ericmpmail-rv10(at)yahoo.
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 Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 12:00 pm Post subject: Weather capabilities and severe turblance - pilot account |
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The pilot also had a write up on the Cherokee Chat
board:
"This weekend I flew my plane with a couple of friends
down to Alfonsina's for a batchelor party weekend. We
left OAK Thursday night, overnighted in Calexico and
made it to Alfonsina's by noon on Friday. We spent
that afternoon, and all day Saturday fishing, playing
in the beautiful warm water, eating great food and
consuming mass quantities of ice cold beer.
We were in the air at 8 AM this morning and screamed
back up to the border with the help of a 15-20 Kt
tailwind. After breakfast and a weather brief at
Calexico, we launched into uncertain conditions over
Southern California, the High Desert and the Central
Valley. A late season storm was approaching from the
southwest, very moist and unstable, with winds aloft
from the south at 25-50 Kts. Things were actually
quite doable over Southern California, and I was
enjoying the 30 Kt push towards home. We were able to
punch through a line of showers NW of Bakersfield
while maintaining VFR, but there was another band of
precip that was plopped over the last 100 miles of the
route. FSS advised me that there were multiple layers
from 2000 to FL200, light scattered rain showers and
the freezing level was around 9000 ft. Pilot reports
weren't indicating anything too scary, and most of the
reports were light rime icing at 12000 Ft.
Since I didn't want to scud-run into OAK, I filed in
the air and got direct Panoche VOR, direct OAK at
8000. Easy, straightworward, straight-in to the ILS
for 27R. We went into the goo about 25-30 miles south
of Panoche, and I was enjoying the challenge of
hand-flying my plane in real IFR, with the temps about
2 C. Things were going along just fine until we were
about 20 miles northwest of Panoche on V-301, when it
was as if somebody had turned on a blender and we were
in it! The instrument panel was an incomprehensible
blur. It was the most severe turbulence I've ever been
in, and we were in solid IMC. We must have flown into
an imbedded thunderstorm, and Center didn't have it on
their radar. I could barely control the plane. I
immediately informed Center of the situation and they
gave me a turn to the North and a descent to 6000 ft.
I fought with the plane to maintain control, just to
keep the wings somewhere near level and the airspeed
in the green while descending towards the Central
Valley and lower terrain. I kept telling myself not to
give up... Just fly the plane. It took me about 2 or 3
minutes to get down to 6000, but we were still in IMC,
though the turbulence had eased a bit. We were cleared
to 4000, and began to descend again. At 5500 I was
head down, on the gages when by friend Jon called
ground in sight, and at 4900 we were completely clear
of the base of a very angry-looking black cloud mass.
I told Center we were clear and he immediately issued
an Airmet for severe turbulence in the area, and began
deviating 3 other aircraft that were in-trail around
the area I encountered the turbulence. At that point I
heard him mention something about their weather radar
capability being INOP at the time... So I guess that
made me the canary in the coal mine.
Anyway, we made it into OAK with little fuss after
dodging a couple of showers near Livermore. 3 hours
block time CXL to OAK with a little excitement thrown
in for good measure.
Moral of story? No good deed goes unpunished? S#!t
happens? How about "Do not give up on the airplane!"?
Truly, one of the thoughts that went through my mind
as I was struggling to maintain control of the the
plane was "My wife is gonna kill me if I die now and
ruin our Italian vacation plans!"
I'm very happy to be alive, and to be able to write
this down for your perusal. Stay safe."
The Cherokee Board also discussed the XM weather and
the 396. What wasn't clear was if weather was down
locally for ATC or west coast. I use avwx.net on a
blackberry for ground planning and it's Nexrad service
was down on Sunday in the NW. NWS radar was still up
and running (can also download to blackberry). Lot's
of reasons not to rely on ATC for weather - see
www.avweb.com and ATC columns.
Eric
40150
Working on center section of fuselage
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