good flight today. Had some weather to deal with on the way down. A fair line of storms was moving between me and Olathe. Between the 396, stormscope, and ATC, I was able to pretty successfully pick my way through. Also managed to stay in the clear below cloudbase almost the entire time. heres the flight track:
As i approached the line I quizzed KC Center about what they were seeing and made sure that it was matching up with what I was seeing in the cockpit. At first I thought about trying to get out in front of the bad stuff by heading towards the Braymer VOR and going around the east side of KC. Center advised about some heavy to severe precip between me and there which I could see on the 396, so I decided to run west towards St Joe and work my way around the back. I didnt really want to go all the way to SE Nebraska to get around it but I figured its better to be behind the weather than ahead of it. I could see that break in the Red on the 396 so I checked with Center to make sure he saw the same thing. The stormscope was showing all of the activity was to my left, where it should be. he verified about a 20 mile gap between heavy precip echoes so I let him know that I was going to continue west and then cut south through that hole.
As i neared the gap on the radar I could see to the south that it wasnt raining and even saw a little sunlight out there. So I turned south and center dropped me down to 7000 which kept me out of IMC. It worked out brilliantly, like I had planned it all along or something. Rest of the flight was generally uneventful, although I did get stuck at 7000 until a mere 20ish miles from Johnson County which made for an energy management challenge on decent. Got it down though.
Flight home was in the clear with minimal turbulence. The guys in the back were thankful. so was I.
