VFR "picking his way thru" heavy cells with XM Radio weather

I was listening to LiveATC.net's feed of Syracuse, NY, yesterday (Sunday)
during the approach of a large thunderstorm line that was moving towards the
airport from the south. At one point a VFR a Cessna 172, approaching the
airport from the west, checked in stating his intention to land at SYR.

As the C172 progressed, the controller called the pilot to report that the
aircraft was eight miles from and heading directly towards a line of extreme
weather. The pilot responded in a somewhat unappreciative tone that he was
"painting" it. The controller responded with a rather surprised, "Roger."

Moments later the controller again called to warn the pilot of extreme
weather at his twelve o'clock. The pilot then replied in what sounded like an
annoyed tone that he was "picking our way through the weather using our XM."
Again, the controller replied with a surprised "Roger."

With a quiet moment on the frequency, the controller called the pilot a third
time to ask him to explain what XM meant. The pilot described the concept of
XM NEXRAD on his Garmin 396, but then added that the refresh rate allowed him
to see heavy weather on the 398 from 2 to 8 minutes old.

When I heard that the refresh rate was up to 8 minutes old, I cringed to
think that this pilot (this one didn't sound like an experienced freight dog
to me, but maybe I was wrong) was picking his way through a field of
thunderstorms on a day where returns went from light to extreme in less than
ten minutes.

Granted that the pilot was VFR so presumably he was seeing and avoiding using
the outside picture primarily. But this day it was a typical northeast US
hazy and humid day with visibility around the 6 to 8 mile range, so having
the Garmin 396 for strategic avoidance was a good thing. It still made me
sweat from the comfort of my office chair to imagine that this pilot was
flying through the weather line using up to 8 minute old data (not even
considering the NEXRAD delay before the picture is uplinked to the XM
satellites) and declining the more real-time weather guidance offered by ATC
(SYR approach has excellent weather radar).

Eventually a thunderstorm cell erupted right over the airport, resulting in
numerous wind shear alerts and at least one microburst alert, so the pilot
called approach to state his intention of diverting southeast towards an
airport 50 nm south of SYR to wait out the weather.

--
Peter

"Peter R." wrote in message
...
I was listening to LiveATC.net's feed of Syracuse, NY, yesterday (Sunday)
during the approach of a large thunderstorm line that was moving towards
the
airport from the south. At one point a VFR a Cessna 172, approaching the
airport from the west, checked in stating his intention to land at SYR.

As the C172 progressed, the controller called the pilot to report that the
aircraft was eight miles from and heading directly towards a line of
extreme
weather. The pilot responded in a somewhat unappreciative tone that he was
"painting" it. [snip]

The more I fly, the more I believe that the body of pilots that regularly do
things that most will consider "stupid pilot tricks" is larger than what
many people think. The odds are that this guy will get away with this
multiple times before he gets bit. Of course there's also a small chance
that he may never get bit hard enough to scare or kill himself.

I bet if there was a reliable way to find the number of pilots who have or
do fly in the clouds while "VFR," it would be eye-opening.

Marco

The more I fly, the more I believe that the body of pilots that regularly do
things that most will consider "stupid pilot tricks" is larger than what
many people think. The odds are that this guy will get away with this
multiple times before he gets bit. Of course there's also a small chance
that he may never get bit hard enough to scare or kill himself.

While what you say is true, it really depends on the type of
thunderstorms Peter is describing. (And I don't mean to imply that
his observations were inaccurate in any way.)

In the Midwest, in summer, it's common for afternoon thunderstorms to
develop. Sometimes these are in a line (associated with a front), but
many times they are similar to Florida "pop-up" thunderstorms, in that
they build in place. We call them "popcorn storms".

Penetrating a line of storms associated with a front is dicey at best,
even with a 396/496. Flying *around* "popcorn" thunderstorms,
however, can be perfectly safe, given decent visibility. It's even
doable without XM in the plane, but the satellite data in the cockpit
makes it MUCH less stressful, mostly because you can tell where the
storms are building, and where they are subsiding. This gives you an
important strategic leg up on the situation that makes it truly easy
to stay out of trouble.

When you can see a towering cumulus cloud building into a 35,000 foot
monster over *there* -- but it's perfectly clear over *here* -- it's
pretty easy to circumnavigate the problem, and steer a wide berth away
from any potential wind shear, precipitation, or bad visibility.
This is especially true in the "big sky" Midwest, where there is
little terrain to block your view to the horizon.

Add the XM satellite data to that visual information, and you've got a
perfectly doable situation -- given the "right" kind of storms. (It
helps to be a student of weather, in order to discern the difference
-- but the differences are pretty obvious, once you know what to look
for...)

I bet if there was a reliable way to find the number of pilots who have or
do fly in the clouds while "VFR," it would be eye-opening.

I don't know any VFR pilots who would voluntarily fly into clouds.
I'm sure they exist, but I think modern flight instructors have very
thoroughly indoctrinated their students with the dangers of instrument
flight without proper instruction.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

On Jun 4, 10:10 am, Jay Honeck wrote:
The more I fly, the more I believe that the body of pilots that regularly do
things that most will consider "stupid pilot tricks" is larger than what
many people think. The odds are that this guy will get away with this
multiple times before he gets bit. Of course there's also a small chance
that he may never get bit hard enough to scare or kill himself.

While what you say is true, it really depends on the type of
thunderstorms Peter is describing. (And I don't mean to imply that
his observations were inaccurate in any way.)


In the SW summer TS's are frequent but usually easily
circumnavigatable VFR. I would never attempt to try IFR in that type
of weather, if you get in IMC you're probably going into a TS. VFR is
the way to go.

Robert M. Gary wrote:

In the SW summer TS's are frequent but usually easily
circumnavigatable VFR. I would never attempt to try IFR in that type
of weather, if you get in IMC you're probably going into a TS. VFR is
the way to go.


Nope, we've got the remnants of Tropical Storm Barry all over the
NE. It's not isolated, you could really get yourself "painted"
into a corner.

On 6/4/2007 1:10:07 PM, Jay Honeck wrote:

While what you say is true, it really depends on the type of
thunderstorms Peter is describing. (And I don't mean to imply that
his observations were inaccurate in any way.)

Jay, here is a radar image that was taken about 10 minutes before the pilot
checked on. I have indicated cell movement using red arrows and the pilot's
approximate course using the yellow arrow:

http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z...un-03-2007.jpg

The cells were closer to Syracuse airport when the exchange took place. As
you can see, this is not a field of pop-corn cells.

--
Peter

In article . com,
Jay Honeck wrote:

Penetrating a line of storms associated with a front is dicey at best,
even with a 396/496. Flying *around* "popcorn" thunderstorms,
however, can be perfectly safe, given decent visibility. It's even
doable without XM in the plane, but the satellite data in the cockpit
makes it MUCH less stressful, mostly because you can tell where the
storms are building, and where they are subsiding. This gives you an
important strategic leg up on the situation that makes it truly easy
to stay out of trouble.

When I was working this past Sunday morning, I watched the sky go from
clear to 8/10ths broken towering cumulus in 15 minutes. You will not out
climb it, you will not out run it. You will get caught in the middle of
it.

"Jay Honeck" wrote ...

We call them "popcorn storms".


That was a good one ;-)

Haven't heard that one before. (oops, sign of my sub-1000 hrs experience ;-)
But then most of my flying is local anyway, so it's easy to stay on ground
when the popcorns appear.

I much prefer the edible variant

On 2007-06-04, Jay Honeck wrote:
While what you say is true, it really depends on the type of
thunderstorms Peter is describing. (And I don't mean to imply that
his observations were inaccurate in any way.)

Yes, there are thunderstorms, then there are THUNDERSTORMS, even amongst
the isolated cell variety. When I lived in Houston, if we didn't fly
when there were thunderstorms, we probably wouldn't fly all summer. But
these were airmass storms, usually very small (in both the size over the
ground they covered, and vertical development). Much like the popcorn
storms Jay was talking about.

However, I was flying in Nevada a couple of years ago when there were
isolated thunderstorms. It was severe clear VFR (visibility must have
exceeded 50 miles) and very smooth flying high up (and to get in the
nice cool air, it was worth spending the 40 or so minutes it took the
TriPacer to climb up high!) Every so often I saw a distant thunderstorm.
They were fairly small... but had a distinctly more 'evil' look than the
ones in Houston.

I was passing one probably at a range of around 20 miles, judging by
landmarks. The ride very quickly went from smooth to almost smashing my
head on the roof rough. It was like a giant with a rolled up newspaper,
battering the TriPacer about. Although I didn't really want to arrive in
darkness at my refuelling stop (night flying in unfamiliar mountainous
terrain is NOT my idea of fun) I decided that flying perpendicular to my
intended course to fly away from the storm as fast as possible was the
best course of action. I flew for a good ten miles before the ride
became even remotely comfortable. I hate to think what the ride would be
like only 10 miles from that storm!

--
Yes, the Reply-To email address is valid.
Oolite-Linux: an Elite tribute: http://oolite-linux.berlios.de

Dylan Smith writes:

Yes, there are thunderstorms, then there are THUNDERSTORMS, even amongst
the isolated cell variety.

A storm that produces thunder necessarily contains lightning, and a storm that
is producing lightning necessarily contains large masses of swiftly-moving air
that generate the charge differentials necessary for lightning. Large masses
of swiftly-moving air are dangerous, so it follows that all thunderstorms must
be avoided.