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Lack of confidence or correct decision?

So yesterday I planned a flight to Kemble, IFR Airways as I usually do. I know it’s a short flight and some of you may think, well what’s the point? I find it much more simpler and it’s a good quick flight to get up to speed, before you know it you are descending.

1) There was a cold front coming down from the North which gave a band of light-moderate showers.

2) The aircraft had overnight’d in Nottingham and had flown IFR down, but overflew the front and was in IMC for the majority of the flight. The pilot said it was smooth, so I was a tad torn but realised that the weather would bump into warmer air further south and become more convective. So I was torn.

3) I had a pax who was doing his commercial and had just started training, so a) didn’t want to put him off but b) He was keen to see what the airways were like, and the IFR workload.

4) The flight was filed for 1530 UTC OBT, so the weather would be further south at this point.

At 13:50 UTC I elected to go VFR because of the convective weather, and having looked at the radar and out the “Window” towards the North there was a lot of towers, but probably nothing of a major concern. The weather towards Bristol and Gloucester was far worse, and I didn’t know what to expect or if the convection was embedded or not.

I departed at 14:05 UTC VFR and at low level there was some turbulence near the showers and avoided a few bulky showers south of Oxford and Brize. I landed safely and walked away to talk about it another day.

My major concern was the disruption I may have caused to a busy London TMA asking for weather avoidance, in a routing that ATC would have directed me to avoid the busy stacks and departure routings from the various London Airports. The second concern was ending up IMC into the more convective weather near Bristol and getting well outside my comfort zone on such a short flight, and thus scaring my passenger.

Thoughts?

Last Edited by pilotrobbie at 01 Aug 13:50
Qualified PPL with IR SP/SE PBN
EGSG, United Kingdom

pilotrobbie wrote:

So yesterday I planned a flight to Kemble

Did you get arrange for GPS IAP at Kemble?

pilotrobbie wrote:

I departed at 14:05 UTC VFR and at low level there was some turbulence near the showers and avoided a few bulky showers south of Oxford and Brize. I landed safely and walked away to talk about it another day.

How did that work out? I doubt there is much fuss about it down there, it’s ‘dead man land’ as far as ATC are concerned, although for VFR, I recently discovered RAF Brize got their Delta CTA from 4kft to FL100 (activated by NOTAMS) with tiny Golf gap between 3500ft CTR and 4kft CTA base, it used to be Golf all the way up to FL100: they finally managed to get connected to Cotswold Charlie CTA and Daventry Alpha TMA up to FL195 (getting connected to Airways like you call it)

Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

Ibra wrote:

Did you get arrange for GPS IAP at Kemble?

pilotrobbie wrote:

I doubt any PPL IR could. You’ve gotta be a jet or something.

Ibra wrote:

How did that work out? I doubt there is much fuss about it down there, it’s ‘dead man land’ as far as ATC are concerned, although for VFR, I recently discovered RAF Brize got their Delta CTA from 4kft to FL100 (activated by NOTAMS) with tiny Golf gap between 3500ft CTR and 4kft CTA base, it used to be Golf all the way up to FL100: they finally managed to get connected to Cotswold Charlie CTA and Daventry Alpha TMA up to FL195 (getting connected to Airways like you call it)

Yes, I noticed that when I departed Kemble, they handle you rather than Bristol. It wasn’t bad, I could do what I wanted – and got a traffic service the whole way.

I’d have much preferred IFR as it’s easier workload. But in this case the IFR workload would have been heavy for such a short flight and probably would have distrupted a fair few airliners with avoiding some CBs.

Qualified PPL with IR SP/SE PBN
EGSG, United Kingdom

My major concern was the disruption I may have caused to a busy London TMA asking for weather avoidance, in a routing that ATC would have directed me to avoid the busy stacks and departure routings from the various London Airports. The second concern was ending up IMC into the more convective weather

I know things are culturally a bit weird in the UK regarding „airways“ through the holy London Class A in spam cans, but your major concern should be embedded TCU/CB. As for „disturbing“ ATC, sometimes weather means „you gotta do what you gotta do“. Tell ATC what you need, don’t fly into convection out of submissive politeness. Having said that, it’s definitely good airmanship to consider these additional factors of busy airspace and busy ATC and keeping interference low.
It is what it is, we’re not in the US where ATCOs consider all players equal and help whoever needs it most.

I think you made the right / a great call there by following the „rather safe than sorry“ approach.

always learning
LO__, Austria

I know things are culturally a bit weird in the UK regarding „airways“ through the holy London Class A in spam cans, but your major concern should be embedded TCU/CB.

Few days ago they routed me because of traffic towards south and against headwind instead of my filed route towards east (and tailwind). I kept insisting every minute on original routing until they cleared me.

LDZA LDVA, Croatia

pilotrobbie wrote:

I’d have much preferred IFR as it’s easier workload. But in this case the IFR workload would have been heavy for such a short flight and probably would have distrupted a fair few airliners with avoiding some CBs

I have flown inside a nasty cloud once, that was in LTMA with a friend in SR22, we did ask for avoidance but ATC did not accommodate and we miscalculated our dark clouds margins, later on things happened: you know it when you look at the other pilot straight in their face (sort of ‘this is it moment’), we did not have to ask much for avoidance: the radios were completely lost and it was so bad that I pulled my PLB while the other guy was flying aircraft to cloud-break over open water

I have flown around bumpy weather few times but that one was a very close call, looking back we should have done it VFR via Dover at 2kft in VMC by adding 50L of Avgas (instead of pouring 30L of TKS fluid at FL100 while changing pants south of Gatwick), you could argue that London airspace structure is not even designed for such flying and the same about Paris or any busy piece of airspace

Last Edited by Ibra at 02 Aug 08:04
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

I did exactly the same going in the opposite direction the previous weekend (EGBP > EBOS). Lots of convective weather around that was visible in the various weather apps but bases were fine for VFR. IMO in an unpressurised single with no a/p or weather radar, sometimes you just make the best of it and VFR can be the best option.

The benefit on these sort of days is that there is less GA flying at low level as most won’t get out of bed when the F215 is showing CB/TCU <5km viz in heavy rain, so the workload and traffic situation on these days is easier. We had three possible routes planned, North of the TMA, under the TMA and along the South coast and picked the one (under the TMA) where the radar was showing the best weather. In the end we had at worst 5 mins in a heavy shower.

EGBP, United Kingdom

Snoopy wrote:

I know things are culturally a bit weird in the UK regarding „airways“ through the holy London Class A in spam cans, but your major concern should be embedded TCU/CB. As for „disturbing“ ATC, sometimes weather means „you gotta do what you gotta do“. Tell ATC what you need, don’t fly into convection out of submissive politeness. Having said that, it’s definitely good airmanship to consider these additional factors of busy airspace and busy ATC and keeping interference low.
It is what it is, we’re not in the US where ATCOs consider all players equal and help whoever needs it most.

I think you made the right / a great call there by following the „rather safe than sorry“ approach.

Of course, I think the top priority is never to go into any convection which mostly is easily noticeable. In terms of launching into a busy airspace, where I know I could cause massive disruption by flying of the beaten track of the usual line of route which is BPK > South of Luton > BNN > CPT.

I’ve not had much issues with weather avoidance, but I think in the London TMA it quickly goes Pete Tong very quickly when it does.

Ibra wrote:

I have flown inside a nasty cloud once, that was in LTMA with a friend in SR22, we did ask for avoidance but ATC did not accommodate and we miscalculated our dark clouds margins, later on things happened: you know it when you look at the other pilot straight in their face (sort of ‘this is it moment’), we did not have to ask much for avoidance: the radios were completely lost and it was so bad that I pulled my PLB while the other guy was flying aircraft to cloud-break over open water

I have flown around bumpy weather few times but that one was a very close call, looking back we should have done it VFR via Dover at 2kft in VMC by adding 50L of Avgas (instead of pouring 30L of TKS fluid at FL100 while changing pants south of Gatwick), you could argue that London airspace structure is not even designed for such flying and the same about Paris or any busy piece of airspace

The couldn’t accommodate? Didn’t you think to just do it and ask questions later? I mean presume you could just declare a PAN if they refused? I’ve been into one CB during IR training and that was on the climb out and it’s not fun, in fact it’s put me off IMC a little. I had a front over the mountains on the way into Prague and it was just a wall up to FL160 with the chart saying EMBD TCU possible and we could quite clearly see it in and out of the layers towers, but it was relatively smooth. But I wouldn’t like to chance it on a regular basis.

Whiskey_Bravo wrote:

I did exactly the same going in the opposite direction the previous weekend (EGBP > EBOS). Lots of convective weather around that was visible in the various weather apps but bases were fine for VFR. IMO in an unpressurised single with no a/p or weather radar, sometimes you just make the best of it and VFR can be the best option.

The benefit on these sort of days is that there is less GA flying at low level as most won’t get out of bed when the F215 is showing CB/TCU <5km viz in heavy rain, so the workload and traffic situation on these days is easier. We had three possible routes planned, North of the TMA, under the TMA and along the South coast and picked the one (under the TMA) where the radar was showing the best weather. In the end we had at worst 5 mins in a heavy shower.

I did have three situations recently where oxygen came into it’s own and could float above the weather and easily navigate around it. Without it, I think the weather would be pretty interesting to say the least. If anything unflyable. The interesting bit comes when you need to get down on the ground quick and having to find a way to your enroute alternate.

It always made me wonder in all the years I did of cabin crew and all the severe weather we overflew and went around, what would happen if a) We had to descend rapidly then end up in convection vs everyone being oxygen starved b) Having to divert and fly through that weather.

Pretty glad I never had any medicals, and at the very least during storms going on below us in remote places.

Qualified PPL with IR SP/SE PBN
EGSG, United Kingdom

The couldn’t accommodate? Didn’t you think to just do it and ask questions later? I mean presume you could just declare a PAN if they refused? I’ve been into one CB during IR training and that was on the climb out and it’s not fun

Of course, you can declare emergency as you wish or fly fine flirting with convective weather with 50 shades of grey type of clouds depending on your expectation, experience, confidence and aircraft capability, in the other extreme you can simply say “unable” to every altitude & vector you get from LTC and just avoid as you please in Alpha say going at 5kft from Stapleford to Cardiff on “own VMC navigation” to avoid

I am sure there is a balance in between as the latter is a bit too good to be true in busy airspace like London, so you need some skin in game or leave that show by descent…it boils down to expectations, there is a difference between going into TCU by choice or by mistake?

When you get surprised by weather, say you mistaken TCU for CB, then you will mechanically act: in descent I mentioned there was not even way to ask ATC or declare PANPAN/MAYDAY, the comms were unreadable for a while, we got crystal RT back when passing overhead Dieppe, and that was in a FIKI aircraft !

Last Edited by Ibra at 05 Aug 12:18
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom
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