Flying in rough weather

[mary meagher]

Following the R&N discussion of the Indonesian Airbus that has possibly been destroyed by flying into a thunderstorm, I would like to know what personal experience pilots reading this forum have of rough weather?

What was the absolute worst weather you ever encountered? Have you ever tempted fate in a CuNimb?

[ChickenHouse]

I refuse to remember entering Cb TSSNRA on a NVFR flight over mountainess Canada in a C182. Please do not proceed this thread.

[porterhouse]

It shows you are non-pilot asking such question. No sane pilot would be tempted to be close to a CB not to mention of flying into one. We pilots try to stay away at least 20 miles from any such weather system (and this is what airline pilots are being told too). And at this point I would refrain from making statements about what destroyed Air Asia flight - often such guesses (even educated guesses) aren't very close to what really happened.

[Crash one]

I once found a thunder storm between me and home base, a distance of 5-6 miles away, had a look to see if I could get round the side, no joy, decided to poke my nose into it to see how far it went, sudden serious turbulence nearly rolled me over, rain hit the screen I couldn't see through, a streak of lightning missed the wing tip by a few inches, all in the first few seconds. Smart 180 and call for diversion to nearest. Cup of coffee and a smoke and all was fine to go home.
Never again, 620 kg of wood and fabric at 2000ft, not the place to be.

[Piper.Classique]

Oh, Mary is a pilot. Time was, glider pilots used to seek out big clouds and do height gain flights in them. Quite a few fell out in rather more pieces than was comfortable and it went out of fashion. Usually now the height gains are done in mountain wave, which has its own points of interest.
I've done some cloud flying in gliders, usually with a turn and slip and a magnetic compass. Speed limiting airbrakes kept it all under control. True luxury is an artificial horizon and a bohli compass, and a GPS.
I always used to pick medium sized cumulus clouds, but sometimes even those could be a bit rough.
I never did find anything worse than Feshiebridge rotor, towing out with the windsocks pointing at each other.......

[foxmoth]

Porterhouse, if you have never been in one then you are either very low hours or have been very lucky.
Yes they are avoided, but sometimes, for various reasons it is not possible to completely avoid. My worst was a Piper Seneca - no radar, being helped round a Cb by Barcelona radar, unfortunately there was one hiding behind the one they could actually see and vectored us into it, we were on a medical repat and landed in Reus with medical equipment all over the back of the aircraft!
Been through some nasty stuff in airliners as well, that mainly happens at night when it does not show on radar - nothing that would come near breaking up the aircraft, but still stuff you would not go through by choice!

[Chilli Monster]

Manchester to Filton, FL80 in an Aztec, crossing a Cold Front. Passing Shawbury being kicked around, watching lightning inside cloud. Not an experience I want to participate in again.

[Vilters]

Always avoided rough weather.

But once I had an issue flying my (ex) D-120.

The Jodel D-120 has light wings with all the mass centered in the fuselage.

At 4.000 ft, below an airway, without warning, the plane did 1.5 rolls and I ended up on my back with the nose about 30°high, still at cruise speed.
Continued the roll to level flight and landed at next airport.

No damage found, and I flew back to home base.
The girlfriend took the buss home.

The best we could think off is that I accicently crossed a vortex of an airliner.
The aera was between Brussels and Maastricht, they decend both ways in landing config.

Som ask; Why learn aerobatics? I was happy I did, and got out.

Ach, many, many moons ago. Too old to fly now.

[pulse1]

I used to share flights with the owner of a C172 who had an IMC rating. This meant that I would sometimes fly in conditions which I would not have risked on my own, believing that he could take over if necessary.

One day, I was flying the leg out to LFAT and was confronted with a thunderstorm beyond which I could see brightness that suggested it was quite a small one. We entered very heavy rain, the air was quite smooth but ahead of me I could see a large inverted dome of cloud. It looked very smooth, almost solid. I decided to give it a wide berth, probably the only sensible decision I made that morning.

We eventually emerged the other side into bright sunshine and a pleasant flight to our destination.

If I hadn't gone flying that weekend I would have been sailing where that storm was centred. I asked a friend who did actually go what the weather was like on the ground. Apparently, Cowes High street was under a foot of water.

So this time, rain was the main hazard but I hate to think what would have happened if I had got close to that cloud. I learned enough to ensure that I would not do it again.

[cockney steve]

@ Porterhouse May i respectfully suggest you study your target better before firing? :hmm:
Ms. Meagher makes no secret of her age.....(likely old enough to have changed your nappies *diapers* ) She has long experience flying and instructing in gliders and has plenty of SEP experience , both as tug-driver and GA.

"It is better to keep quiet and let people think you are stupid, than open your mouth and prove it"
(quotation paraphrased but that's the gist of it!

[thing]

Never been in anything really bad but one man's bad is another man's OK in my experience. I've flown with other pilots who have commented how rough it is and I have barely noticed. Tight straps, that's the answer.

I did run out of control authority landing a glider once. I was caught out by a line squall and bunged on another 20 knots to my approach speed to make sure I still had control. I didn't, the last 100 feet or so were with full left stick and rudder just to keep straight while the hail was tring to make a good job of turning the canopy opaque. I remember being about 30 ft off the deck with about 70 knots on the clock and in the last ten feet the speed just dropped in half a second or so to about 35. Just lucky I landed OK albeit a little sideways. Although no luck involved in making the decision to come in very fast which is what saved my bacon.

[India Four Two]

No sane pilot would be tempted to be close to a CB not to mention of flying into one. We pilots try to stay away at least 20 miles from any such weather systemporterhouse,
You must be a power pilot. Glider pilots are often closer to Cbs than that, although these days, most would not actually venture into one deliberately.

Twenty years ago I was flying with a friend in a two-seat glider at Claresholm in Alberta. There was lots of lift but the day was very unstable with some of the Cu having showers beneath them. We noticed two of the shower clouds upwind of the airport were becoming darker and over-developing. They were about three miles apart and would pass either side of the airfield.

We were quite high - about 5000' AGL - so we decided to fly upwind between the clouds and wait until they had passed. At this point, we had a message from on high - a bolt of lightning right off the nose, from an apparently clear blue sky!

Time for Plan B - a quick descent and landing. By the time we were downwind, the two clouds had coalesced and the gust front had moved through the airport. Our approach speed was 80 kts and after landing, we sat on the runway, airbrakes out, "flying" at 30 to 40 kts in pouring rain for 15 minutes! :eek:

Usually now the height gains are done in mountain wave, which has its own points of interest.
PC,

A tow pilot friend of mine, with over 10,000 tows in his log book, used to say "The rotor's not rough until you get rolled inverted!"

[ChrisJ800]

I used to glide at Dunstable and some of the old timers used to fly up in cb's for altitude record flights. I just did it in fair weather cu's. Here is the AAIB of a lightning strike to a Dunstable glider in 1999: http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/dft_avsafety_pdf_500699.pdf

[ChrisJ800]

oh and Mary has a vast amount of flying experience so is definitely not a non pilot!

[Jonzarno]

Why is it that seemingly every time someone posts a perfectly reasonable question about some dangerous aspect of flying, there is a response like that from Porterhouse?

One of the major benefits of participating in forums like this is to help improve safety by understanding what is safe, what isn't safe and, especially, where the line between the two lies.

I for one think the question is interesting and look forward to continuing to read the experiences of others. Personally, I can't remember ever having been in a weather situation that has really scared me. But then, maybe there has been one that should have? :eek:

BTW, from other discussions I've had with Mary on here, I've no reason whatsoever to question her credentials as a pilot. I'd be interested to know the basis on which PH draws his conclusion about that.

[thing]

Glider pilots are often closer to Cbs than that, although these days, most would not actually venture into one deliberately.

Friend of mine did in '91 in his Vega. He came out minus wings and died.

[ChickenHouse]

Glider pilots are often closer to Cbs than that, although these days, most would not actually venture into one deliberately.
Friend of mine did in '91 in his Vega. He came out minus wings and died.
I guess his glider came out minus wings, but he earned two, probably ...
We have to be precise in using our words, as we are only responsible for what we write, not what others read.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

a bolt of lightning right off the nose, from an apparently clear blue sky
Yes, I once saw a bolt of lightning out of an apparently clear blue sky (ok so it was a bit murky, but nothing out of the ordinary and there were no visible clouds as such). A few minutes later the "clear blue-ish sky" seemed to have turned into a line of unforecast CBs.

I couldn't get past them, and had to land somewhere to wait for them to go over.

[thing]

I guess his glider came out minus wings, but he earned two, probably ...


Normally when we say 'His wings fell off' then I think most people would take it for granted that we were talking about the aircraft. If I said 'My VOR failed' then you wouldn't assume that I have an inbuilt VOR in my leg.

[18greens]

I remember sitting in a runway caravan waiting for some weather to pass. We all piled our logbooks up in the caravan to avoid losing them as we ran around the airfield doing glider retrieves etc. for interest we read each other's logbooks. I picked one up.....

On his third solo the comments section read 'Flew into Cb , glider broke up, parachuted to safety'. I bet that one was pretty bad.

[Pirke]

Normally when we say 'His wings fell off' then I think most people would take it for granted that we were talking about the aircraft. If I said 'My VOR failed' then you wouldn't assume that I have an inbuilt VOR in my leg.

But your leg has wings right? How else could you fly a leg?

Sorry, couldn't resist :)

[thing]

There are too many people here with too much time on their hands...not me obviously...:)

[worldpilot]

Disregard the many impostors here.:{

[Steve6443]

Was in Austria, trying to find a way back to Germany, had landed at Krems with the plan being to fly along the Danube, VFR under the weather, to Vilshofen where the weather looked to be clearing - the reports showed a line of Thunderstorms from the Alps stringing out to the North East.

Checked with Linz, they told me "no go, cloud base is less than 500 feet", but they did tell me that the tops were anticipated to be around 7000 feet so the plan was to take off and climb through broken Cumulus, unfortunately with embedded CBs in them. We then just aimed towards where it was slightly less dark, even though our routing took us perilously close to Czech airspace - was wondering what would happen if we infringed their airspace without a flight plan (no flight plan is required for flights between Austria and Germany) but at that point, all I was concerned with doing is keeping myself away from the nasty bits.

Autopilot was set to climb at 300 feet a minute, as we were climbing, or rather bouncing, upwards. The guy sitting front right was looking out for lightning flashes and guiding me towards areas where it looked brighter. Came out on top at FL85.....sweating profusely, but thankful and promising not to do that again in a hurry.

Later that day I was listening to a fellow pilot talking to Langen Information who had got himself stuck in serious IMC and was trying to find a safe place to land, you could hear the concern in his voice and thought: that could have been me. And it could have been. Told myself: Next time I'll wait for the weather to settle... maybe.....

[FANS]

Why would a ppl holder in an aircraft lacking proper kit go near bad weather deliberately?

They will only succeed in banning GA.

[OhNoCB]

I've been lucky enough to fly into a couple of CBs unintentionally and not have anything too bad happen. Both times was during a commercial medical flight in a piston twin in Europe which was equipped only with the world's worst stormscope. Both times it was very bumpy and both times lost comms until we cleared it, one time was exceptionally rough and after telling ATC we had just inadvertently flew into one and were experiencing sever turbulence they gave us "speed, altitude and heading at your discretion".

The joys of flying from A to B in solid IMC without much means of determining what type of IMC you are actually in.

[mary meagher]

There are thunderstorms and then there are thunderstorms. In England, it hardly ever hails or hurricanes in Hereford.....

In Florida summertime, the daily thunderstorms are almost benign. The heat builds up during the day, the CuNimbs are quite orderly, parading down the centre of the sandy peninsula. The airliners follow the shoreline, keeping the ride gentle and smooth for the holidaymakers. The local light aircraft do not try to surmount these battlements of cu, they simply scoot underneath, dodging the showers, maintaining VFR. I've never been as brave as the locals...but intending to drive from Tampa to St. Pete, there were tornados forecast. The sky over the bridge was so black it was green! we made a sharp right turn into Tampa airport and took refuge in the ground floor of the garage; all flights were cancelled, but like a well behaved Florida cell, the tornado simply knocked over a couple of mailboxes and burger signs, and carried on its way.

It is altogether different in Texas, and in the rest of the continental United States, when cold air moving southeast from Canada meets warm air from the Carribean, the cu nimb clouds form a terrible front any time of night or day. I had planned to fly a rented Cessna from Corpus Christi to Austin, and very proud of my newly minted IR, phoned up Flight Service to file my flight plan.
"I do not recommend that you go today" the helpful chap advised. "But I have an instrument rating...." I told him. "Well", he said, "across your planned route there is a front with embedded Cu Nimbs tops to 45,000 feet, with rain, hail, and tornados...."
I decided to fly next day.

So flying power, one stays clear of these black bottom monsters. But as you will note, reading on this thread what glider pilots get up to, we are quite tempted to tickle the black bottoms of towering cu, there one will find significant rising air. As Piper Classique tells, in the old days, thats how the intrepid glider pilots set gain of height records. We do wear parachutes, so have that option when the wings come off. Flying under a nice big one in the Soviet Union in 1989, the rain was going up, not down, and when a bolt of lightning flashed I lost my nerve and went elsewhere without delay.

[Jonzarno]

We do wear parachutes, so have that option when the wings come off.

Does having the chute allow you to take that risk? A feeling of "invulnerability" perhaps? :E:);)

[India Four Two]

Does having the chute allow you to take that risk? A feeling of "invulnerability" perhaps? :E:);)

No. Wearing a parachute is more like wearing a life-jacket. It's routine and it's a comfort factor when things get rough.

[Jonzarno]

I42

I know, understand and completely respect that. My post was more by way of a little private, friendly and gentle prod at something Mary said in another thread.... :)

[Romeo Tango]

There are thunderstorms and then there are thunderstorms.

Exactly. Many thunderstorms in UK are showers with lightning. Avoid but don't panic. As I understand it most in flight breakups occur when the aircraft (ie pilot) loses control in turbulence, falls out of the bottom in a fast spiral dive, maybe beyond VNE and then levels out and pulls up too sharply. I suspect that if you end up inside the average UK storm if you keep your head and keep the right way up you will probably be ok. (I have not tried this often enough to be sure).

If one reads accounts of light aircraft record attempts in Africa the pilots do punch through lines of storms much more powerful than the average British ones, trying to avoid the worst bits. They often have a very rough ride but (usually) don't die

[effortless]

Geoffrey Wellum, First Light, best description of why we avoid weather and how sometimes there is no choice.

[worldpilot]

I've never experienced hazardous weather systems flying VFR and would for sure never experience one.:=

If any weather system parameter poses unacceptable threat to anticipated VFR flight envelope, it is never difficult for me to stay at home and have some good time drinking tea and eating cake.:D

An instructor and a pilot friend (a senior of 75 years) always says "He became an older pilot because he engages flying with cautiousness".

There is absolutely no reason flying an aircraft in airframe-shattering weather system.:ugh:

WP

[DLT1939]

Been through some nasty stuff in airliners as well, that mainly happens at night when it does not show on radar -

Why would it not show up on radar at night?

[thing]

Doh, 'cos it's dark innit.

[mary meagher]

Well it may not show up on radar, but it sure shows up at night VFR! as passenger on a United flight from Austin Texas to Chicago, after the lady captain had to wait 40 minutes or so for a routing to open up enough to avoid diversion, we approached Chicago in the most awesome weather I have ever seen....starlit night sky with stars, and to either side, towering cu lighting up ON THE INSIDE with flash after flash after flash.

ATC (we were listening to ATC as well in those days on United) said they could take ten approaches, and our gal spoke up; we were number eight, and duly descended in the clear as much as possible, closer and closer to the monsters, and eventually had to get wet. A bit gusty but nothing too bumpy at all. Just torrential rain, a safe splashdown, and it all passed over before the onward flight to London. I'll never forget that sky. Beautiful.

[9 lives]

most awesome weather I have ever seen....starlit night sky with stars, and to either side, towering cu lighting up ON THE INSIDE with flash after flash after flash.

I was once night flying a C 310 south into the US from Canada (where the cold air comes from Mary). Midway into Pennsylvania, I could see a mighty thunderstorm lighting up inside on the horizon. I was headed to Raleigh, NC, and was not looking forward to dealing with this mighty storm on the way. It turned out that I did not have to, I flew at 180 knots for a bit more than an hour and a half more, and never met it, I was still seeing it ahead, as I approached my destination. I had been seeing it for more than 350 miles ahead.

I live 100 miles northwest of Rochester, NY, and occasionally see the light show on the horizon, of northern New York state getting hit by massive thunderstorms.

[India Four Two]

towering cu lighting up ON THE INSIDE with flash after flash after flash

Me too, Mary. I was a passenger on an evening flight from Saigon to Hong Kong. After coasting-out east of Saigon, we turned north and flew near the coast as far as Da Nang ( about 300 nm ). All the way, over the mountains, there was a continuous series of interlocking Cbs, that were all lighting up like giant light bulbs. I estimated the tops were well over 50,000'

[Capn Bug Smasher]

I'll never forget that sky. Beautiful.

I remember a line of thunderstorms marching parallel to us on a night hop from Langkawi to KL, like fizzing light bulbs in the dark. I remember being surprised by how constant the lightning was within the CBs. Every so often one would go up with an especially explosive pulse and reveal the whole witch's cauldron.

Man alive, I truly understood then the phrase "there's a storm brewing." A witch's cauldron it was. Turmoil.

[Romeo Tango]

I find thunderstorms easier to avoid at night, as long as they are reasonably isolated obviously.

[bookworm]

I've left clouds that were spitting lightning 4 times. I swear none of them were doing so when I went in to them. ;)

One was a "there's nothing showing on the stormscope" moment, which taught me about the failure modes of stormscopes. Two were a naive lack of awareness that it's really much better to go around them even if it's quite a long way.

I'll never forget that sky. Beautiful.

Only a glider pilot could say that. It's like a pyromaniac calling hell beautiful. :)

[Upsidedown19]

Lots of talk of glider pilots flying around in cloud. I wonder if they all have instrument ratings? Come to think of it I don't think that I have ever heard a glider pilot announce that they are at xxxx ft and climbing at position XXX but perhaps gliders only very rarely enter cloud. I dunno!

[Gertrude the Wombat]

Glider pilots should not venture into clouds full stop as far as I am concerned
Ah, but, the gliders will tell us, us non-gliders are supposed to understand what does and doesn't make good gliding conditions, and thus what does and doesn't make good gliding days, and in particular what does and doesn't make a good gliding cloud, and then avoid such clouds in case there are gliders inside them.

I can do some of that! - if I see an isolated cumulous cloud with a number of gliders circling round underneath it then I'm not going to fly through it "just because I can".

But that's about the limit of my relevant understanding I'm afraid.

[ChrisJ800]

Back in the days when I glided in the UK (eighties), we called in on the glider air frequency when we were entering a Cu. And we had to wear a parachute in case of a midair. No training needed, just keep the T&S on rate 1 and monitor airspeed. Most gliders have speed limiting airbrakes if you start getting out of control. In my limited cloud experience the lift often smoothed off inside the cloud. As the best days for this were when there was scattered Cu, say 2/8 or 3/8. there should be no reason for a VFR power pilot to penetrate or be near the cloud and we would never cloud fly in the IFR corridors or controlled airspace.

[RatherBeFlying]

On one glider flight, we lined up nicely with the updraft front feeding an oncoming CB and had a lovely time swanning back and forth. We left in time to get the bird safely tucked in the hangar before the gusts and rain got to our field;)

I know of one glider that was written off by an instructor and candidate who landed in the rain and abandoned the glider which then got blown on its back:mad:

Had they stayed in it on the ground and worked the controls as did I42, the glider would likely be still flying.

I have tie downs in the back of my glider.

Getting into wave exposes you to going through rotor. I had to give up as my tummie butterflies got fidgety:eek:

[mary meagher]

I did try flying a glider in cloud once only! And announced my intention on the cloud flying glider frequency as required, sure enough there was another glider in the cloud, and we told each other how high in the cloud, so all well.

EXCEPT I had CFE (field elevation) instead of AMSL (sea level) set on the alt! so my proper calls may have been quite incorrect! so this old woman chickened out from flying gliders in cloud, and most glider pilots who do so are fully qualified commercial pilots of vast experience, and I believe in Europe this is not permitted anyhow, only in the UK. Most glider pilots would not get worried by occasional penetration on the underside of a nice cu, but these days I don't even like to do that, keeping enough space under the cloud to be able to spot cross country gliders dolphining toward me...

Got the IR in Texas but don't use that any more either.....

[Sir Niall Dementia]

Flying through the ITCZ we often find ourselves paralleling storm fronts, then turning towards them as we try to find gaps on the radar. My last lightning strike came from a Cb 40nm away. I've never yet been told to maintain heading when I've asked to deviate for weather, ATC in Europe are superb at sorting out the mess around big Cbs.


I once sat next to a PPL mate in an AA5 as he doggedly headed along the downwind side of a Cb, when I queried it he didn't want to go up-wind due to controlled airspace (Luton) We got caught in the gust front and the turbulence was pretty rough. Little AA5 handled it well, my mate was a tad surprised, and I learned a big lesson about some PPL holders being intimidated by controlled airspace.


I've flown through some mighty rough weather over the years, but the biggest lesson was actually in tightening my straps; flying a helicopter into EGLW one night I flew under a Cb, the turbulence was so bad I hit my head on the overhead panel (cutting it open on the fuel pump switches) and lost my headset just as I was about to change frequency. Landed 5 min later covered in blood and for some reason my customers took one look at me and decided to go by car!


SND

[pulse1]

In my gliding days I played around with a small CB once. I was delivering an Olympia 463 by aerotow from Dunstable back to Cranfield late one afternoon. I released within safe gliding distance from Cranfield in the middle of lots of heavy showers. Once on the ground I knew that I would have to wait for the tug pilot to return to Dunstable and then drive up to Cranfield to help me put the glider away. So, I decided to use the time to do some soaring around the edge of small CBs.

All was fine until I lost sight of the airfield in heavy rain. Even then I thought that, as long as I could see the M1 below me and what was to eventually become Milton Keynes I would be OK. Cowardice and common sense then prevailed and I decided to stay over the airfield which was normally closed at this time. I flew over the airfield boundary at 3000' and suddenly felt as if something had picked the tail up and although the nose was well down I was losing speed rapidly. In the time it took me to cross to the middle of the airfield I lost nearly 3000' and was just able to turn into wind and land on the grass.

As I crossed the main runway a RN Heron which had just landed went underneath me. I expect that he was as surprised to see me as I was to see him. He dropped someone off and took off again.

[Mechta]

Whenever the subject of lightning and composite aircraft is raised, Like ChrisJ1800, I refer people to the AAIB report on the Dunstable ASK21.

The things which stuick in my mind from this report are:



Although forecast, the lightning strike which destroyed the glider was the first to be seen or heard by the witnesses that day.
There are two types of lightning, positive and negatively charged. The one in this case was the more damaging positive type.
Light aircraft and gliders tend not to have the metal mesh built into the layup that larger aircraft have for lightning protection.
Composite aircraft without metal mesh in the lay up are little more than capacitors waiting to be (over) charged.

It is to the AAIB's credit that they took on this accident investigation, rather than leaving it to the less well resourced BGA as they were entitled to do, and investigated they it as thoroughly as they did.


Ann Welch, in The Story of Gliding, recounted the case of some pre-war German pilots who entered a Cu-Nim with the intention of setting height gain records. Several of their gliders broke up, and the ones who took to their parachutes were later found dead as skeletons with their flesh stripped off them by the hail, possibly having been up and down in the cu-nim for a considerable time.

When learning to hang glide, one thing that was always imipressed on me was 'It's always better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air, than vice versa'.

[cats_five]

And a woman paraglider who was very, very lucky:


Amazing escape of paraglider sucked 32,000ft into storm | Daily Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-436584/Amazing-escape-paraglider-sucked-32-000ft-storm.html)
BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Paraglider survives at 32,000ft (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6369923.stm)

[India Four Two]

I've finally tracked down the cover page of an issue of the SAC's "free flight" magazine, which I vividly remembered when reading this thread:

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c309/india42/Cowleyoriginal1_zps45e16538.png

The caption reads:
In 1992, the Cowley Summer Camp was marked by very unstable weather conditions
which caused cu nims to grow rapidly over the mountains and drop a lot of hail over the prairies as they
drifted east. They were spectacular to watch, as were the evening lightshows. Thankfully all of them missed the airfield.The glider in the foreground - an ASW-12 - was the last launched, and the pilot spent a long time flying in rough lift on the edges of the storm, before landing at Pincher Creek airfield, south of Cowley. The pilot's name was Richard, which inspired this piece of doggerel, paraphrased from memory:

"See Dick get into his glider,
see Dick launch,
see Dick release from tow,
see Dick fly into a thunderstorm,
what a Dick!"

To be fair, he did NOT fly into the Cb.

Here's another picture of (I think) the same storm:

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c309/india42/Cowleynearstrip_zps139c9819.jpeg

The reason I remembered this so vividly was I was next in line to fly the 1-26 with the Sport Canopy. That would have been an interesting flight, sitting in an open cockpit. :E

However, the Field Manager wisely decided to shut down the operation, so we were reduced to listening to Dick giving a running commentary on his progress.

Back issues of "free flight" can be found here:

http://www.sac.ca/website/index.php/en/free-flight-magazine-2

[irish seaplane]

Bookworm - were you in the twin com in those conditions you described? I've given myself a fright in a CB in the twinky, and the only way to get down was gear down and power to idle. Frightened myself silly in the process. I find it a bit giddy in IMC, any thoughts.

Very shy of medium/long legs in cloud ever since.

Irish

[bookworm]

Bookworm - were you in the twin com in those conditions you described? I've given myself a fright in a CB in the twinky, and the only way to get down was gear down and power to idle. Frightened myself silly in the process. I find it a bit giddy in IMC, any thoughts.

In two of them, yes, though the turbulence was not so bad, and I just slowed a bit. I was probably lucky. The first two were in a Mooney 201, which if anything was more difficult than the TC.

[Capn Bug Smasher]

Several of their gliders broke up, and the ones who took to their parachutes were later found dead as skeletons with their flesh stripped off them by the hail, possibly having been up and down in the cu-nim for a considerable time.

I remember a wonderfully quaint and rambling semi-autobiography from the fifties that, for precisely this reason, advised against the ripcord until you had tumbled out of the CB and were in sight of the ground below.

Short shrift I suppose if you didn't get visual until it was too late (or ever.)

The author also advised the carriage of a suitable scraping tool to chip a spyhole in the ice that inevitably formed INSIDE the canopy when cloud soaring.

[Pace]

:(I can well remember ferrying an ex Indian registered Citation back from New Delhi after multiple delays we took off at night in the monsoon season.
There were multiple lightning flashes to the point that you could almost navigate around the buildups visually.
limited to below RVSM airspace we were flying at FL280 with the most spectacular firework display I have ever seen after weaving all over the place to find a way through we landed in Karachi in Pakistan and landed eventually in Dubai at 0300 the next morning.

On another occasion I was flying a Seneca twin to Shannon i experienced a lightning strike and severe turbulence by going for a hole which ended up as not being a hole at 12K
Everything went black then severe turbulence which knocked the autopilot out.
The radios went to a mass of crackle and then the blinding flash with a lightning bolt hitting the left wing two feet from my seat between the engine and fuselage.

Apart from everyone sporting Afro hair do s after the strike no harm was done :E
I was vectored onto the ILS into Dublin for a landing to sit it out.
strange thing was lighting chased us all the way down the approach to the point that I was convinced the aircraft was setting them off :ok:

that was a long time ago in my more bravado days now I avoid the things like the plague if for no other reason than to give the PAX as smooth a flight as possible and without Afro hairstyles :ok:

last september coming out of Italy there was a solid wall of CBS running right along the southern Alps this called for a request for a heading along the wall and a climb to FL360 to get over the top and radar and visual cues to find the most docile section to cross. The italian controllers were going mad over a refusal to turn back on track but better that than entering the wrong area.

Its only when you have the aircraft ability to fly high level that you think about the poor sods battling through and around weather way down in pistons and turboprops and take my word for it there are many who do :( and that brings back many memories only one I have painted above

Pace

[Sir Niall Dementia]

Pace;


Ever get the feeling that after all these years and all this learning we're getting too damn old for days like that?


Oddly the most frightening thing I have ever met from unforecast bad weather was unforecast heavy icing. KingAir 200, Prague to a business airfield close to London, single pilot I picked up so much ice in the climb that there was only about 15kt between cruise IAS and stall. Freezing level about 8 000' and mountains below so no chance to descend and the poor aeroplane wouldn't climb any more. Every gust set the stall warning off, I was petrified for 300nm.


A few years ago a couple of the GemStone guys did the same thing in a 748 over the Alps. The AAIB serious incident report is really scary.


SND

[thing]

there should be no reason for a VFR power pilot to penetrate or be near the cloud

What about an IFR pilot?

[Pace]

Thing

It depends how big and how active the CB Is as to how close you will get
You only have to listen to ATC over London to realise what a headache CBs are to ATC when aurcraft are all not being where ATC want them to be asking for 20 degrees left or right and being asked when they can turn back to XYZ?
20 miles ?? Rarely unless it was a very large solid cell

You will avoid even towering cumulus as you don't want PAX jumping off their seats and as SND said there is icing to consider
But CBs and icing whether in CBS or not are probably the two most weather related items to avoid

But how close ? It's a judgement thing last summer there was a huge cell over France trying to keep as close to a desired track and getting closer to the cell meant turbulence so you would naturally give such a cell a wider birth the turbulence itself warning you that you were getting too close to an angry Bull :))
Other cells and you may pass very close in smooth air or cut corners by chopping through a benign edge.

In an ideal world all CBs would be 40 miles apart so you could pass 20 miles between them )) but sadly the real world is rarely like that ((
If your flying for fun and you open the curtains and the weather looks **** close them and stay in bed always fly in your limits and the aircrafts limits
Aircraft limits ? A piston single at 10k at probably the worst icing level minimum performance and little or no de icing anti ice capability ? Stay at home or avoid like mad ))
Pace

[thing]

Sorry Pace, bit of mind drift on my part. I was talking about your common or garden Cu, not Cb.

I've heard glider pilots talk about cloud climbs (done them myself, although I wouldn't now unless I was getting some kind of service from an ATC unit) and there seems to be a general opinion that any power stuff will be clear of cloud which isn't true. If I'm IFR I don't route around Cu if I'm climbing or descending, there wouldn't be much point being IFR would there.

Having said that I will always be on top of them if possible.

[Pace]

Thing

Ok :) I suppose I was making an argument that this 20 mile distance to a CB is a load of rubbish! That is categorising a CB as one thing which it isn't anymore than I would keep my distance far greater from a bad tempered giant bull than a baby bull.
It is important to be able to read a storm cell understand its dynamics and use your eyes as well as radar. Is it a large isolated cell or a tightly packed line of cells
Are they embedded or completely visible?
Are you flying in daylight or pitch darkness? etc
Watch your speed with any Cumulus clouds as piling into a piece of towering cumulus can make you loose your false teeth :E
And watch icing.
the worst turbulence I ever experienced was in forecast severe turbulence between FL200 and FL300 over the Alps and in clear air.
Going into Nice in the descent I warned the PAX and pulled the speed right back! The air was as smooth as silk to touchdown and the PAX departed with me with a red embarrassed face.
Departing empty on a more northerly SID and climbing through 20K all hell let loose with 45 degree wing drops cupboards flying open, everything fly everywhere.
i asked for an immediate climb to FL320 was amazed to see a solid 2000 fpm plus all the way through FL300 and smooth air
With this jet mid 20s you never saw more than 1000 fpm
Not a CB in sight :)


Pace

[mary meagher]

Pace, sounds like you were nicely enveloped in wave....after having transited the rotor, things can smooth out nicely. But 20,300 was enough for my diamond height in a glider, and I get nervous relying on oxygen....

[Pace]

Mary

In that air you would have climbed at 2000 fpm from 20.000 to 30,000 in your glider :ok:agreed on the oxygen )) do gliders go to 30K ? and what breathing systems do they use for such high levels? I suppose it would be feasible to have a pressurised glider?

Pace

[astir 8]

Steve Fossett. 50699 feet in wave over the Andes. Wearing a pressure suit.:D

(and he'd been hoping for a lot more height!)

UK record (Aboyne) 38000 feet

[ChrisJ800]

Wasnt that UK height record proven to be fraud or has my memory played tricks?

[mary meagher]

don't think so. It was, as I recall, Chris Rollings with a young lady tug pilot at Aboyne.

Any glider flying at Aboyne, where wave is encountered when the wind is North, West, or Southerly, will be equipped with oxygen tanks and masks and canulas, and usually if it is an expedition of visiting gliding pilots, careful supervision and advice. The tug pilot has to be tops at the job. Often at Aboyne the windsocks are pointing opposite ways at either end of the runway.
The airtow can be VERY VERY EXCITING, through the rotor. But the tuggie had the experience to tow me to the right spot on a good day, and over Balmoral I found the upwind primary wave, and that was it for me! back and forth in the smooth strong lift, and when they called me on the radio I was over the moon! so made jolly sure I was high enough for the claim, and then did a bit of sightseeing. Could see all three bodies of water, up North, the North Sea, and something else down South....

And good job I was carrying TWO barographs! one was the old tick tock needle scratching the line on the smoked paper, the other the new sort - which FAILED TO MARK WHERE I CAME OFF TOW! ! ! But the British Gliding Association was happy with the old smoky, so there you go. Old technology is sometimes the best, especially if you fail to dip a bit after release to mark that event.

[mary meagher]

ChrisJ100, now I remember the one to which you refer. The chap who will NOT live in infamy, his name long forgotten, simply engraved misleading lines on his smoky paper.. suspicion was aroused and his claim was reversed.

So there was a fraud, but not Chris Rollings and lady tug pilot.

Wasn't there a guy who pretended to sail round the world, sending radio bull**** for months, while he puddled around in the tropical Atlantic waters?

[davydine]

That would be Donald Crowhurst sailing in the Golden globe round the world race, Mary. Sad story really, he was pressured in to joining the race when neither he nor the boat were ready. He eventually went mad and jumped overboard.

[India Four Two]

and what breathing systems do they use for such high levels?Most high altitude flights in gliders in Canada use ex-USAF A-14 diluter demand pressure-breathing regulators with bail-out bottles attached to the parachute. Below FL200, nasal cannulas are more commonly used these days.

The Canadian absolute altitude record is 34,400'.

[VP-F__]

A few years back now when I was still relatively new to flying (500 hours or so) I was conducting a fishery protection flight to the south east of the Falklands in an Islander.

On returning towards the Islands I could see some cloud build up on the horizon from about 100 miles out. By 50 miles it was apparent that we had a line of CB's between us and the only land for about 400 miles. The options were fairly straight forward so continue we did, Initially we could see gaps between the clouds. As we got closer the clouds merged and the radar showed the cells so no problem, closer still (10 nm or so) the cells were merging but we could see the rain coming down. By now we were at about 1000ft and aiming for the gap in the rain. As we entered the gap the rain merged and there was lighening forks on both sides. I continued descending to about 500ft and exited the weather with no turbulence at all.

We landed a few minutes later with no unusual turbulance and relieved that it had been so easy. Perhaps we were lucky, it is not something I would make a habit of but I would always opt to approach a CB from low level (below 1000ft) it might be bumpy but any strong downdraughts have to become horizontal at some point.

[thing]

Went to pick up an a/c today from Sherburn off it's annual. Weather was amazing setting off from Lincoln, cristal clear and unlimited vis. Landed half an hour later at Sherbs in snow and vis like a particularly mucky fishbowl...an hour later it was grand again. Funny stuff winter flying.

[foxmoth]

That is because there is a lot of instability in the air - moves all the pollution up to high levels giving good visibility where things are clear, but also setting off the isolated CBs that give the snow, and of course in the snow you will get bad vis.

[thing]

That is because there is a lot of instability in the air - moves all the pollution up to high levels giving good visibility where things are clear, but also setting off the isolated CBs that give the snow, and of course in the snow you will get bad vis.

I knew that.


No I didn't. Thanks for that, informative as usual Fox.