It all started so easy. We were flying to Traverse City, Michigan. It is 885 miles and with the forecast tail winds would only be 4.6 hours in the air. In theory the flight can be done easily with one stop but for a variety of reasons which will soon become obvious, I planned two.
According to the forecast the weather was good and as long as we arrived before 3 PM we should have VFR weather the entire trip. We fired up right on plan at 08:30 and were quickly airborne. Our first stop was Pickens, SC. This first stop was mostly about comfort as the ideal middle point did not have any value fuel stops and this let us take the majority of our gas at stop 2 where they had a great deal on gas.
As planned the arrival was good VFR. Entering downwind, there was a plane landing ahead of us. I asked if he was heading to self-serve and he was as well. I asked if he could pull up enough so we both could fuel and he did a great job for us. While he fueled, we freshened up and by the time we returned he was done and had moved the hose to my plane. We thanked him and he headed out while we fueled.
My second stop was strategic. Yes there was really cheap fuel in Northern Indiana, but I also had a sense that the Traverse city arrival might not be great VFR. Stopping an hour short meant we would have hours of reserve and would be fresher having just taken a break.
The weather still looked good as we departed Pickens and headed towards the mountains. With the strong wings from the Southeast, I was concerned with turbulence but we climbed to 8,000’ in smooth air. We had a bit of light turbulence over the mountains but overall a smooth ride and no waves.
I had one other concern, Cincinnati. We would be just outside the class B as we passed to the East. Our experience around Charlotte is that they like to re-route you. As we approached, I kept waiting to get re-routed but somehow they let us go on our merry way. As we sailed by, I noticed that our route was overflying a lot of states for such a simple trip. We crossed ten, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana and Michigan.
Clear of airspace my focus was back on the weather. The forecast said we should be able to slide into Traverse City ahead of the bad weather. As we departed Georgia there were severe storms over Missouri and Iowa. There was light rain over Illinois. It looked like we could easily stay ahead of the storms. On the way to fuel at Angola, Indiana we watched a line of severe storms organize and begin to sweep East towards our stop. We were well ahead of this weather and we landed in clear skies.
While our fuel stop was good, by the time we approached Angola, the light rain had organized over lake Michigan, intensified and began heading toward Traverse city. After a quick refuel, we had full tanks and took a look at the radar. It looked iffy. The storms that had looked like they would slide North were sliding towards Traverse City. I thought about staying in Angola but I had severe storms bearing down on us from the East and I figured it would be better to head further North and see what happened.
Watching the datalink radar during our departure showed that the storms had arrived and we were not going direct into Traverse City. I had a plan B though, Cadillac, Mi. It was VFR, just 30 miles South of our goal and the first line of storms had slid North. We updated our destination with ATC and with a solid out, we studied the storms some more. The ADS B/XM feed was pretty useless other than to show the line of severe precipitation.
Everything else was a blob of green, yellow and red with no apparent safe route. We started down for Cadillac and were cleared to 4,000'. This was the MVA for Cadillac to Traverse City. I wanted to be lower but this is the best they could do. The onboard radar works best inside of 60 milesso once we were 30 miles from Cadillac I could paint the entire route to Traverse City. There were some strong cells running North to South that started East of the field and they had a tail that headed West for a few miles.
I updated ATC that we wanted to attempt Traverse and gave them our plan. ATC confirmed their radar matched ours and cleared us back to our original destination. About 10 miles South of Cadillac we made a hard turn West to get around the storms at the South end of the line. We were in and out of the bases and the ride was surprisingly good with only light turbulence though CC swears it was bumpy. The XM was still mostly useless as the storms were moving fast and the data was too old to be of value but the onboard radar was doing a great job.
Once on the back side of the line the radar showed mostly green with a bit of yellow and spots of red. The controllers were very accommodating and we made minor deviations to avoid the precipitation. Though we spent a good amount of time in the clouds, we had almost no precipitation and the rain we did encounter was just a bit of water streaming along the windshield.
After getting behind the line and avoiding the areas of heavier precipitation, the final for runway 10 looked clear. We were behind an airliner on his second attempt. He had tried to land through the severe precip and had gone around.
We were turned direct BEAAR and were cleared for the 10 approach straight in. I had studied the approaches before departure and briefed the plate before we worked our way around the weather so it was pretty easy. We joined at BEAAR and and broke out just past the FAF. The runway was wet and we had a really smooth touchdown. We rolled a bit as I wanted to be careful on the slick surface.
While it had been dry all the way in, once we landed the rain started as we pulled into parking. The FBO brought the car to the plane and we loaded up. We had bouts of light rain for the next two hours and then the rain stopped for a bit, it was time to sightsee. We drove into the city and I use that term loosely to see Clinch Park. The park sits on the North edge of downtown on the lake. It had stopped raining but it was pretty foggy. We went for a nice walk and watched the fog start to lift. There were some midge flies out but not too bad. We did find some areas with swarms that we avoided.
We ended up at Don’s Drive in, a classic local place for classic burgers, dogs and fried food. While less than healthy it was a tasty treat.
Overall it was an interesting flight. When we started, I pretty much thought we would be diverting. I did in fact divert to Cadillac but as the weather unfolded we diverted again to Traverse City. Onboard radar made the difference. I had considered getting below the clouds, cancelling and working my way in VFR.
The controller had told me the MVA was 4,000’ for much of the area. The VFR chart shows an MEF of 2,700’. This only gives you 100’ of clearance over the obstacles. There are a bunch of tall towers out there and even with our excellent terrain awareness, I did not want to be scud running and caught between a storm and a tower.
Since VFR was not an option and datalink is not fast enough to use for avoidance, without being able to visually avoid the bad stuff, I would not have ventured through the area without the radar.
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