When we headed out on Monday, the prognosis was for bad weather Friday. At the time I thought it was a bit overblown but all week the pesky front sat across the country and made a mess. Thursday evening the NBC News lead story was “Travel Nightmare”. I had been planning and gaming scenarios since Tuesday but Thursday night I made some concrete plans. I was not happy with all of them as they involved significant detours.
Friday morning, looking at the line of storms it appeared there might be a soft spot down the middle but it was hard to tell. I started looking and while the rain and low ceilings were widespread, there was not much severe weather. Things change fast so I was not ready to commit fully to a plan. I decided our first leg would be 270 miles South. This would provide a stop with good VFR and about 50 miles from where the weather began. As a bonus the gas was well priced and there was a positive review from just a few days earlier.
We departed under glorious skies and it was hard to believe we were going to have to battle with the weather. The headwinds were lighter than expected and stayed under 10 knots. Other than a high overcast it was picture perfect. Delaware County Regional airport in Indiana has a control tower but not much traffic. The gas is located at the base of the tower and other than the machine not taking my first credit card, the fueling went well. It was a loud but fast pump.
The facilities were spartan, it looked like they were an old passenger terminal from the 60s. Spartan was fine as they were clean. Once the fueling was done I took a hard look at the weather. I preferred to head down and East of Atlanta but the storms and low ceilings made that a no go. Option two was straight South, which put us West of Atlanta to LaGrange, Georgia. This would provide a VFR arrival with a low chance of storms till later in the day.
When we were holding waiting for release, the tower told us we would have a bit of a delay due to Indy not being able to take us with the surrounding traffic. I asked if they would let us depart VFR as it was still nice out. The tower checked and sent us on our way. This is a lot easier when the weather is good and the controllers allow it, not a bad strategy. We departed, headed on course and climbed to 9,000’. I checked in and he said he would get back to us. A minute or so later, he cleared us and we were in the system. Often by climbing you can get above the other traffic and the controller can then work you in without them having to work your climb.
Level at 9,000’ we headed for the dark skies. I fired up the radar, set it to 60 miles and put it on my MFD display. On the GPS I had the XM weather. The XM was a lot more pessimistic. As we entered the weather the radar showed the areas of light and heavier precipitation. Overall we had either light rain or just wet cloud. We needed very few deviations which was good and the ride was mostly smooth.
As we headed South I kept looking at how the storms were changing. Most of the rain was in Indiana and Northern Kentucky but a secondary line had spawned that ran from North of Knoxville, TN towards Huntsville, AL. We were going to have to cross that line next. I had also been watching the weather behind the storms. It had started out IFR but had improved a lot. While technically we could stop pretty much anywhere as most places were above minimums, I like to cheat and pick places with better weather. It’s no fun fueling in the rain and better weather makes departures easier too.
About 20 miles before Tennessee it became clear that if we headed South East, we could exit the weather and be done with the system. One of the stops I had planned was also reporting good VFR so I updated our destination to RZR, Cleveland, TN. After a few deviations we cleared the line of weather and broke out to a broken undercast. Based upon the reported weather we should have just been able to do a VFR arrival but it looked iffy so I requested the RNAV 21.
We got Direct to the initial fix and cleared for a straight in. This added little distance and made finding the runway easy. It was a good choice, weather over the field was much better than around the field and while it was an easy approach, it just made the entire process seamless. The gas pump was not the easiest to use. The hose and support stuff were in a metal enclosure that was cumbersome but we were soon topped off.
The local facilities were very nice and I studied the weather again. It was a straight shot home. After filing, we headed back to the plane, fired up and taxied to the runway. After our normal checks, I called Chattanooga Approach for our clearance. Compared to the old days of going through flight service or even farther back using a landline and then rushing out to make your clearance void time, sitting at the runway and chatting through the bluetooth headset makes it easy. We were given our clearance and release.
After a final look for traffic, we departed. We were given runway heading and climb to 3,000’. I waited to check in until we were clear of the pattern and I was confident we would have good reception. We checked in and were given 9,000'. I knew that it would be a bit before we got a turn on course as there are mountains in the area. Direct on course would have taken us over a 4,100’ pile of rock. Once we cleared the granite, we were given on course and handed to Atlanta.
Our route took us very near Atlanta's arrivals. The controller gave us a minor re-route which I expected. Atlanta is also unlike Charlotte, they move you a bit, not a hundred miles. Leveling at 9,000’ we were sitting pretty, other than wicked bad headwinds, it was an easy two hours home. I should say it should have been easy. As we were leveling off, I could see rain and storms forming along our route and basically all over the South East.
I fired up the radar again and started asking for some deviations. If you are IFR you are expected to fly in the clouds. We had just spent over an hour solid but these were different. We rode through some of the shorter ones and they were a bad ride. The controllers were very accommodating and we did minor deviations for most of the flight. Looking back at our track it looks like I can’t fly straight. On the other hand we did avoid all the areas of moderate to extreme precipitation.
Arriving home the weather was good but the controller still gave us the RNAV 14. Before we even joined the approach, I had the airport in sight and said I could take the visual. She asked that we fly the approach which was fine. I hand flew the approach and noticed I was a bit sloppy. In the clouds the previous approach had been flown with everything centered, this one I was a quarter to half dot off at times. I think looking out the window degrades your instrument performance.
Regardless, we found the runway, made a nice touchdown and soon had the plane away. Round Trip was 10.5 air hours. Total was 1,824 nm so we averaged 173 knots. The way up was 181 knots and the way back was 167 knots. Overall a good performance.
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