… and an even more impressive (calm) passenger. Unfortunately, most passengers aren’t like that. Hence, I wouldn’t have launched with those kinds of huge TS looming along my route. At least not with non-pilot passenger, and not in an NA SR22…
To me it looks like very tactical flying with no real plans just take it as it comes…at the end he flew it safely: was lucky and atc helped, but I still wonder what happens if what looked like a small patch on the screen decided to go 20nm wide in real world?
Even those who fly B747s/C130s don’t make that bet let alone SEP…but I think it is related to the parachute story?
I recognize that serious facial expression they have when it gets really bad… 
When I came back from Kansas to California earlier this summer, I had similar buildups all along the way to Albuquerque. It’s very distressing, even in a pretty capable plane. I was deviating left and right constantly, but even clipping the very edges momentarily of the buildups, it surprises just how violent they can be. And with these summer buildups here in the west, it doesn’t really matter what altitude you can get to – they’ll be there. Even FL450 corporate jets are calling for deviations when it’s really bad.
I wondered why he took off with all these red cells on his screen. He was lucky the hole he was aiming didn’t close.
Overall, he managed it pretty well, ATC was amazingly helpful as always there.
But way too risky to launch in a weather situation like this one, and 90% of non-pilot passengers would never fly again with him after that IMHO.
