I picked the plane up from New Smyrna on Saturday. On the drive down I reviewed the weather and it looked cloudier than forecast so I filed IFR. There was no rain though on our drive and only some broken clouds that looked like they were clearing. I departed about 40 minutes later and it still looked very nice.
Once airborne, I quickly noticed that weather had formed on my path home. My first thought was to formulate a plan. My second was that this would let me get some more radar practice, cool!!!
Checking in with departure, I discussed a
plan to avoid it. The controller took me
just offshore. I have 3 sources of radar,
two are sent to the plane and delayed. I
also have the dish in the nose which scans every few seconds.
The wind was 45 knots from the Northwest. This meant the storms were moving fast as
well. While the satellite radar is great for the big
picture, today it was running way behind.
Using the onboard data and my eyes, I found a nice clear path. The controller was very accommodating and I
was cleared to deviate and then direct destination.
The direct route would have taken me through a pretty big
storm but with the right data, I stayed safe and dry. It was a good reminder to never trust the
delayed weather in close. It had been received
only 2 minutes before but was at least 10-15 minutes old. When I had cleared the weather, it was still
showing me about to enter the line.
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