Making a Break for It

I had three flights today. I was going to have only 2, but the other pilot took the day off, so I got the one flight he was going to do. I'm not complaining, bring it on.

The day started out quite nice, somewhat warm, for the time of year at least, and only a harmless overcast layer which had all but broken up by my second flight. My third flight up the coast was an entirely different story however. All seemed well until about 20 miles south of my destination, where I could see a long line of dark clouds on the horizon. Wow that moved in fast, there was nothing like that visible on my last run, less than 2 hours ago. As I got closer things started to look worse and worse; there was a solid line of heavy rain moving in. I couldn't yet tell if it was still north of the field, or if the field was already drowned in it. My wondering was answered when the town came into view, ahead of line of heavy showers. The heavy stuff hadn't yet made it to where I was landing, but I was already starting to fly through spats of rain, the kind where the raindrops make a big splat on the window.

I turned final with the line only a couple miles off my right wing. It was apparent I was definitely going to get wet unloading the plane. Oh well, last flight of the day anyways, no big deal. FLASH! A big bolt of lightning struck the ground out my left window about a mile to the south of the field. Well that was... unexpected... but there wasn't much I could do at that point because I was already on final. I landed, and taxied in, and then the heavens just opened up. It POURED.

I only had my zip-up hoodie sweatshirt with me, so I put that on with the hopes that it would provide some sort of rain shield. We unloaded the airplane as fast as we could, but it didn't do much good, I was completely soaked through and standing in a 1 inch puddle before we even got the truck backed up.

There was also rumbling thunder and lightning flashing every few seconds while we were unloading, it was quite the storm actually, and I wondered how long I'd be stuck here, soaking wet, waiting for it to move off.

As our luck would have it though, the rain stopped just as soon as we finished unloading the airplane. The driver remarked in disdain that of course the rain would stop as soon as we were done unloading. I chuckled, but it was good news for me. I might be able to get out of here afterall. Once I was ready to go, I took a look to the north in the direction of where the storm came from, it didn't look like there was any more coming at least in the next couple minutes. I also looked to the south towards the stuff that had just passed us, and also in the direction I needed to go. As bad as the rain we got on the ground was, it looked like we even missed the worst of it, and there was an opening of sunlight that I could see, so I decided to give it a shot.

I took off and made a break for the patch of hope. On both my left and right were two storm cells with so much rain, it couldn't have been more then 1 or 2 miles visibility inside. I could also see the occasional lightning strike flash inside as well. I'm definitely staying out of those, but between them was a brilliant glimmer of bright blue sky. What I wouldn't do for a stormscope right now! The company bought a second Cherokee 6 back in June, which still isn't ready to go yet (waiting for the engine, but it should be any day now), but its equipped with a stormscope. Its a WX-8, which is a slightly different model than the one I have in my Twin Comanche (a WX-10), so I've been itching to try it out, and today would have been perfect. I doubt that there will be any more summer storms by the time the new Cherokee is online though.

Five minutes later I was out of the worst it, so I could relax, and another 5 minutes after that I was back in the sun, as if it had always been a beautiful day! I filed a PIREP of the weather conditions with the radio service when I approached home. It wasn't a busy day today, so I was likely the first/only aircraft to have encountered the conditions, and of course there aren't any weather stations other than the airport I'm based out of. In a way I actually enjoy that part of my job up here. Flying down south there are weather stations all over the place, so before you take off you can know with a fair degree of accuracy the weather that you're going to encounter along the way, but up here, except for our GFA charts (a regional weather map, which depicts likely conditions), which are often vague, or downright wrong, there's nothing. So when we take off for a trip to the north its very much flying into unknown conditions. Quite exciting, and it gives me that little taste of "frontier bush pilot". I'd love to do some of the winter ski trips into the bush with the Cessna 206, but I haven't had the opportunity yet, since I've only been up here since April, which was when the bush trips were just finishing up.