minute later, I got this:
"Skylane 271G, I'm showing some precip between you and the field, but there's a 152 ahead of you that just flew VFR to runway 21 and reported 3 miles visibility the whole way in. Do you want the visual?"
"Negative Approach, 271G is solid IMC, request the ILS 21."
I had a limited perception of the horizon out the window due to city lights below making the muck glow. At the FAF, though, I was still IMC. Inside the FAF I would occasionally catch a glimpse of lights on the ground and I thought I saw the beacon once. Rain was still comin' down. I spotted the rabbit at about 850 AGL.
No flippin' way it was VFR. I taxied in, parked with the wing just under the overhang of the south ramp terminal (reason #1 to fly a high wing), and shook my head in disgust at the stupid 152 pilot. IMHO, that was a pretty blatant "Cover-my-ass" PIREP on his part, as both the previous plane and the next (me) were reporting IMC. I never did check to see if his PIREP made it into the system, but the MSN controllers are very helpful and often do enter the PIREPs, even requesting PIREPs for the sole purpose of doing so sometimes.
It didn't occur to me until we were in the chat tonight, though... What if the hazard was ice instead of low vis? A cover-your-ass PIREP for negative ice, while it may save your ticket, could literally kill the next guy. During the winter I rely heavily on PIREPs for ice (or no ice) as the forecasts are often just plain wrong.
Is there anything that can be done about this? The airplane belongs to another club on the field so I have no idea who was flying. The best I can think of is an ASRS report so that maybe someone will think twice before doing that. Problem is, the kind of pilot who actually reads those probably isn't making cover-my-ass PIREPs either.
Last Sunday, after hitting 11 airports for the ConUS challenge on the way home from 6Y9, I had a weather dilemma. There was a large thunderstorm moving up from the south that was already over Madison. It was oriented mostly north-south, with the north end a bit farther to the west, and the heavy precip was along the east end. After watching it on a couple of previous stops, I took a longer look when I stopped at 63C, my last stop. Madison was still getting very wet, but wasn't getting the L4 and L5 stuff any more. However, the L5 was headed directly at 63C and there were no tiedowns there, so I decided to depart and if it really was crappy I'd land at RYV until I could get back to MSN. (63C was still good VFR, with menacing black clouds to the west-southwest.)
After departure I grabbed the ATIS and got a popup IFR plan from Madison Approach. I was cleared to MSN via radar vectors at 4,000, fly heading 140. Shortly thereafter, a Cessna 152 checked in VFR on the east-side freq (I was on west) but one controller was working both sectors so I did hear half the conversation, which was all that was needed. Here's what I heard:
"Cessna 469, squawk 04xx"
"Cessna 469, radar contact. Are you aware of the weather?"
"Cessna 469, be aware that I'm showing level 3 precip between you and the field and another aircraft just reported mile and a half visibility. Are you sure you want to continue?"
"Cessna 469, it looks like you passed the runway centerline. Fly heading 190, I'll vector you back onto final."
"Cessna 469, fly heading 210, contact tower now, 119.3."
This was for runway 21, so the approach controller vectored him the whole way in. I was shaking my head and thinking "there's a guy that's gonna make the news someday." I didn't think his idiocy would directly affect me, but then a minute later, I got this:
"Skylane 271G, I'm showing some precip between you and the field, but there's a 152 ahead of you that just flew VFR to runway 21 and reported 3 miles visibility the whole way in. Do you want the visual?"
"Negative Approach, 271G is solid IMC, request the ILS 21."
I had a limited perception of the horizon out the window due to city lights below making the muck glow. At the FAF, though, I was still IMC. Inside the FAF I would occasionally catch a glimpse of lights on the ground and I thought I saw the beacon once. Rain was still comin' down. I spotted the rabbit at about 850 AGL.
No flippin' way it was VFR. I taxied in, parked with the wing just under the overhang of the south ramp terminal (reason #1 to fly a high wing), and shook my head in disgust at the stupid 152 pilot. IMHO, that was a pretty blatant "Cover-my-ass" PIREP on his part, as both the previous plane and the next (me) were reporting IMC. I never did check to see if his PIREP made it into the system, but the MSN controllers are very helpful and often do enter the PIREPs, even requesting PIREPs for the sole purpose of doing so sometimes.
It didn't occur to me until we were in the chat tonight, though... What if the hazard was ice instead of low vis? A cover-your-ass PIREP for negative ice, while it may save your ticket, could literally kill the next guy. During the winter I rely heavily on PIREPs for ice (or no ice) as the forecasts are often just plain wrong.
Is there anything that can be done about this? The airplane belongs to another club on the field so I have no idea who was flying. The best I can think of is an ASRS report so that maybe someone will think twice before doing that. Problem is, the kind of pilot who actually reads those probably isn't making cover-my-ass PIREPs either.
