What Rain Can you Fly Through

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WhiskeyPapa

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WhiskeyPapa
I sometimes see localized areas of rain & deviate around them (after a rather exciting experience of flying under a black band of cloud that let loose on me)… I was gently mocked by a freighter pilot who saw me trying to avoid rain. How do you determine what's "safe" rain from "unsafe" rain. Not a T-storm and you're fine?

How do you decide whether to penetrate or avoid when VFR? Lateral visibility sure drops, but you often have good visibility of the ground.

What say you?
 
Freighter pilots will mock most anything.

Best advice I've received has been, from a VFR standpoint, if you can see the other side through it, you can fly through it (Virga in dry climates is a MAJOR exception).
 
As long as I see green and blue returns on the XM and I can maintain my required VMC vis, generally I'm going thru it. Also depends on if I'm flying for fun or flying for work. Flying for fun in the Velocity, the rain will erode my prop like a sand blaster. It's also pitch sensitive in the rain. Not hazardous but can be annoying if going in and out of rain.
 
one mile and clear of clouds. that applies to haze, smoke, snow, rain....
 
I have flown through rain and I don't particularly care for it.
You can't see crap out the front.

So even if you are legal, why add that if you can get around it.
Both times I flew through it it was totally just to try it.


Looks prettier if you fly around it anyway

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WhiskeyPapa said:
I sometimes see localized areas of rain & deviate around them (after a rather exciting experience of flying under a black band of cloud that let loose on me)… I was gently mocked by a freighter pilot who saw me trying to avoid rain. How do you determine what's "safe" rain from "unsafe" rain. Not a T-storm and you're fine?

How do you decide whether to penetrate or avoid when VFR? Lateral visibility sure drops, but you often have good visibility of the ground.

What say you?
Click to expand...

Who owns the paint job and what do they want? I avoid rain when practicable because it can strip even Awl Grip or Imron off your leading edges. If there are T-storms I avoid rain because that's where the down flow is, and I'm looking for any surrounding dry up flow clouds to avoid as well. Light rain though at the end of a bug filled flight though can do a nice job at cleaning the bugs off.
 
it depends. When I was a college-age freight dog flying old airplanes owned by other people, if we could paint ground through it, we'd fly through it.

Now that I've outgrown those tendencies and I own the airplane, I'd prefer to keep the paint on the props. I won't go too far out of the way to avoid all light rain but i don't seek it out, and I'll go around most heavier rain.
 
Henning said:
Light rain though at the end of a bug filled flight though can do a nice job at cleaning the bugs off.
Click to expand...


^^^ This ^^^

Always nice to clip the edge of a light rain column to clean things up a bit!
 
Have no problem flying through the rain,however the composite prop doesn't like it.
 
The vertical development of the cloud.

I avoid rain mainly for my prop, but I won't do some huge deviation from course to avoid a little rain.
 
This was a question I had when I first got my IR. It took some experience to figure out what my limit was and I still haven't pushed it much.

IFR I've flown through moderate areas of light green, dark green and small areas of yellow (when there was nothing stronger than yellow nearby - and only a little of the yellow) on FF's ADS-B radar depiction.

VFR... I avoid virga but I'll fly through light rain that doesn't have any dust rings at the surface indicating super strong outflow (microburst).

One thing I learned... my windshield leaks. :-/ It started spritzing me from a small leak at the bottom. I'll get that fixed some day.

Another thing I learned... my airplane seems to make a humming sound when it's in clouds and precip. It isn't static hum in the radios either. And my instructor and my wife have both heard it too so I'm not entirely crazy. Happens every time inside a cloud. I figure it is the sound of micro droplets hitting aluminum but I don't know for sure. It sounds a bit like the classic cartoonish sound of a bomb falling except there is no crescendo/doppler effect - it's just that constant high-pitch hum.
 
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So you guys never take off in rain? Never call for a SVFR departure to get out on a rainy day? Rain is about all it does up here after early August. If I didn't fly in the rain I couldn't fly.
 
VFR - I'll fly through it if I can see through it (or know with great certainty that I can maintain viz). But, I prefer not to for reasons of preserving my plane's paint. Ed's plane, on the other hand...
 
I've flown though light rain VFR before, I don't like to but that has more to do with being VFR and the cloud/visibility conditions that usually come with it.
 
petrolero said:
This was a question I had when I first got my IR. It took some experience to figure out what my limit was and I still haven't pushed it much.

IFR I've flown through moderate areas of light green, dark green and small areas of yellow (when there was nothing stronger than yellow nearby - and only a little of the yellow) on FF's ADS-B radar depiction.

VFR... I avoid virga but I'll fly through light rain that doesn't have any dust rings at the surface indicating super strong outflow (microburst).

One thing I learned... my windshield leaks. :-/ It started spritzing me from a small leak at the bottom. I'll get that fixed some day.

Another thing I learned... my airplane seems to make a humming sound when it's in clouds and precip. It isn't static hum in the radios either. And my instructor and my wife have both heard it too so I'm not entirely crazy. Happens every time inside a cloud. I figure it is the sound of micro droplets hitting aluminum but I don't know for sure. It sounds a bit like the classic cartoonish sound of a bomb falling except there is no crescendo/doppler effect - it's just that constant high-pitch hum.
Click to expand...

Fun thing about those, just because it's spritzing you from the bottom, doesn't mean the leak is at the bottom.:lol:
 
I live in Texas we dont get rai.... Er... Nevermind.
 
I live in California...I have been praying for some rain to fly through to wash my plane since my filed has a stupid no soap rule in the washout!
 
petrolero said:
One thing I learned... my windshield leaks. :-/ It started spritzing me from a small leak at the bottom. I'll get that fixed some day.

Another thing I learned... my airplane seems to make a humming sound when it's in clouds and precip. It isn't static hum in the radios either. And my instructor and my wife have both heard it too so I'm not entirely crazy. Happens every time inside a cloud. I figure it is the sound of micro droplets hitting aluminum but I don't know for sure. It sounds a bit like the classic cartoonish sound of a bomb falling except there is no crescendo/doppler effect - it's just that constant high-pitch hum.
Click to expand...

Those two are the same thing - Our old 182 had the same odd whine sound under some conditions, and we didn't figure it out until we had the windscreen resealed because of a leak. The whine never occurred after that. IIRC, it was a relatively cheap/easy repair too.
 
JoeSelch said:
VFR - I'll fly through it if I can see through it (or know with great certainty that I can maintain viz). But, I prefer not to for reasons of preserving my plane's paint. Ed's plane, on the other hand...
Click to expand...


Ouch!!!

:popcorn::popcorn:
 
I've had more than a few non-flying friends ask me if a Cessna will even fly through rain. I think they're picturing the rain making the air too thick to fly through or something.
 
I went up on purpose recently on a rainy day with 100 million miles of vis around the non-convective rainshowers. Used one to wash bugs off the airplane.

Was kinda entertaining to have the KAPA controller freaking out a little bit. He "warned" me that there was a "wide area of light precipitation on your course requested".

I told them I saw it and then proceeded to fly right through it.

It was terrible! I could only see halfway to Kansas through it!!

(Until I popped out the other side and could see all the way to Kansas. Haha.)

They're not used to widespread light precip around here of the non-frozen variety. Cracked me up, getting warnings that it was raining from a Tower controller.
 
JoeSelch said:
VFR - I'll fly through it if I can see through it (or know with great certainty that I can maintain viz). But, I prefer not to for reasons of preserving my plane's paint. Ed's plane, on the other hand...
Click to expand...

Well it did "fly here straight out of the 70s"

(comment from Wings weekend)
 
Fly through rain all the time as long as it isn't a thunderstorm. I have a composite prop but it has nickel leading edges that hold up just fine. Needs to be repainted every once in a while but I can live with that. The rest of the plane has leading edges protected by TKS de-ice panels or adhesive film paint protection (just like on cars).
 
On maybe my 2nd solo, we had one of those stray cumulus floating above the pattern, about were the base leg was. It was dropping some light rain, so I got to go through it for a few seconds each time before my CFI climbed out and let me go around a few times on my own.

That was my first experience with it - I remember being impressed at how loud it was. It was a good way to get introduced to it.
 
I got my PPL in the pac NW and flew in rain all the time but it's rarely convective up there. The sound of the rain tinking off the airframe is quite relaxing...
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Those two are the same thing - Our old 182 had the same odd whine sound under some conditions, and we didn't figure it out until we had the windscreen resealed because of a leak. The whine never occurred after that. IIRC, it was a relatively cheap/easy repair too.
Click to expand...


I never thought of that. Thanks.
 
Matthew said:
On maybe my 2nd solo, we had one of those stray cumulus floating above the pattern, about were the base leg was. It was dropping some light rain, so I got to go through it for a few seconds each time before my CFI climbed out and let me go around a few times on my own.

That was my first experience with it - I remember being impressed at how loud it was. It was a good way to get introduced to it.
Click to expand...

Had the same scenario here in the desert when I was training (February - high cloud above base to final releasing a fine mist/rain into the downwind) flying a C-152 with the CFI.

Good news: Got to see true carb icing on that flight
Bad news: The carb icing hit at the departure end of the runway at
400 AGL
 
I caught a little rain near the end of the last leg of my long cross country during training. I remember being a little surprised by it because they rain was barely noticeable out the window. I was impressed that it actually moved up the window of a C152 as opposed to down - didn't seem fast enough. :D
 
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