Training Tip: 'Black clouds were visible'
What’s the best way to outrun a thunderstorm? Hint: It’s a trick question.
There’s no good way to outrun a thunderstorm, but people keep wearing out the bad ways. If you find yourself in a situation that creates temptation to confront convection, there are things you can do to avoid going over to the dark side.
At times like this you might also want to phone your fixed-base operator and let them know that the 5 p.m. renter might be out of luck. With that pressure off your mind, contact your flight instructor and discuss the weather, or, if you already have the information you need to opt to stay put, go ahead and tell the CFI of your no-go decision (I’ll back you up if anybody complains).
You will know that the Dark Side of the Force is eating away at your resistance if you feel an overwhelming urge to jump in the airplane without even a walkaround glance, forget about the the top-off and the runup, and blast on out of there.
That’s a recipe that cooks up nothing but trouble—and not just for student pilots who don’t want to make waves.
When a flight instructor and student in a Cessna 172 learned from an internet weather check that bad weather was approaching the Tennessee airport where they had stopped on a cross-country, they took off and immediately ran into trouble as airspeed proved erratic, apparently the result of a low-level wind shear encounter. Loss of control into trees followed. An official report of the accident highlighted the CFI’s decision to initiate flight into thunderstorm activity, noting another pilot’s report that “black clouds were visible in the distance.”
When studying aviation weather, trainees learn that dangerous effects of thunderstorms—hail, lightning, extreme winds—can extend unpredictably far from the visible storm area.
Looking at it another way, if incoming convective weather makes you want to make a run for it, it’s probably already too late to do so.
Dan Namowitz
