Observation

"Jose" wrote in message
. ..
It was clear I could not fly straight to the airport, since straight
ahead was a ridge shrouded in black. I got flight following, and told
ATC I had to pick my way through the weather to remain VFR. No IFR
traffic could possibly be as low as I was, and I thought that as long as
ATC was getting my return, I should get a heads up on any other aircraft
in the vicinity.

How low were you? What about other VFR traffic that was =not= on flight
following, or was below their radar? What if ATC got busy (not unexpected
when there's weather like that) Flight following is no panacea.

I didn't say it was a panacea. I said I thought it was a good idea. I was
Class G, clear of clouds. The FF gave me more information. If they got
busy, or missed a call, I was still see-and-avoid. Legal VFR can be dicey,
and I'm going to do whatever I can to up the odds.


Reflecting back, the thing that helped the most was my Garmin 295. I
really don't think it would have been possible to navigate the way I did
without it. I think I was too low for VORs, and the weather would have
made pilotage very, very difficult.

What would you have done if the Garmin quit? (damn, I thought I charged
those batteries!)

That was really the point of post. It wasn't to get snippy replies about
listening to briefers. If I didn't fly any day when "chance of
thunderstorms" was in the forecast, I wouldn't fly from June to September.
Like today, there was a similar forecast for occasional thunderstorms. I
flew a cross country (but shorter than the one in the post) and there was
hardly a cloud in the sky. Sure, there was plenty of haze, but nothing
below 3500'. I guess I should have listened to the briefer and pulled the
covers over my head and gone back to sleep. The vast majority of my trip in
the first post was well above basic VFR, some was at the low end of
marginal. I didn't venture into areas I couldn't get out of. There was
fairly decent weather around, just not in the direction I was heading.
Picking my way through was tough.

I think my next purchase will be a backup GPS, either something like a AWM
or a 196, mounted on the other yoke and running fresh batteries.


This is one of the reasons I practice flying low, on pilotage and dead
reckoning alone. Sometimes the safest thing is to land, but it gives me a
greater margin.

Again, that was my point. I've done my share of that, too. But given the
weather and the (to me) featureless terrain, pilotage would have been
extremely difficult. I couldn't fly straight long enough to make any
attempt at ded reckoning.




Jose
--
"Never trust anything that can think for itself, if you can't see where it
keeps its brain."
(chapter 10 of book 3 - Harry Potter).
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