How Quickly Things Can Turn!

On the other hand, Todd, if you had been planning a flight that was longer
than the quick 10-minute hop, would you have continued once you popped-up
and saw the extent of the haze? It sounded to me like the only reason
you continued was because you knew you were just going next door.

I'm not current, and plan on going up with my instructor to get some
hood time, as soon as my plane is out of annual, before I take it home.
If I was going to SAC or further... hmmmm.... I think I may have
turned around. Not being able to see Pilot hill is one thing, but not
being able to see the Sacramento landscape is another. If I were
current, and could make an IFR request to get to my destination...
hmmm... maybe. But I would have done much more research on the
weather, than I did, before making the trip.

There's a good article in AOPA's flight training magazine this month
about a fellow that got caught in some nasty weather/ice. It's worth
a read.

I'll check it out... Thanks!

I remember one flight back to the home airport from a local practice
area. I climbed to 1,500', but the haze was getting thicker. It was
really difficult to tell where the haze stopped and the clouds began.
I estimated that at 1,500' I still had 3-5 miles visibility, but decided
to descent to 1,000' where I had P6SM (after all, it was only 5 minutes
to the airport).

Yeah... haze is one thing, when it's just a matter of stability in the
atmosphere and simply a bad air day, but when there's haze and a nasty
system looming behind it, I would really want to know what I was up
against and be prepared before I ventured too far away from known
satisfactory conditions.

Todd

On 01/26/06 11:28, three-eight-hotel wrote:
On the other hand, Todd, if you had been planning a flight that was longer
than the quick 10-minute hop, would you have continued once you popped-up
and saw the extent of the haze? It sounded to me like the only reason
you continued was because you knew you were just going next door.

I'm not current, and plan on going up with my instructor to get some
hood time, as soon as my plane is out of annual, before I take it home.
If I was going to SAC or further... hmmmm.... I think I may have
turned around. Not being able to see Pilot hill is one thing, but not
being able to see the Sacramento landscape is another. If I were
current, and could make an IFR request to get to my destination...
hmmm... maybe. But I would have done much more research on the
weather, than I did, before making the trip.

That was basically what I was saying. You didn't dodge a bullet
because had the gun actually have been loaded, you would have
never stepped in front of it ;-)


There's a good article in AOPA's flight training magazine this month
about a fellow that got caught in some nasty weather/ice. It's worth
a read.

I'll check it out... Thanks!

I remember one flight back to the home airport from a local practice
area. I climbed to 1,500', but the haze was getting thicker. It was
really difficult to tell where the haze stopped and the clouds began.
I estimated that at 1,500' I still had 3-5 miles visibility, but decided
to descent to 1,000' where I had P6SM (after all, it was only 5 minutes
to the airport).

Yeah... haze is one thing, when it's just a matter of stability in the
atmosphere and simply a bad air day, but when there's haze and a nasty
system looming behind it, I would really want to know what I was up
against and be prepared before I ventured too far away from known
satisfactory conditions.

Todd



--
Mark Hansen, PP-ASEL, Instrument Airplane
Cal Aggie Flying Farmers
Sacramento, CA

That was basically what I was saying. You didn't dodge a bullet
because had the gun actually have been loaded, you would have
never stepped in front of it ;-)

I figured that's where you were going with that... ;-) and... you
are right! I didn't dodge a bullet, because I wasn't or wouldn't have
been willing to put myself in a situation that might have got me into
trouble. I knew the conditions I was coming from were favorable, with
a slight haze, and could have easily turned back to try again another
day.

The point of my post was not to suggest I dodged a bullet, but to
emphasize how quickly things can turn. Any VFR pilot could have hopped
into a plane from Cameron Park to do some air-work that might have
taken them to a practice area further than where I was coming from, in
Georgetown. They could have ascended up to a few thousand feet in a
light to moderate haze, practiced some turns and stalls for an hour or
two and headed back to Cameron Park to land. In the hour I left the
airport and had pizza at a local shop, things turned from what appeared
to be haze to fairly ominous looking clouds. I would have not wanted
to be away in favorable conditions practicing maneuvers, only to return
to what I saw when I left the pizza place.

Even though it was "only" a 10 minute flight for me, I think I have
something to learn from the observation as well. Weather can change in
an instant, and you can't always know what's looming behind haze or a
layer of clouds without seriously preparing for a flight into those
known conditions. Even then, there are no guarantees.

Best Regards,
Todd

Todd