the "would you fly through it" thread

[dell30rb]

Whatever happened to this thread? I remember reading it months ago. A bunch of pictures of clouds were posted and some good discussion.. I searched and can't find it.

I am trying to develop my own rules of thumb for what I can fly through or what I should avoid. Obviously anything towering or with lenticulars nearby, anything near virga, don't fly into a thick cumulus cloud if it is below freezing, you'll likely pick up ice..

 

[Alexb2000]

Whatever happened to this thread? I remember reading it months ago. A bunch of pictures of clouds were posted and some good discussion.. I searched and can't find it.

I am trying to develop my own rules of thumb for what I can fly through or what I should avoid. Obviously anything towering or with lenticulars nearby, anything near virga, don't fly into a thick cumulus cloud if it is below freezing, you'll likely pick up ice..

Can you really have one size fits all rules? I just flew an arrival that put me in some very menacing looking cumulus at -15c, radar showing mod. plus precip. I had everyone tighten up the belts, batten down anything loose, etc. I slowed to light weight Va and prepared to get rocked and iced.

Picked up some trace, mostly smooth, heavy rain lower, no biggie.

 

[dell30rb]

Can you really have one size fits all rules? I just flew an arrival that put me in some very menacing looking cumulus at -15c, radar showing mod. plus precip. I had everyone tighten up the belts, batten down anything loose, etc. I slowed to light weight Va and prepared to get rocked and iced.

Picked up some trace, mostly smooth, heavy rain lower, no biggie.

Obviously not, but it was an interesting thread. What were you flying? That is probably not a good idea in a warrior...

 

[Captain]

I tend to look at the 'crispness' of a cloud. If the little bulges around the cloud are crisp and make it resemble cauliflower then I stay away as its building. If the edges are blurred and washed out I am a lot less concerned. I have Wx radar and use it, but for visual cues that what I look for.

As for where the other thread got to I have no idea.

 

[Alexb2000]

Obviously not, but it was an interesting thread. What were you flying? That is probably not a good idea in a warrior...

Bare wing 206, hit it higher than I like to at 200, had to come down on the arrival into the DFW area. It would have been fine in your warrior, just setup a continuous descent with ATC for ice. It's really hard to know what will happen in advance, I'm going to start some weather courses on Scott D's site to try and improve my prediction ability.

 

[dell30rb]

what type of equipment.. on board weather radar or nexrad? stormscope?

I have an Aera 510 with the xm stuff. It displays lightning but I know that it won't pick up anything but the real strong storms - and there is a delay associated w it.

 

[Gubbins]

Can you really have one size fits all rules? I just flew an arrival that put me in some very menacing looking cumulus at -15c, radar showing mod. plus precip. I had everyone tighten up the belts, batten down anything loose, etc. I slowed to light weight Va and prepared to get rocked and iced.

Picked up some trace, mostly smooth, heavy rain lower, no biggie.

Man, I would have ****ed bricks if that happened to me! Although on an arrival what could you do?

 

[Gubbins]

Bare wing 206, hit it higher than I like to at 200, had to come down on the arrival into the DFW area. It would have been fine in your warrior, just setup a continuous descent with ATC for ice. It's really hard to know what will happen in advance, I'm going to start some weather courses on Scott D's site to try and improve my prediction ability.

What do you mean hitting it at 200? FL200?

 

[jesse]

Man, I would have ****ed bricks if that happened to me! Although on an arrival what could you do?

Well if it were a risk to the safety of your flight you'd inform the controller that it's not going to work for you and you'd come up with something that would. No reason to die over some magical line in the sky.

 

[Alexb2000]

What do you mean hitting it at 200? FL200?

Yes FL200. With bad weather I much prefer to take it lower than higher given the choice.

There wasn't any lightning, and the mod+ was everywhere around DFW, no where to divert to really, so I just stayed on the arrival.

 

[Captain]

Well if it were a risk to the safety of your flight you'd inform the controller that it's not going to work for you and you'd come up with something that would. No reason to die over some magical line in the sky.

Excellent point! Two stories come to mind.

1: a few years ago on the arrival into ORD approach had me pointed straight at a cell with magenta (heavy) in the middle on our radar. The FO kept trying to get word in and finally asked to deviate right. ATC said unable. Left was out too as the weather wrapped around to the left. Our only out was right and ATC wasn't having it. Finally the FO told approach a few miles from the cell we needed right and again ATC replied unable, say intentions. I told my FO I have it and key the mic and said, "We're declaring an emergency and comming right to a 350 heading".

ATC said 'roger' and the flight was uneventful after that. Never heard a word about it either after.


2: just this past week I was arriving APF (Naples, Fl). We were VMC at about 3,000 ft with good sized weather to the east of the field. We were south of the field over the shore heading North and ATC was very busy. She said we needed to turn right (towards the weather) for sequence...number 5 or so. I told the FO to tell her no, we want to go left over the gulf where it was clear. Approach said no, we need to turn right. I told my FO to just cancel IFR and when he couldn't get on I just squawked 1200 and turned left over the water.

A few minutes later approach called us to confirm we cancelled and we said yes. She cut us loose and we called tower and landed in front of all those getting 'sequnced'.


I guess my point is there are always options...and if there arn't then you screwed up.

 

[SCCutler]

2: just this past week I was arriving APF (Naples, Fl). We were VMC at about 3,000 ft with good sized weather to the east of the field. We were south of the field over the shore heading North and ATC was very busy. She said we needed to turn right (towards the weather) for sequence...number 5 or so. I told the FO to tell her no, we want to go left over the gulf where it was clear. Approach said no, we need to turn right. I told my FO to just cancel IFR and when he couldn't get on I just squawked 1200 and turned left over the water.

A few minutes later approach called us to confirm we cancelled and we said yes. She cut us loose and we called tower and landed in front of all those getting 'sequnced'.


I guess my point is there are always options...and if there arn't then you screwed up.

Reminds me of flying into Pensacola last summer...

...after vectoring me into a bumpy (but not terrible) cloud, PNS Approach is vectoring me for the approach at PNS, behind about ten Navy trainers, and I am being flown straight at a freakin' wall of water with lightning in it. Too close to clouds to cancel, but I was in the clear... Then, I remembered the Two Magic Words - "Contact Approach," which I requested and was granted instantaneously, and I was on the ground in about 4 minutes. The Navy guys were trickling in, one by one, as I loaded up the rental car. They had a great learning experience, and they were welcome to it!

 

[AdamZ]

....
One rule of thumb that I follow that seems to be fairly accurate is that I try to avoid flying in and around cumuliform clouds (or lenticular clouds) when they look fuzzy or torn on the edges. Those are usually turbulent. If they have crisp edges to them, then I will avoid only those that have a depth of more than 15,000 feet.

Scott, how can you tell how deep ( thick) a cloud is when your flying right at it or off to the side. I mean how do you know if you went through that you would pop out the other side in less than 15000'?

 

[dell30rb]

From a weather perspective there are very few "rules of thumb" that I stand behind. In fact, many of these rules tend to fall apart when Mother Nature is at her worst. Rules of thumb tend to get pilots into trouble. So I don't teach many rules of thumb to my students.

Its better than not teaching them anything. My instrument training was really lacking in a few areas. Most notably actual experience flying in the clouds...

 

[Gubbins]

Most of this comes from my preflight analysis. You can usually get a good estimate of where the equilibrium level (EL) is located. Not every cumulus cloud will grow to the EL and some may overshoot the EL and sometimes the EL is 40,000 ft - so it's not perfect. The bases of the clouds are fairly easy to estimate or get from a surface observation.

Here's a good example. I was flying with an instrument student and there was a pretty dense cumulus field all over the place. We were at 14,000 feet when this picture below was taken descending into Houston. The bases were around 3,000 ft or so IIRC. Given that, I told my student to avoid flying through the cumulus clouds to the left and the big one we just passed on the right. Both had tops well above our altitude. Certainly more than 15,000 ft in depth.

However, I wouldn't have had any issues flying through some of the cumulus below us (those you see straight ahead). Those were about 8000 to 10,000 ft deep on average.

Great picture, it is very typical Texas scene in summer. This is a good picture to talk to, because I did a little experiment last summer and flew through one of those clouds. I was at 13,000 ft and I would say the top of the cloud I flew through was maybe 18,000 ft. I'm not sure of the bases, but the picture you show looks very typical. I was doing left and right deviations but went through one of the taller ones to experience it. I knew it wouldn't be dangerous since it was not towering and looked relatively benign like in your picture. It was pretty bumpy, and I hit several updrafts and downdrafts but not too bad. Your rule sounds like a good rule of thumb to remember, thank you.

As a newly minted IR pilot it is difficult to know what level of weather I can tolerate without experiencing it or flying with an experienced pilot who can give me this kind of knowledge. Right now, I'm restricting myself to not flying through any precip higher than light, and steering a very wide path around anything higher.

 

[TangoWhiskey]

Scott, how can you tell how deep ( thick) a cloud is when your flying right at it or off to the side. I mean how do you know if you went through that you would pop out the other side in less than 15000'?

Adam, were you asking about the lateral (horizontal) distance through the cloud? I think Scott was talking about the height (vertical depth) of the cloud.

 

[FlySince9]

Couldn't resist...

 

[dell30rb]

Nice.