Tstorm avoidance

Sorry for being a bit defensive.

You've probably found out like I have that the best teacher is experience -
but you have to know enough to keep yourself from getting killed.

Teacherjh" wrote in message
...
I sense some sarcasm Jose. Make your point.

No sarcasm. No point. Just asking a question. I've flown some of the
stuff
too (but not much of it) and I"m always up to learn something from
somebody
else's experience.

Jose

--
(for Email, make the obvious changes in my address)

"Vigo" wrote in message
...

I shudder to think Michael is in the same skies as myself the rest of
us.




I think that was a rather rude statement.

No, what he said about George Braly, John Deakin, the rest of the
instructors in the industry...that was rude.

On Mon, 07 Jun 2004 12:49:41 -0400, Dave Butler
wrote:

Peter R. wrote:
Michael ) wrote:


At night, you can often see lightning from over 100 miles away and
can't reliably tell how far it is.


I learned this one night last summer while flying over Long Island en route
to Bedford, Massachusetts. Up ahead at our two o'clock were some very
impressive lightning strikes. It was very pretty except for the fact that
I thought we were heading right into it.

I called NY Approach and requested a 30-degree left deviation for weather.
The controller called me back and stated he had no weather on his scope for
70 miles or so, but approved my request anyhow. Before turning away we
were rewarded with the full moon rising above the cell. A definite Kodak
moment.

Later I learned that the single t-storm cell putting out all of that
impressive lightning was out over Cape Cod, easily 120 nm away. Whoops.

I once had some landing lights pointed at me at night and I thought collision
was imminent. The controller thought the lights must be on an aircraft several
miles away, and asked that pilot to blink his landing lights. Sure enough. Got
over my embarrassment and learned a lesson.

These two posts reminded me of a couple experiences in the not too
distant past.

A few years ago I was flying home from Oshkosh. It was late Friday
and we had gotten our "Kids to Oshkosh" group there, through a fun
filled day, and in the twin headed back to Midland.

I had filed, but what with the wait decided to stuff the pink slip
under the seat and go VFR.
I was accompanied by two very pretty young ladies who had the choice
of riding around the lake with mom and dad in the motor home, or
flying back to spend the night with their grandparents. You already
know which won out.

We had been watching some very large cumulus to the East and South all
afternoon and speculating as to just how far they were out on Lake
Michigan.

By the end of the air show the big ones had mostly disappeared.
We had the Deb pulled out between the rows of parked planes in the
Antique, Classic, Contemporary parking and camping area, waiting for
the line guys OK to fire up.

We got the OK and fired up to create the biggest dust cloud I've seen
in a long time. (It was a very dry year) We were guided to the
taxiway and with barely a wait were rolling on the left side of 18.
We had already passed the traffic on our right by the end of the
runway and then made our left turn at 3000. Then up to MTW and across
toward Ludington.

The sun was setting and it made a beautiful picture of the Wisconsin
shoreline even when we were approaching the Michigan shoreline.
It was one of the clearest days I can remember. Being able to see all
the way across Lake Michigan is unusual.

We had started seeing lightening flashes ahead and to our right which
made them appear to be in our line of flight.

As it got darker the flashes were getting brighter and it appeared we
were closing on the storm a lot faster than I'd like. I was
considering alternates with the possibility that we might either have
to land at GDW or HTL and wait for the storm to clear.

But by this time is was dark enough to make out the lights of many
towns and cities. Any one who has flown at night should realize that
the lights of a city usually look much closer than they are.

I was locating towns and cities in this unusually clear night when I
realized I could see the lights of Midland some 70 miles off. They
appeared to be under the edge of the storm. That storm was much
farther than it had appeared.

With nearly a 220 MPH ground speed it wasn't long before reaching 3BS.
We did fly under the trailing edge of the storm cloud to land, but
there was no wind or turbulence. Most of the storm had just missed
the airport and the activity was already passing MBS over 11 miles to
the SE.

So distances are very difficult to measure at night unless you have a
yardstick such as the lights of towns and cities, or major highways.
On a clear night a thunderstorm can appear to be a fraction of its
true distance.

The other incident was turning from down wind to base late in the
evening to hear some one shout over the radio, "You're turning right
into us! Your 're turning right into us!". I got real busy looking
but being nearly a mile from final I figured (and hoped) that we were
a lot farther out than he thought. We were. Course I can imagine
what that bright landing light looked like shining right in the pilots
window.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Dave

Experiences like these are makes Nexrad in the cockpit so valuable in light
a/c. The ability to calibrate your eyeballs with a Nexrad image is worth
it's weight in avionics. "How far is it?" "What's behind it?" "Getting
bigger or smaller?" "how fast is it moving and in what direction" etc.

I've only flown with Cheap*******s but the experience has shown me that the
upload/downlink/whatever capability that is coming on the market may be more
valuable than Stormscopes and onboard radar - especially for light a/c.
(both scopes and onboard have a place but I'm guessing that Nexrad will be
the best cost/benefit option soon if you have to choose)

Thanks for the story.

"Roger Halstead" wrote in message
...

We had been watching some very large cumulus to the East and South all
afternoon and speculating as to just how far they were out on Lake
Michigan.

We had started seeing lightening flashes ahead and to our right which
made them appear to be in our line of flight.

As it got darker the flashes were getting brighter and it appeared we
were closing on the storm a lot faster than I'd like. I was
considering alternates with the possibility that we might either have
to land at GDW or HTL and wait for the storm to clear.

But by this time is was dark enough to make out the lights of many
towns and cities. Any one who has flown at night should realize that
the lights of a city usually look much closer than they are.

I was locating towns and cities in this unusually clear night when I
realized I could see the lights of Midland some 70 miles off. They
appeared to be under the edge of the storm. That storm was much
farther than it had appeared.

So distances are very difficult to measure at night unless you have a
yardstick such as the lights of towns and cities, or major highways.
On a clear night a thunderstorm can appear to be a fraction of its
true distance.

"Maule Driver" wrote:
I've only flown with Cheap*******s but the experience has
shown me that the upload/downlink/whatever capability that
is coming on the market may be more valuable than
Stormscopes and onboard radar - especially for light a/c.
(both scopes and onboard have a place but I'm guessing
that Nexrad will be the best cost/benefit option soon if
you have to choose)

There's no doubt about it, IMO. The WxWorx gear I've been using has far
exceeded my expectations. I never thought I would be using it for close
tactical storm avoidance, but it has proven more than adequate for the
task. In addition to NEXRAD graphics, it displays lightning strikes
color coded for age. That allows the user to descriminate between
convective storms and mere heavy rain. It's hard for me to see how I
would be any better off with radar and spherics on board, other than for
redundancy.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM