The TSS Flying Club had its first club fly out event for the year on Saturday, May 16, 2009 to Clermont Airport in Batavia, OH for the annual Sporty’s Fly In. And what an outing it was! There were six of us along and we took both Skylanes for the trip.
The weather was crummy to say the least. There is no way any of the legs could have been flown VFR. So we flew IFR on all the legs. Three of the pilots (Herb, Larry, and Mike) were IFR current so Herb flew right seat on every leg so the non-IFR pilots could still participate as PIC.
Our first leg was from KGAI to Clarksburg, WV (KCKB). The fierce winds had us at about 110kts groundspeed more or less most of the way. There were 800 foot ceilings at GAI when we left although we managed to get on top of the clouds for a good part of the trip to CKB. The rain showers we had to fly through as we approached downwind to CKB just put the icing on the cake for that leg. After a short bio break and a change of seating assignments, we were off again.
This time the conditions were definitely in the IMC category. We flew in the clouds a great deal of the way on this leg to Clermont airport (I69) and had to fly the GPS 22 approach into the airport. This was great practice for the IFR pilots and a great learning experience for the non-IFR pilots on board.
We attended the Sporty’s fly in for about two hours. We gorged on the free hot dogs, admired the Cessna aircraft on display, learned that none of us won the yearly Sporty’s plane giveaway, spent our hard earned money on Sporty’s goodies, and generally had a good time. Now it was time to depart.
The two lines of thunderstorms between us and home looked formidable. But there were holes in the lines. Both planes have live weather onboard. We made the fortuitous decision to fly home in one leg. While this did cut down on the sharing of PIC duties, all agreed upon arriving home that it was the right decision not to waste time landing and swapping pilots given what we went through. So, we decided to launch as see what happens. To be honest, some were not sure we could get home and others were more optimistic.
It was pretty much solid cloud flying about halfway back. 1SJ flew at 5000 feet and managed to break in the clear (well at least out of the clouds but not necessarily the rain) most of the second half. 5JH flew home at 7000 and got to fly much more in the clouds. But there were the thunderstorms all around. ATC was great (especially Pittsburgh Approach) in letting us deviate around the boomers. We had to fly more northerly than we wanted to get around the line but ATC got us through the line by offering headings and allowing us to deviate as we needed. This didn’t keep us out of the rain but it was much nicer to see the lightening strikes off to the side of us instead of ahead of us. Having weather onboard was pretty much a necessity on this trip.
We got home just fine and it was even sprinkling as we put the planes away. A round of beers (well, more than one) and some food at the Outta the Way Cafe near the airpark was a great way to finish a fantastic day of IFR cross country flying.
This wasn’t necessarily the way we wanted it. Severe clear would have been just fine by all. But it was a great learning/training cross country experience that we will all remember.
Join our club and participate in these type of events. Put all of the time and effort to good use! We have volunteer members who plan and coordinate these outings. They are great fun, are learning/training events, and build camaraderie within the club. I know we have more planned throughout the coming months. Consider coming along!
