The past Sunday I was flying from Spain to Stuttgart EDDS for an evening landing. I wanted to arrive really late but decided to go a bit earlier in order to be able to see all the convective stuff that was forecast with my own eyes instead of on the screen of the ADL.
As I was getting closer to Switzerland I learned that a line of thunderstorms was sitting right on the airway I was supposed to fly on. So I had to use the magic word “unable” several times with the Swiss Radar and fly on a heading. It turned out to be not the worst thing to do as the avoidance heading was leading me straight to my destination.
About 50 NM away from Stuttgart EDDS another CB was apparently sitting right on the ILS 25. It was hard to tell visually. The airlines were asking for avoidance headings. I asked for an early descent from my lofty lookup place at FL180 and made it an expedited one going down at 1300 fpm. That brought me under a first layer and with subsequent descent clearances I got low enough to have a good view at the rain shower under the CB. I told ATC, got a heading and it turned out the ILS was on the other side of the shower. The flight ended with a smooth landing during civil twilight.
What follows is a series of pictures. I was busy during the last part – thus no pictures of that. It was getting too dark for picture taking anyway.
Wonderful 
It is however amazing how many pilots are scared of ATC and will get themselves into hazardous situations while obeying ATC instructions. I think it happens to early IR holders – because in the PPL one is usually taught to be really scared of ATC and CAS.
It helps to realise that there is almost zero IFR GA around in Europe especially at significant altitudes and any other traffic is going to be big stuff, fully de-iced, with radar and +5000fpm climb rate. They can look after themselves, should you get within 20nm of them
Actually in Swiss airspace at FL150 to FL200 you are right between the airliners. I had plenty of them going below or above me within 1000 ft crossing my path. Plus you are likely to be asked to descend or climb a bit for spacing.
Peter wrote:
because in the PPL one is usually taught to be really scared of ATC and CAS.
Only in the UK.
There was a lot convective weather this weekend over the Alps. I was crossing them twice at FL180 – on Saturday from Bergamo to Paris and on Monday from Paris to Zagreb. ADL was of huge help in tactical avoidance but it also helped in estimating how long it would take to go through the things that I wasn’t able to avoid or overfly since everything was pretty much static. ATC fully cooperative as usual. So I ended up in very light turbulence few times, once in moderate turbulence with light icing and ice pelets entering through ventilation and once in heavy turbulence (with more than -1000 fpm – climbing full power at 90 KIAS gave me level flight) but none of the occasions lasted more than 5 min. The worst icing I had on way back overhead Slovenia is stratus cloud at FL180 (OAT -8), still air, no turbulence at all and it just started to accumulate with TKS in NORM mode. When switching to HIGH I got rid of it within 2 min. IAS dropped from 121 to 117 and then went back.
Emir wrote:
once in heavy turbulence (with more than -1000 fpm – climbing full power at 90 KIAS gave me level flight)
That was an “interesting” flight! 
Wonder how the second in command liked that!
Aviathor wrote:
Wonder how the second in command liked that!
Sleeping She just asked to be waken up when overflying Mont Blanc but it was under heavy clouds so I skipped that as well.
Yugoslav women are made of a stronger material
I have also specially tried the Mt Blanc route, twice, but failed. Once, on the way to Corsica in 2014, it was covered in cloud, and the second time it was too hot and we could reach only FL175 and the MEA is FL180 so (on the way to Sardinia) had to route via Cannes.
The great thing about efficient radio communication in aviation. You only need one word. Literally. And everyone knows what you mean.
It usually gets worse when people start to use more than one word, or use colloquial language… misunderstandings galore. “Say again?”
Nice flight!
Archie wrote:
“Say again?”
“Say again” is standard phraseology at least in UK (cap 413). I use it (with it’s variant “say again after(/before)”) when I don’t understand something.
But maybe it’s what you meant, that you have to say “say again” after use of non standard phraseology.
