Flight to Florida -- The Cure for Winter

"Jay Honeck" wrote in
news:nsWHj.45808$TT4.14344@attbi_s22:

I will save your post for our future Florida trips.

The secret to doing long, multi-day VFR cross country flights is to be
relaxed and flexible about your ultimate destination. Remember, we
always have three destinations flight-planned, and choose the one with
the best long-range weather prognosis on our day of departure. Thus,
even though we once again hoped to go to the Hangar Hotel in Texas,
for the third spring in a row we scrubbed the idea and headed direct
to Florida, thanks to nasty-looking predicted weather in the Texas
panhandle.

The other "secret" (although it's hardly rare) is to have XM weather.
With that incredible tool on board, we know what we're flying toward
hours in advance, and can make adjustments accordingly.

For example, we left Pensacola (heading South to St. Pete) with
conditions marginal VFR and deteriorating. However, with XM weather
(and a thorough pre-flight weather briefing), we knew that flying
North (away from the gulf, which was pumping the moisture on-shore,
causing the lowering visibility/ceiling) would get us quickly into
nice VFR, and then (at Tallahassee) we could hang a right and head
straight south in good (if incredibly turbulent) VFR. From
Tallahassee South, ceilings were 3500 scattered-to-broken, and the
view of the gulf was fantastic.

I would NEVER have attempted that flight "pre-XM", simply because I'd
be trying to paint a picture of weather in my head from a radio
briefing (IF you could even get ahold of Flight Service), and you'd
have no idea of the "big picture" that live XM paints so wonderfully
for you.

Good God, where is aviation heading?

Bertie