Downdrafts

[orange]

This is kind of long, but I don't take a lot of longer trips so I wrote it up to get feedback.

On Sunday morning (10am), I did a short cross-country (45 miles or so) from FRG to OXC, Long Island, NY to CT. I'm flying a Cherokee 160. As a background, I'm a PPL (under 1 year) and I have about 170 hours total. I usually only fly in solid VFR weather, but like one of my CFI's would always tell me when I complained about lousy weather "The weather is not always perfect, you need to know how to fly in marginal weather". He wasn't telling me to fly in bad weather but that I need to know how to in case I get caught in something unexpected.

I was watching the weather since Saturday, not ideal but looked doable. Light winds, but ceilings wouldn't be great, especially for crossing over 15-17 nm body of water. I'm not crazy at crossing the LI sound at 3,000 feet. The ceilings near and in CT were higher than LI. I got to the airport and it was gloomy and light rain. I got a weather briefing (1-800-WX-BRIEF) on the way in and he confirmed that ceiling were in the low 3k's near airport but expected to get better. Areas of IFR and moderate turbulence along CT coastline reported.

I took off and ceilings actually improved to mid to high 4k. Even better north. I was able to cross the water at 5.5 and still was way below the 500 that I need to stay VFR. No issue, no traffic (saw one plane along the way). My groundspeed was 85-90, strong headwind. The approach into OXC wasn't great. I'm not used to airports with any elevations. Just about all my flights have been to near sea level airports. This is at like 800 and the approach seems steeper due to trees and hills everywhere. Some of those optical illusions came into play. I need to fly into different airports more to get that experience.

I hung with a buddy, grabbed some breakfast/lunch, and asked to give him an aerial tour of his house, but he pussed out, so I started my flight back. At this point, the ceilings were up to 8k, sun came out, and skies were much less depressing.

I took off on RWY 36 and as soon as I turned downwind to head south, the tailwinds kicked in. I was doing 140-150 over the ground. Nice. As I was nearing BDR on the CT coast, I saw a dark cloud ahead, but didn't see any rain or anything. Again, I have relatively little experience and none around bad weather. I was cruising at 4500, and it was maybe 2k feet higher. I thought about going around it but knew it wasn't a thunderstorm, so decided to push ahead. As soon as I got near it, I felt what I think was a downdraft and the plane started a descent (nothing major or scary) but noticeable, even with me holding the yoke pretty firmly since I expected "something" to happen. Honestly, I just wanted the experience and I was fairly sure it wouldn't be a microburst. My IAS rose to about 125-130, so I cut the power some and descended to try to get further away from it. It got a little better at 3500. So I stayed there until I cleared the cloud. I was super vigilant about looking for traffic seeing how I was head-on with northbound traffic. Then went back up to 4500. I was not on FF so wasn't speaking to anybody.

My question is whether what I felt was a downdraft? Are they dangerous? I know microbursts around thunderstorm are killers, but there were no TS in the area, just light rain. Any comments, suggestions, critiques, are welcomed. That is why I wrote this to get feedback if I did something dumb/dangerous.

 

[Shawn]

Down drafts in themselves are not dangerous unless you can not get out before they push you into terrain or outclimb them. In Mountain Flying training you are taught to dive for airspeed to outrun and escape it rather than try and climb to maintain altitude which will only slow your airspeed and keep you in the downdraft longer. Just had a significant downdraft a few weeks ago and it was a weird sensation to be at Vx in a nose up attitude and loosing altitude. Could have easily gone into a stall trying to maintain altitude if I was not aware of what was going on as it feels counter intuitive to push the nose down as you are being pushed down.

 

[Shepherd]

Probably just a down draft. You will also get them in the spring flying from (warmer) land to (colder) water and the reverse in the fall.
A micro burst is usually violent enough that there is no mistaking it.

 

[MAKG1]

I'm a bit surprised you haven't encountered some downdrafts over the hills. It happens.

It's not a big deal unless you can't arrest the descent or if holding altitude makes the airspeed unacceptably slow. Sounds like you were nowhere near that.

You should never need to pull power in a downdraft. Just level it out. You won't get fast unless it's an UPdraft.

And I've had my share of nose-down climbs as well. You have to watch those for airspeed, as you'll tend to get fast.

 

[steingar]

I'd say you need to get out more,but 170 hours in a year is pretty dang good. How you can do that and not hit any sort of adverse conditions in the North East is a mystery at best. Yes, you'll encounter these sort of things near clouds and other weather conditions. They won't hurt the airplane unless you get into a full blown thunderstorm, and you aren't going to do that now, are you?

 

[vontresc]

Downdrafts surround the center of a thermal. in the sailplane you always get sink before hitting the lift. From what I can gather the rain cloud was likely caused bu convective activity, and what goes up must come down. As was advised earlier. Speed up through sing, and slow down in lift.

 

[orange]

I'd say you need to get out more,but 170 hours in a year is pretty dang good. How you can do that and not hit any sort of adverse conditions in the North East is a mystery at best.

170 includes training for almost 2 years, so it's the total for about 30 months. I have about 40 hours PIC.

 

[champ driver]

Sounds like a pretty normal downdraft, welcome to summer flying.

 

[frfly172]

Chock that up to a learning experience ,that ended well.

 

[bikert]

Your IAS rose and you had to cut power? Sure it wasn't an updraft? Either way flying under convective clouds like that yes you're going to experience updrafts and downdrafts. As long as it isn't a powerful thunderstorm it shouldn't be a big deal. Sounds like you did a good job.

 

[steingar]

170 includes training for almost 2 years, so it's the total for about 30 months. I have about 40 hours PIC.

Then I fall back to my first thought. You need to get out more. Gusty conditions, downdrafts and updrafts, cloud clearances and other weather issues shouldn't be a mystery.

 

[JustinD]

Come fly down in Florida in the summer! You'll experience these smaller up and down drafts on a normal day! As others have said normally not a big deal! If it's really rough as a result I'll consider slowing down to Va. normally doesn't effect much besides provide not the smoothest ride

 

[J F]

I had one downdraft with a student where we were trying to get in some crosswind landings before a strong storm came in. Hit a 1200 fpm descent on base to final with full power in a DA-40. Only lasted about 5 seconds but it would have been a lot worse on short final. You have to experience some bad weather to learn how to deal with it. Take an experienced pilot with you on a very windy day and do some crosswinds (max demonstrated). I learned the most on marginal weather days when I was instructing. Just stay away from thunderstorms and always leave yourself extra altitude if you experience any downdrafts.

 

[oldShar]

Come fly down in Florida in the summer! You'll experience these smaller up and down drafts on a normal day!

And after getting used to them, come on over to New Mexico or Colorado and get significant up/down drafts any day of the year --- many significant enough to knock the fillings out of your teeth.
Welcome to aviation == the activity of enthusiasm and adventure!