The Pinnacle of Success

[Jon Wehrenberg]

I've already had to give out my autograph.

I had to give one to Skiffer at the bottom of a check for membership.

[michaeldterry]

I've already had to give out my autograph.

I had to give one to Skiffer at the bottom of a check for membership.

I hope Jim remembered to charge you the celebrity rate to help subsidize us mere mortals! It's all the rage now - redistribution of wealth - all the libs are doing it!

[Will Garner]

Gary,

I could be mistaken here, that's why I asked for Lew. I am calling into question your spelling of Poparazi. In the specific case under discussion I firmly believe the correct spelling would be Puparazi. I can just see Jon, natilly attired in his Fruit of the Looms, fleeing from a pack of puppies, all with slobbering tongues out wanting to share their love!

Later ...

[Jon Wehrenberg]

OK, I was fully dressed when this happened, but it has to be said to correct the impression Will has.

On Wednesday I challenged Mother Nature and traversed an area of very heavy weather extending from the gulf across the FL panhandle, southern AL and GA carrying two border collies. See www.flightaware.com and use N732JB as the tail number. I was fully dressed. The bouncing through some of the route was less than pleasant and apparently one of the pups decided his soft side crate was not where he wanted to be. I don't think he was slobbering to share the love and I can assure anyone I wasn't fleeing because I had nowhere to go.

I think the Border Collie wanted to help fly, so he worked for quite a while attempting to join my fully clad body in the front seat, while I worked for the same amount of time attempting to keep him in the coach class seating.

Undoubtedly the NE will report this as my having flown a flight while fondling a puppy (who weighed about 50 pounds). Pilots will appreciate what it is like hand flying an ILS with a 500 foot ceiling with one hand while petting a dog with the other to keep it calm (it had gotten up on top of the crate and was now right behind my shoulders).

The thrill is certainly back in flying.

[flyu2there]

Jon,

That only shows your leg back home...what's with the 12000 feet I think 240 may have been better at least till you were past Macon, after all it shows P-210! Looks like you got outta FLA just in time, kida red over there to your left, probably got a good jolt or two on the climb out as well..............

[JIM CHALOUPKA]

Sounds like quite a thrill! ..............


Glad you destinated safely!!

JIM

[Jon Wehrenberg]

John,

On thre same day the leg from Folsom County, Cullman GA to KGNV shows the worst of it.

The trip home at 12,000 was uneventful with very little turbulence and mostly light rain and IMC until Dublin. After Dublin I was on top

It was the trip southeastbound in the AM that was bouncy.

FWIW, I have always bitched at guys that use XM weather to thread their way, but on that particular day it seemed XM had gotten their act together. The weather was refreshing every 6 minutes and as a long range tool used in conjuction with my radar and strikefinder I had no issues apart from the bumping going through the area of weather. If I recall some of the tops were running between 31,000 and 45,000 although my path was well away from those. 24,000........I wish. Us guys flying GA stuff have to rely on skills rather than big expensive planes.

[BrianE]

Jon my dear friend, don't get cocky.

[flyu2there]

Jon,

Couldn't agree more on the XM, great long range planning tool however I would never attempt to "pick my way thru" an area with XM only...that's nutz.

I couldn't tell from flight tracker the cloud tops however red is usually a pretty good indicator that they could be up high.........

I often fly my Seneca at the higher levels (for pistons) 180-220 and other than needing a week or so to get up there, it does allow me to miss a good deal of the weather and to take advantage of the winds West to East, although the canula is annoying. I watch the weather closely however, winds get much above 50-60 knots I get outta there, having soared heavy airliners in a mountain wave over the front range a time or two! Those things are no match for light aircraft........

Finally, you were flying around with two dogs, try 13! Same thing, moaning about "how long is it gonna be ruff", "the passenger in 23j is starting to bark, I mean barf", "Is that Woof creek down there?"

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Brian and John........

I have a severe case of chicken.

I was measuring tops with the radar, and what was seen to ATC as extreme was a hell of a lot of rain at just below my altitude to the ground. I went through a couple of areas painted bright red on the XM which matches what ATC sees pretty closely, but which was rainfall mostly below me. I was in cloud, but not precip. I was at 13,000 and anytime my radar picked up precip at my altitude I measured its height and determined my path accordingly, hence the small deviations you see.

None of the tops I measured was above 15,000 along my actual route. There were areas of thunderstorms but at the time of my passage most of them were approaching the Atlantic coast.

As I was breaking out of the heaviest precip that I was mapping I asked for and got lower because I wanted a very slow descent to keep my air speed down in case I got back into turbulence.

I suspect no airline pilot would have considered me sane. They have used different approaches to dealing with crap like this, and I suspect the most used approach is to be at high altitude and visually go around the buildups. Unfortunately us low level guys don't have a chance to do that. So for me a trek through the crud is a high workload affair measuring tops and then remembering in a map created in the brain which tops are still going up and which are descending to forecast the best path. It ain't fun, but it is the only way I know of getting to where I am headed.

When I do not see a path at least 20 miles wide away from the thunderstorms (which I never saw on this path) I land or turn around.