Thunderstorm Flying Altitude

[sky37d]

I was thinking the same thing.


LIKE ANOTHER STATE

As long as it isn't the state of confusion, I agree

 

[TurboS7]

Since our Baron friend is talking about penetration I guess I better clarifly myself. We are talking about thunderstorm avoidance, going around them. By staying below the bases you can see to avoid and to navigate and you are well within the performance of a normally aspirated engine.

 

[Kingairrick]

The only way to stay safe around thunderstorms is to stay out of them. VMC works the best.

Dustin has fallen into the same trap I did when I flew night freight. (2000 hours of it.) A sense of pride comes from beating the odds and going through. Some of these companies have a corporate culture that rewards the pilot that takes risks to complete flights. At the company I worked for, this translated into MANY accidents, and a couple of dead friends. (Although this company tells their new pilots today that they have only had 2 fatal accidents.) It took me several scary incidents to learn that it was male cowpoop. As posted above, it could be the 1st one or the 1001st one that gets you, but if you cheat the odds enough, one WILL get you.

Now, 10 years later, in a relatively large, safe airplane, I stay as far away as possible from cells. My boss tells me the only pilot he ever fired was after he went through a cell. So he has no problem getting a hotel and waiting until tomorrow.

Bottom line is: the risk of any one flight is not worth your life. Go tomorrow. You'll be sure to get there.

 

[Rook]

Great topic guys. Enjoyed reading all the opinions on TRW avoidance. As an F/O we we're taxiing for takeoff when a storm was approaching from the southwest. When lined up for takeoff the CA scanned the area and we found a spot that was 'clear'. After being cleared for Takeoff we heard a couple of 'good luck's' from the guys waiting for the storm to pass. It ended up being a smooth flight with just a few minor deviations. But seeing all that red didn't make me feel any more comfortable. Now as a new captain I have to be the judge on going or not going. This topic was very informative. Keep it up.

Rook
600' AGL. Autopilot on.
'WHEW!'

 

[7B2]

Dustin, how's the baron holding up?

Just look at the following link about stuff commonly found in the vicinit of T-storms.

http://www.airliners.net/open.file?id=402670&WxsIERv=Qm9laW5nIDczNy0zM1Y%3D&WdsYXMg=RWFzeUpldCBBaXJsaW5l&QtODMg=R2VuZXZhIC0gSW50ZXJuYXRpb25hbCAoQ29pbnRyaW4pIChHVkEgLyBMU0dHKQ%3D%3D&ERDLTkt=U3dpdHplcmxhbmQ%3D&ktODMp=QXVndXN0IDE1LCAyMDAz&BP=0&WNEb25u=S2VuamkgU2F0b2g%3D&xsIERvdWdsY=SEItSUlJ&MgTUQtODMgKE=RmxpZ2h0IEVaUyA5MDMgZnJvbSBHZW5ldmEgdG8gTG9uZG9uIEx1dG9uIGVtZXJnZW5jeSByZXR1cm4gdG8gR2VuZXZhIGR1ZSB0byBzZXJpb3VzIGRhbWFnZXMgYnkgaGFpbC4gTm90ZSB0aGF0IHRoZSB0d28gY29ja3BpdCB3aW5kb3cgY3JhY2tlZC4%3D&YXMgTUQtODMgKERD=NzA1Nzg%3D&NEb25uZWxs=MjAwMy0wOC0xNg%3D%3D&ODJ9dvCE=&O89Dcjdg=MjkzMzgvMzExNA%3D%3D&static=yes

 

[TurboS7]

That is just a European TRW nothing compared to the PaPa Bears we have in the midwest. For those that haven't read the book you need to read Weather Flying by Buck followed by Severe Weather Flying by the same author. When I had my 135 I bought each of my pilot's that book and told them they had to read it.

 

[enigma]

I’d get on the ground and see the radar had a thick line of red about two to three states long. Going through that stuff really wasn’t that bad, at least not with my experience. I will think twice about posting advice based on my experience though. You guys are brutal.

Dustin, I think I just figured out your problem. You are relating FBO w/x radar red to airborn w/x radar RED.

Back when I flew corporate, the FBO I used changed from an old radar repeater display, to a new DTN machine that showed doppler radar. Being very familiar with the local w/x patterns, I immediately noticed that the new doppler showed much more red than did the older display. At the time, Iworked for a man who didn't mind burning up all 6300#s of fuel in the Lear just to get 150 miles, so we would top off and take off in the wrong direction if need be. With that kind of operational latitude (part 91 has it's advantages ) we would take off and then find that the actual w/x conditions were not nearly as severe as the DTN doppler made it out to be. So, I called flight service one afternoon and inquired about the doppler, I was told that they (montgomery county) had also just upgraded their w/x radar to doppler, and they had come to the same conclusion.That conclusion being: doppler was showing w/x that wasn't really there. Doppler shows every bit of moisture in the atmosphere, and starts painting red a long time before the precip reaches the levels associated with a full blown TS. Doppler shows a scary amount of red, red that is not always justified by actual conditions. Doppler is great, but it's almost too much information.

You had to have been flying around in CU's and rain that showed doppler red, if you had been flying through real RED you'd have long since shed your wings.

Does anyone remember the poor dude flying night freight in a 400 series Cessna that lost the wings over Arkansas about 15 years ago. The man actually made a radio call saying that he had lost the wings, and asked the controller to tell his wife/gf goodby.
That still sucks, just thinking about it.


enigma

 

[TurboS7]

I would like to know who was the hairbrained idiot that invented flying right through the stuff. I had one of my pilots had just flown all the way to Colombia, S.A on a mission trip. He was coming back from PIT going to DPA. There was a solid line that went all the way to STL. I just figured that he would fly around the line then come up to DPA. (We had no radar on the PA-31)His wife called and I gave her the info. About 2 minutes later he shows up outside the hangar. He had flown right through the level 5 line of TRW's so he could make a dinner date with his wife. I found all the cowling buttons popped and gone on the cowlings. I was in STL flying freight to MKC. A guy in a 310 took off went to 3000 feet and plowed right through a hugh line. I had radar in my Aztec flew the same route and deviated to the south about 50 miles and found a nice hole. I arrived 15 minutes after he did. Some of you guys are crazy, smoking weed or something. Even our 402 friend that lost his wings had no business being there. Level 5's put out unbelieable amounts of lightning, you know where they are even without radar. If I have seen in this industry it is one thing a total disrespect for weather, by the operators and by the pilots, especially in freight operations. You only get to loose your wings once.

 

[7B2]

You only get to loose your wings once.

Very well said.

 

[sky37d]

update

I listened, and learned.
Good, IFR, weather to TBN. Turn to PWA, radar is good. Got close, radar filled up

about 12 miles out, OKC approach says, there is a level 5 storm 5 miles west of the runway. You are cleared for the visual, or you can wait and do the ILS.

Like I said, I listened. In the 337, gear extension speed is 140, but once it is down and locked, that limitation disappears. So, slow way down, gear down, drop the nose. I was doing 160 on short final. I was getting splotches of rain on the windshield, slowed down, flaps down, land.

Taxi to parking, they throw ropes on, chocks on, head for the terminal. Then the rain moved in, and about 5 minutes later, the hail showed up. We all got to watch hail bouncing off our birds. Not a pretty sight. About that time, ATIs changed to include the hail. Other people held out, waiting for it to pass.

Not a good thing to see the town you are voluntarily visiting to be featured on the weather channel.

Thanks, good advise, I listened, I think others should too.

 

[freightdogfred]

What a crazy thread.....Guys discussing the do's and dont's of penetrating level 4 and 5 cells.... I've flown thru a few as well, but only when the radar quit or lied to me. Flying thru a cell scares the dogpoop out of me, and that's in a four engine jet.

 

[Dustin H]

enigma--

Thanks for posting that. What I thought to be level 5-6 could have been more in the neighborhood of 3-4. I hadn't thought of that before.

Sad story about the guy in the Cessna. I'm glad I don't have to fly in that crap anymore. The company I fly for now backs me 100% if I feel the flight is not safe. Plus we have radar equipment to deviate around the small stuff if need be.

 

[Ty Webb]

My only encounter with a microburst was in visual conditions.

I was approaching the runway at a 90 degree angle, to do the overhead circling approach, and I could see the entire 6600' runway laid out in front of me. Both the approach and departure ends of the runway had cells a few miles out, but the whole airport area seemed to be in the clear.

How bad was it? Let's just say that even with the recommended "Max Power, Pitch to 20 degrees" it was still like a giant hand was pushing me down toward the ground, and the GPWS Squawking like crazy. Not good.

Needless to say, I made it, but if I can get through the next 23 years without doing that again, I will retire a happy man.

 

[Boeingman]

Got caught by a microburst on a PAR approach in an F-4 many moons ago. Almost the same type weather as EAL 66, just low vis due to haze and a broken layer of clouds being reported with scattered TRW's in the vicinity of the field.

I nearly lost control of the airplane and was in full burner on the miss for what seemed like an eternity. I probably was around 10 feet from slamming into the ground. To this day I still don't know how I didn't hit the approach lights. They sure looked odd looking down at them from the side of the canopy.

I'm glad that my exposure to thunderstorms happened early in my flying career. I don't think my heart would autoreboot now as quick as it did back then. I still shake my head listening to some of you GA guys flirting with these things. Your life is not worth the risk.

 

[Axel]

If you're not scared, it's because you do not understand the danger.

 

[C-12Bubba]

One he11 of a post!

I cut and pasted the best of the posts on this thread into a word document for training a bunch of Navy C-12 pilots. Most of us learn best from stories. There were some good ones here.

Thanks to all who posted.



This weather encounter happened to me during an afternoon flight in October of 1999, from Diego Garcia (an island in the Indian Ocean) to Bahrain (in the gulf). The weird part of it was, we had NO RADAR. The whole premice of the mission was to deliver it to Bahrain where it could get fixed (had a part we needed up there). So we were told to try and fly it up there, but if the T-storms got in the way, to come home.

We went to the weather guessers, and had satellite printouts and forecasts for our trip. Off we went, and all was well, until we encountered an innocent enough looking cloud, with "blue sky" on the other side. It looked blue until we got real close, then it became gray/black-- a wall of water, the noise alone was so bad it was hard to communicate in the cockpit (sound of rain hitting the aircraft). We had put our heading bugs 180 out, just in case, before we entered the cloud. The turbulence was throwing us around, we just flew attitude, not really worrying about altitude. When we 180'd, and emerged from the cloud, we went home (Diego) with our tail between our legs, not wanting to repeat that again.

The 180 turn is debateable, but we figured if we didn't pop out of the cloud with blue sky all around, we were going to turn around (lest we run into a thunderstorm). So that's what we did.

I've had to fly attitude for real, twice so far. Both times, the turbulence was good enough to make the panel a little blurry. At night, putting the flight instrument lights up bright helped illuminate the Attitude Indicator so I could fly attitude easier, until I could get out the turbulence..

If I expect turbulence, I kick off the autopilot (so it doesn't try to maintain altitude and over-g the airplane). I get to Turbulent air penetration speed (170 KIAS in the C-12) with a power reduction before I enter the clouds (usually get some turbulence in clouds). I think passengers appreciate that, it makes for a smoother ride. The King Air (C-12) has a tendency to wobble about the yaw axis in turbulence, so we leave yaw damp on, and it works like a champ to keep the nose in one spot. If below 5 deg., then the anti-ice equipment comes on as well.

This post is too long, I'm stopping right here!