Forecast Cost Me $750 Today!

VWGhiaBob

VWGhiaBob

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VWGhiaBob
How wrong can a forecast be? Another GA lesson learned.

This weekend, I flew in my plane from So Cal (WHP) to Oakland International to celebrate my 60th.

It was all perfect until I was in the cab on the way to the airport. In the early morning, the TAF's, area forecasts, etc., all looked perfect.

The Weather Briefer told me the forecasts had changed due to PIREPs for "moderate and severe" turbulence, with strong up / downdrafts and strong low level wind shear.

So I open up Foreflight and sure enough, there are layers and layers of new warnings. Worse, there were no alternative airports within 100 miles that would have provided an alternative.

As much as I didn't want my 60th to end this way, I cancelled the flight and left the plane at KOAK. The total tab including cabs and 3 one way tickets on Southwest? Over $750.

It was either that or miss work or fly in dangerous weather.

When I arrived home (KWHP) to pick up my car, the winds were really bad...so much so that not a single flight landed or took off while I was there...and this is on a normally busy Sunday.

There are lessons here...always be willing in GA to cancel your trip, even when it hurts BAD. Just know it can and will happen.

So my Cirrus sits at KOAK, waiting for me to return next weekend to fly her home. Hope the weather is better!
 
Ahhh heck......I would have just stayed and flown home a day or two later, hell with getting back to work on an exact day (as long as you have a solid prior attendance record)

Saving $750 would be well worth missing a day or two at the office, but that's just me. Not faulting you for the decision you made.
 
As my instructor once told me. "When it comes to GA it is better to be on the ground wishing you were up there, then in the air wishing you were down there." That little quote has helped with a lot of go no-go decisions.
 
Always good to be safe,time to spare go by air.
 
Riceyoung said:
As my instructor once told me. "When it comes to GA it is better to be on the ground wishing you were up there, then in the air wishing you were down there." That little quote has helped with a lot of go no-go decisions.
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I still use that today.
 
I have seen both sides of this so far in my limited experience so far.

Side A. 800 miles away from home and had to fly commercial home then back out to get the airplane. I waited the weather out for 3 days and almost waited another couple days, but said heck with it. Turned out I would have been waiting almost another 2 weeks until the weather cleared up enough. So i had 3 nights in a hotel, 2 weeks in an FBO hanger $$$ and commercial airfare both ways.

Side B. Went up with all the warnings of strong winds and bad turbulence and toughed it out for a few hours. Scared the heck out of myself and set some new personal minimums. In this situation I would have gladly paid $750 to be on the ground. This was my first time flying I actually didn't have a smile the whole time. I hated it. Nasty X-winds, gusts, wind sheer. nothing good.

You made the right call, even though you do have a parachute. ;) only kidding.. :)

btw. Happy birthday!
 
You missed all those AIRMETs?

I just had a CAP Form 5 (kinda like a checkride) today, and got assigned a cross country to Yerrington, NV. That's a Sierra crossing, and the planning was rather challenging. I settled on following I-80, largely because of all the turbulence AIRMETs further south, last night. Ceilings were very high over Central CA today, and winds over Truckee indicated light turbulence, so it was a "go." As in a real checkride, we didn't really go much past Tracy.
 
There was a cold front coming through.
I checked Weathermeister at 4:00 and they were already predicting strong winds at 6:00.
The NWS had the wind picking up at 14:00.
I checked with Lockheed Martin at 10:30 from Santa Maria.
Lots of PIREPS and an AIRMET for moderate turbulence.
We are based at SMX and the turbulence and wind shear was mostly south of point conception so I canceled our flight to Camarillo and instead headed north to San Luis Obispo with my wife and had a particularly nice 2.2 hours of flying.
We wandered around the Huasna Valley with my wife getting in some stick time.
There was moderate turbulence along some of the ridges.
SBP was pretty busy when we were coming in and using runway 11.
After brunch we flew out to Morrow Bay and then down the shoreline to Guadalupe.
The only excitement was at Santa Maria when they couldn’t decide between runway two zero and runway three zero.
I chose 30 as did the Bonanza who called in just after I did and the Piper behind him.
We saw 10 knot wind shears often but there was no gust spread reported at either airport.
As I recall the wind was 230 at 14 as we arrived back at SMX.
I am sorry your birthday flight didn’t work out.
I suspect you made a good aviation decision.
I have flown through the Newhall pass on windy days and I did not enjoy it.
 
Pedals2Paddles said:
I'd call out sick before I spend $750.
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Me too:goofy:


JasonM said:
Side B. Went up with all the warnings of strong winds and bad turbulence and toughed it out for a few hours. Scared the heck out of myself and set some new personal minimums. In this situation I would have gladly paid $750 to be on the ground. This was my first time flying I actually didn't have a smile the whole time. I hated it. Nasty X-winds, gusts, wind sheer. nothing good.
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Oh, I'm sure most of us would have gladly paid that price to be safely on terra firma, its just that after that, I would have check myself into a nice hotel and stayed at least an extra night or two. The OP deserves to treat himself to comfort on his big 6 0:yes:

Only after the wx kept me grounded for longer than 48 hrs, would I consider driving or flying commercial back, with the exception being death, serious injury or illness of a family member. Not for work though, that's for sure.

No one on here is questioning the OP's decision to stay on the ground, which unquestionably was the right thing to do.

We (at least some of us) are questioning his sanity about what he did after he decided not to fly as PIC, so he could have saved $750!
 
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They;ve been forecasting the nasty Santa Ana winds in L.A. since a couple days out. Not sure when you checked the weather before leaving or how long your weekend trip was, but it was definitely in the forecast since Friday. Bummer it turned out that way.

What are the best resources for weather for a weekend trip- to get as specific as possible for a forecast 2 or 3 days out??
 
As for winds . . . they've been forecasting this Santa Ana event since last week. . . . if you go back and read the Area Forecast Discussion from Thursday it clearly talked about a moderate Santa Ana event for Sunday and Monday ....

Its up to you to connect the dots on northerly winds and turbulence - it would have been very nasty flying in the valleys yesterday -

Also, the long range prog charts were screaming Santa Ana with a growing ridge and low pressure to the south . . . .
 
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Reminds of some good wisdom I was told when I first started flying.
"If you have time, then fly"

I first though it was ridiculous, since the point of flying was to get there faster......until I got stuck in an FBO for a whole day waiting out weather 200 miles away, that was in my way.... Now the saying is in my head before I even plan my trip.
 
One way rental car would have been way cheaper.

I did that on a drive twice as long, cost me less than $150.
 
EdFred said:
One way rental car would have been way cheaper.

I did that on a drive twice as long, cost me less than $150.
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Yes, it would have been way cheaper, but not that cheap.

400 miles at 25 MPG is 16 gallons. At $3/gallon, that's $48 for fuel.

The drop off fee alone for a one-way to LA is going to be over $100. So, the cheapest I see for that one-way trip is $200, $300 if rented at OAK. Still, far short of $750, but he has to get back to pick up his plane.

Frankly, the cheapest way to get to SoCal from Oakland is a purple 737. That's usually under $100 one way, and can be as low as $50. For last minute, if I were to fly Oakland to Burbank two hours from now, it would be $223 one way. A week from now, it's $77 (might be nice for the return flight).
 
MAKG1 said:
Yes, it would have been way cheaper, but not that cheap.

400 miles at 25 MPG is 16 gallons. At $3/gallon, that's $48 for fuel.

The drop off fee alone for a one-way to LA is going to be over $100. So, the cheapest I see for that one-way trip is $200, $300 if rented at OAK. Still, far short of $750, but he has to get back to pick up his plane.

Frankly, the cheapest way to get to SoCal from Oakland is a purple 737. That's usually under $100 one way, and can be as low as $50. For last minute, if I were to fly Oakland to Burbank two hours from now, it would be $223 one way. A week from now, it's $77 (might be nice for the return flight).
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He had to buy 3 tickets. I never had a $100 drop off fee east of the Miss, maybe it's a CA thing.
 
You're right. For giggles, I peeked at what Avis wanted for a one-way rental from Oakland to Burbank. It was $106 including fees. So, that's only a tad above $150 when you include fuel. Maybe less, as it's a Hyundai Accent and one would hope is better with fuel than 25 MPG.

Color me surprised. That's good to know.
 
MAKG1 said:
You're right. For giggles, I peeked at what Avis wanted for a one-way rental from Oakland to Burbank. It was $106 including fees. So, that's only a tad above $150 when you include fuel. Maybe less, as it's a Hyundai Accent and one would hope is better with fuel than 25 MPG.
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I think it also depends where you are going because I looked from OAK to Pasadena, and they had a drop off charge and a crap ton of taxes and fees and it ended up being $230 for economy. I also checked Grand Rapids to Detroit, no fee, but Grand Rapids to Cincinnati had a fee of like $125

This was with Enterprise.
 
EdFred said:
I think it also depends where you are going because I looked from OAK to Pasadena, and they had a drop off charge and a crap ton of taxes and fees and it ended up being $230 for economy. I also checked Grand Rapids to Detroit, no fee, but Grand Rapids to Cincinnati had a fee of like $125

This was with Enterprise.
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I'm sure it depends on where the cars are needed. Perhaps Burbank has a shortage now. This time of year, no one goes to Pasadena except for UCLA games. I'll bet it gets much busier in late December.
 
MAKG1 said:
I'm sure it depends on where the cars are needed. Perhaps Burbank has a shortage now. This time of year, no one goes to Pasadena except for UCLA games. I'll bet it gets much busier in late December.
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I don't have an intrinsic knowledge of all the LA suburbs, that was the first one that popped in my head that I thought was somewhat on the north half of town.
 
My BFR on Saturday...winds calm during the preflight talk forecast as variable at 5.

I thought it was a little rough in the high work especially under the hood. Came back for landings in 10G15 with enough turbulence that I hit my head and the instructor and I had to tighten our seatbelts. Hey, the rough ride gave me some experieince with an instructor and I greased all the landings.

At the end the instructor asked what I had learned and I said "All weathermen are liars." I knew that already but wanted him to know.
 
Howdy Mr Ghiabob. Sorry to hear you got stuck but if it helps I'm gonna be heading up that way on wednesday, KSZP-KCCR your welcome to hitch a ride in my old 182. Bart from Concord to Oakland is pretty easy. I'll only be going up if wx is vfr and winds are bearable.

Jim
 
airheadpenguin said:
Am I the only one who can work from "home"?
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Yes ....

cgrab said:
At the end the instructor asked what I had learned and I said "All weathermen are liars." I knew that already but wanted him to know.
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I rarely get what is forecast. I once called FSS for a local night flight, and had checked online as well, and was told perfect flying conditions, winds light and variable.

Flew over to the Class C for stop-n-goes and was barely on the 3rd when I noticed the city lights disappearing. Asked tower if there was precip to the south and they indicated "No" (also wasn't forecast). A Hawker piped up that the area I needed to return to had some real howling winds and that the dust was reducing visibility. Got back to my drome and setup to land with a 25G30 direct crosswind by super AWOS. Flew approach to see how it would go and got a HUGE sinker on approach that would've pancaked me if I had been in the flare. Rechecking AWOS I get, "Updated Weather - winds now 39G49". I landed about 35 miles north in calm winds and tied it down fast for the night, sleeping in the plane ... rear seat down, cowl plugs for pillows and canopy cover for a blanket - was actually pretty comfortable. Flew home at 6 am in calm winds.
 
jkaduk said:
Amtrak would have been less than $100 PP.
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From Oakland, it's either a 14 hour trip or a change into a bus at Bakersfield. And that's assuming it isn't six hours late.

Amtrak sucks donkeys for long distance travel. Even short distance if anything goes wrong.

You can drive to Burbank in about 6 hours, with little risk of delay.

There are many places where rail travel works well. The US is not one of them. I once picked up a German guest at Union Station in LA, after he wanted to "see the US" from Chicago. He was three days late.
 
MAKG1 said:
From Oakland, it's either a 14 hour trip or a change into a bus at Bakersfield. And that's assuming it isn't six hours late.

Amtrak sucks donkeys for long distance travel. Even short distance if anything goes wrong.

You can drive to Burbank in about 6 hours, with little risk of delay.

There are many places where rail travel works well. The US is not one of them. I once picked up a German guest at Union Station in LA, after he wanted to "see the US" from Chicago. He was three days late.
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Yeah, I thought about taking the train from Chicago to Seattle just for something different...sooooo many stops!
 
As others have said, the Santa Ana's had been forecast several days in advance. I use usairnet.com for my long range and quick-look aviation forecasts. They seems to be as reliable as anyone for California forecasts.

For car rentals from OAK, here's a tip: Renting directly at OAK has gotten insanely expensive in the last few years. It used to be easy to get a rental for $30/day, now $70/day is a "good deal" for a KOAK rental. Here's the tip- get a ride (a cab if you have to) to the off-site Enterprise location on 98th St, less than 5 minutes from the GA or main terminal areas. WAY cheaper than on-site rentals, just don't tell them you flew in. I suspect they aren't allowed to "pick up" from the GA terminals there, but I didn't ask (I came in commercial last time).

Jeff
 
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