Flying in rough weather
 

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?

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

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.

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.

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.......

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!

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.

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.

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.

@ 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!

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.

porterhouse,
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:

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!"

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...pdf_500699.pdf

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Sorry, couldn't resist :)

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

Disregard the many impostors here.:{

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.....

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

They will only succeed in banning GA.

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.

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.

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.

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.... :)

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

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

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

Why would it not show up on radar at night?

Doh, 'cos it's dark innit.

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.

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.

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'

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.

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