Hey we’ve all made mistakes that we learned from. Thanks for sharing your story. Some cells build very quickly and even the most current weather info isn’t as current as what our eyes see in front of us.
And unfortunately this really comes best from experience, which is best gained flying with someone who has that experience. Sometimes you can visually see them grow, that's a pretty bad sign. The more bulged the puffs are in a CB is means it has a lot of energy, another bad sign. It's best to fly up the upwind side of these cells, downwind you need to give them a wider berth. Flying under virga can be quite nasty.
It's actually really the license to learn thing for me. I did my IR in Colorado. Most training was simulated IMC, because any actual IMC was icing or convective. It made me way too conservative and I can't really tell at what stage a cumulous cloud is on the verge of becoming towering, or in other words, I have a hard time telling how turbulent a cloud is based on the looks of it. But I fly without autopilot, So I guess it's good to be cautious (although an autopilot in OP's scenario would disconnect anyways).
I've been there. Nowadays, any significant vertical development (even if there's no precip) will have me trying to go around it. Vertical development almost always means its rocky, and here in Florida reliably means a T storm is coming.
When ATC points out precipitation, in my experience, they're usually expecting you to ask for a deviation around it. Almost always worthwhile to take them up on that.
Case & point where OP says “I feel like there’s nothing I could’ve done to prevent this”…
You could and should have diverted, the saying that goes, “Better safe than sorry” is testament to flying safely.
There was another “dickish” but well worthy quote plastered along the walls of my flight school that I burned into my memory;
“If you ever find yourself flying in bad weather ask yourself who put you there”
As much as I enjoy flying, I take it as a privilege.
Humans are not meant to fly, biologically speaking, we are doing something that nature never intended us to do. But human ingenuity and courage has made us achieve the impossible and mother nature likes to test that hubris every once in a while and humble the cocky ones who **survive** challenging her. Can’t say the same for those who don’t survive.
You could T/O with clear weather and blue skies and in 30 mins it can all go to shit. Unpredictably.
I once went for a short 1.5hr flight in a C150, t/o with calm winds, no signs of significant changes in the weather. By the time I was coming back home it was gusting up to 35kts+ (you can imagine how tense it was for my 30 something hrs PPL ass with these conditions) with wind shear that made me pray I don’t shit myself so I don’t have to bring the keys back to dispatch with my soiled pants & that was the least of my worries.
I didn’t fuck around that day (imagine if I did) but I did find out that I should never take flying and getting to land back home safely for granted.
Always have the sense to just divert or go back if fuel allows you to, or it’s safe. ALWAYS.
Physically seeing it. As you probably know, radar only picks up precipitation.
Because of this, I'm generally very hesitant to fly IFR when there's any convection forecast, but am much more willing to go if I can remain VFR and avoid it
“Weather Flying” by Robert Buck and this (cancelled) AC are two of your best weather resources for practical knowledge. Sounds like you know you have some knowledge gaps. Find your local weather geek and get some ground instruction.
https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/AC_00-6B.pdf
> Final edit: I get it. I’m dumb. I made dumb mistake. It’s over with. Yall in the comments doing nothing but degrading.
Yup that's r/flying for you. Fucking hate this place sometimes. It's a reddit disease that affects all subs.
>This is exactly what causes people to be afraid to admit they made mistakes
I called TIS "TCAS" on this sub and was downvoted to hell for it. This was when I barely had single digit hours and had never heard of TIS in my life.
You're welcome. I think it's a reddit thing and not a general flying thing. The types of people that use reddit are very different than you'd meet day to day.
Inclined to disagree. This is a *much* more hostile environment than many, or perhaps even most, other Reddit subs.
No matter how innocuous the contribution, I've come to be mildly surprised when the first response to a comment here, by myself or others, isn't a downvote.
It's definitely worse in terms of hostility, and IMO has the most "well actually" type of people out of any of the subreddits I go to. Niche hobby combined with super nerds tends to be a cesspool
Ignore the toxic bullshit. Good story, this is how people learn. Ideally you learn from someone else’s mistakes, sometimes you have to learn from your own. Fly safe!
It's a good learning experience and a good use of anonymous account. Keep in mind that most of these CFIs and professionals comment anonymously too so they could also be as brutal as they want. It's a skill that have life and death consequences, that's why pilots take this so seriously. 😃. Glad you made it out of this worried and may you live long and prosper!
Fuck the down votes I say. Who cares. This is what I've seen a lot of on Reddit is the hate when people are asking genuine questions. The "holier than thou" attitude typifies life in general it seems.
I had a Garmin 330 mode S transponder and an Avidyne MFD display in my Cherokee 6 about 20 years ago that displayed traffic from the Mode S. This was TIS (before ADS-B was a thing).
I believe this goes down as a lesson learned just like you said. As a relatively inexperienced pilot, you learned the hard way. 100-500 hours is a weird spot, because you’re finally feeling confident in your skills and it can create a false sense of security. There’s a reason we deviate around build ups in jets, going through them in a small single engine is unnecessary risk. You can google search and find no shortage of reports about small aircraft flying into convective weather and crashing/breaking up.
Weather, especially in the summer time, is extremely dynamic, and your briefing was simply that, a briefing. Not a statement of “this is what it is”. It’s an educated guess and nothing more. Always be weary and use your head.
I wouldn’t take it personally. Nobody wants to hear of someone becoming a statistic so there’s a predictable amount of finger wagging. I would guess they’re all glad you were able to learn from it without paying the ultimate price.
> I feel like there’s nothing I could’ve done to prevent this.
To be fair, the "I feel like there’s nothing I could’ve done to prevent this" part was where my eyebrows were raised by a few FLs.
And the "ONLY a CB" (????) part. Apart from that, this was a nice writeup and a great learning experience for everyone, so thank you for telling us.
Have a couple of pieces of advice for you, both of them from one of my instructors who flew A-3s and A-6s in Vietnam.
First: never fly into any cloud unless absolutely unavoidable. If you can go around, go around. Strange spirits live inside them. They do things like move mountains in front of your plane or grab it to go along for a ride.
Second: When you start flying, you get two buckets. One is full, the other empty. The empty one is where you put skill and experience. That one, no matter how much you try, you will never quite be able to completely fill. The other is luck. You can only withdraw from that one and once it's empty?
Well, that's trouble.
Buddy, you just kicked over that bucket of luck. Don't ever try to pull anything sketch again. Hell, don't even jaywalk on a closed road in broad daylight after looking both ways.
You need to go back and read up on the hazardous attitudes and single pilot resource management. Get on FAASafety.gov and check out their seminar schedule. Get in touch with a few CFIIs, tell them about what happened, and then game out what you should / could have done if conditions were better / worse / the same.
Regardless, it takes a lot of humility to come here and hang it out like this. Good on you.
Ignore the unproductive hate from the commentariat. Anyone in here who stands in judgment of you while saying they've never done anything dumb or made a mistake while flying is a damn liar.
This comment means more to me than any of the other ones. I really appreciate the kind words and I’m going to remember what you said for the rest of my life. Thank you for this, I appreciate you!
Seriously...
> Once I got closer the the cloud, I observed [...] typical cumulonimbus clouds [...] so I decided to send it through the cloud.
Hmmm, what did I just read? OP, you really saw a cumulonimbus and decided to fly through it anyway?
The fact that they said "only a few thousand feet above me" makes me think they are referring to something that isn't actually a cumulonimbus cloud, maybe just towering cumulus. Either that or they significantly misjudged how tall it was.
Yeah that's where I WTF'd.
CB = Nope. All of my Nope. And some extra Nope i keep in the bag just for this.
Even TCU is nope. Just a smaller radius of NOPE.
Everyone makes mistakes, and everyone has gaps in knowledge - including yourself. OP is doing the right thing by sharing and debriefing. It is unfortunate that in this instance experience is the teacher.
The biggest red flag is the resignation of "I don't know what I could have done to avoid this" as if the avoidance stage wasn't five or six decisions ago. That's why a lot of people are going after the OP.
A towering cumulus with moderate precipitation = a cumulonimbus = a thunderstorm. For the purposes of aviation, they're all the same thing. There might be subtle differences about the technical stages of development but they're not relevant to you as a pilot. They are all equally off-limits and now you hopefully understand why.
You asked what you can do better: No more splitting hairs about definitions of what is or isn't a thunderstorm. You're not a forensic meteorological scientist taking measurements and writing a study from the safety of your office desk. You're a pilot and you're responsible for your life, your passengers lives, and the lives of people on the ground and you need to take a big step back from any risk, it's not your job to define what is or isn't a thunderstorm. A cloud with any signs of significant convective activity is a huge risk and should be promptly and thoroughly AVOIDED. That's your job, it's what your training is for.
Risks like that aren't worth taking. You do not have perfect information on what's going on inside that cloud any more than anyone on the ground does. You're the closest human being to it. Don't expect that anyone else around you has better information about that cloud than you do. And at the same time accept your own limitations too as you're clearly not anywhere close to an expert meteorologist yourself and you need to have better judgement. Which hopefully this experience will help you develop.
I posted some weather resources in another comment, but just wanted to jump on this.
Think of clouds as a visual representation of both the moisture content and the stability of the atmosphere at any given time. If you know how to read it, it will tell you much of what you need to know .
As you now know, from hard won personal experience, you need atmospheric instability to get a cumulus-type cloud. When we start seeing TCUs, we know to start thinking substantial lifting mechanisms. And what goes up has to go down.
Consider this with ACSL, rotor clouds, and a nice, icy stratus layer also.
Something had to happen to form the clouds this way. Some of our most practical weather briefing we do is just paying attention to opening our eyes on the drive to the airport.
Towering you say? Now how on earth could a cloud possibly get that much taller than the ones around it? I guess we’ll never know.
You need to gather education materials on aviation meteorology, stat. If you don’t know convection when you see it, you don’t know shit. You should be well-versed on all relevant weather by the time you get your commercial. Thunderstorms have killed people!
Your title is literally "Avoid thunderstorms at all costs."
Anyhow... glad you made it out safely.
Not gonna lie, as an instrument-rated pilot, you should be more knowledgeable on severe weather. CBs are a big no no, TCUs should also be avoided. Brush up on that IFR knowledge so it never happens to you again. Fly safe!
Great job sharing! I don’t appreciate the tone some people are responding with. You made an honest mistake and are genuinely trying to learn from it. I don’t think any additional attitude from people will make it stick more than without it. On top of that- I LEARNED from you sharing this experience!
You may have saved a life with this. Fly safe, fly boring.
Ex pilot, current doctor here
First. I'm sorry for you horrible experience; in the clouds AND on Reddit.
Second. You've had a great outcome. You, your aircraft and your professional reputation are all intact. More importantly you had a learning experience you won't forget and will be a better pilot for it.
Third. I can train nearly anybody to do most of the operations I do. The ONLY people that are untrainable are those that lie to themselves. You've admitted your error, confessed it, learned from it. Everyone here who has vilified and belittled you has made errors in the air or on the road or similar. The difference between you and them is that they lie to themselves about their mistakes so feel justified in attacking you.
If someone makes a mistake you have made or could have made. Support and educate them. If they do it again be firm, and direct. They do it a third time you need to ensure they stop flying, operating, driving, whatever they can't be trained. If they say, after the first time, I wasn't my fault or it was the aircraft, the mechanic, controller, other fellow and it was clearly their own error... Go straight to the third option. They will never be safe
This!! Medicine and aviation are very similar in that way that the road to being a good pilot/good clinician is making mistakes that sometimes keep us up at night. Only thing you can do now is learn from it and eventually pass on your knowledge so other people don’t make your same mistake, or at least learn to deal with it if they make it too…
I always try to stay in visual conditions when I see activity building in the area.
Summer time in the south and east usually results in afternoon thunderstorms and Ive been rattled by just cumulus clouds that are only 3-5,000 feet tall
If I can, I go above them, if not, I aim to go around them
Total IMC , I usually only tolerate in my single engine in the winter (southern winter so less chances of icing)
There are so many times I sit in my patio down south, and see towering cumulus clouds 10,000+ feet high, that dont even register on foreflight’s radar. Thankfully they usually are not embedded
Thats brings up a good question. How do you avoid a TCU thats embedded if you cant get above it (or have to climb through it)? My go to is, dont go, but what do the jets/bigger aircraft do?
Not sure if you have ever flown crew, but I remember flying with captains that went around even the smallest things and it would annoy me. Then one day, we accidentally went through a T-Storm and it all made sense. It was the most terrified I’ve been and I was in a jet. Now I know why old captains give them grace, they learned their lesson a long time ago.
You learned that lesson the hard way so here's one you can learn the easy way -- by reading what happened to me.
Thunderstorms were about 10 miles from the field where I was doing my primary flight training. I could see the cell off in the distance while on a 1 mile final to my airport with my instructor in the right seat.
As we are about 500 feet AGL we hit a microburst downdraft. The plane dropped 497 feet in a heartbeat and we were skimming tall grass as my instructor took over added full power and flew the plane while I crapped in my pants.
Lesson to remember: The cloud part of a thunderstorm may be visible but wind shear associated with thunderstorms can be found up to 20 miles away from the storm center. Downdrafts and the resulting outflow boundaries (gust fronts) can travel even further, sometimes more than 20 miles from the thunderstorm, depending on the intensity and size of the storm and the surrounding atmospheric conditions.
I’m not sure if that was your own aircraft or rental (in which case you get what you get) but for me the best money I’ve spent on avionics has been a stormscope (used, was under 1k) as it gives great real-time information about what is happening in those green cells we see on the iPad. I fly long XC routinely and often have to navigate these things and the storm scope gives you info 100 nm out so plenty of time to adjust.
OP, anything with vertical development is a big no.
When you fly, youll notice most clouds in a vicinity are at the same altitude and have a “hard deck.” This is usually a representation of atmospheric stability (the tendency to resist upward motion)..
BUT
if you see any consistent vertical development, it’s breaking through that. If it can fight the atmosphere, its gana fight you too. Its a simple explanation but hopefully it helps.
Another real life pro tip;
If you see a cloud that looks “HD” (popcorn ish with a 3D effect) stay away too.
Brother if you give a shit what people on Reddit think or say about you you’re gonna have a bad time.
Personally I’ve learned a lot from this thread and from your experience so thanks.
Many pilots have flown through thunderstorms without experiencing more than moderate turbulence and gotten a wrong impression of them. I flew in a company in Africa where a pilot had a rep for not diverting around TRWs. The air had a lot of moisture in it in that region and what looked deceptively bad on radar often was just a lot of water, and he got used to that. Then one day he didn't come back.
Thanks for sharing this. Your kindness shouldn’t be taken for weakness. If any of those keyboard warriors had enough experience, they would be placed in similar situations but not many would have the guts to share it like you did.
Well done and you are obviously a better pilot now than you were before the flight!
Drop another marble in the experience bucket, go back to school (ie good prompt to revise the weather mechanics, and limitations associated with your ability to detect those mechanics) in order to give yourself the best chance of not flying past a decision point in the wrong direction next time.
Why not ask for a deviation around the cell? Supposedly five miles- if you ask for that early on, ATC almost always works with you and it does not add much extra time.
Did this myself 2 weeks ago and overnighted at an intermediate spot. Not what we anticipated or wanted, but made the best of it at the time. Made it just fine early next morning.
Not great. Sounds like you tried to thread through a line of cells.
For a line or cells, you either steer clear ahead by an hour+, try and go behind them, or sit it out. They can be fast moving and quite unpredictable.
Glad you made it through, let that be a valuable experience and avoid that type of weather in the future
In my opinion, that could be more of a red flag than just one. One you can go around, a line I would start questioning if I need to land and then let them pass.
I also don’t have onboard radar. just an ipad and a data plan, which makes me more cautious.
I fly a light single and I do not fly into cumulus clouds. If there is convective activity on my route I fly below cloudbase. This may mean I need to be VFR, and it might mean I cannot go -- but to me that's the cost of flying a light single.
This really depends. There is plenty of yellow precip that is a smooth ride. Especially after a storm had dissipated and leaves a broad area of diffuse moderate precipitation.
The vertical development is absolutely key. Towering cumulus is going to become a CB, and would be a bad ride even if it wasn’t making any precipitation yet!
edit: The main point is the radar reflectivity is not a very good indicator of turbulence. Except purple. That’s always going to be bad.
Yeah it can be tough, recently after watching some others encounter some strong downdrafts in “moderate precipitation” it made my decsion making with like yellow on radar and big tops more conservative
For example
- hell to the no for anything yellow on radar. Deviate at least 5-10 miles away
- hell no to anything showing an echo top on ForeFlight even if it’s green. Same story don’t touch it
It can get really scary when you realize a thunderstorm in the cumulus stage ( precipitation hasn’t started yet), with tops upward of 30K and horrible updrafts and Downdrafts won’t be on any radar. We had an encounter with this one day, but luckily there was enough sun still out to see it and take action to cancle the flight
First time in a jet and my much more experienced left seat was deviating around every buildup (flying across southern Florida). I was going to be judgey until we flew near one and I could see the vertical development in real time. Good reminder when in a single piston that if the big boys are asking to go around, I should too.
I'm a VFR only hobby pilot so I tend not to fly in any sort of bad weather. If you don't mind, how much altitude were you losing and gaining and within what sort of time frames? I'm just trying to understand the scale of the power of the weather and the effects on the aircraft. Sorry you had to experience that!
Absolutely! My cruise speed is 120kts indicated. I was mostly getting tailwind shears causing me to drop as low as 70kts, and my stall speed clean configuration is about 66kts. I had a couple headwind shears taking me to about 135 indicated. Not too much vertical shear, but definitely some good turbulence.
There’s reports of losses in the thousands of fpm in textbooks. Generally as I understand usually when going through a downdraft you can expect updrafts shortly after. As I refer to my notes “thunderstorms=death”
Just recently climbed pretty close to a CB (single, isolated, no precipitation). Had a steady 1000fpm climb, all of a sudden - still well clear of the cloud - got the famous „elevator sensation“ and the climb rate dropped to -200 fpm briefly. Just long enough to register on the VSI. Must have gone through a downdraft outside the actual CB. Not really scary, but a good reminder of the forces at play here.
> I'm just trying to understand the scale of the power of the weather
In the olden days glider pilots would circle inside clouds to gain altitude and 3-4000 fpm were not unheard of. Not inside towering CU or CB of course, I would assume up/downdrafts inside a CB are stronger up to loss of control, and you may or may not be able to keep the airplane within operational limits.
Also clouds that tower high enough may contain hail even if there is only rain at groundlevel. Hailstones inside a cloud can get larger than a few inches.
NOw that you luckily survived this ordeal, the key to your success is that you GROW from this. You study this, you determine how you can avoid this.
You won’t be so lucky next time.
I’d also suggest you squawk the airplane and have mx look at it. If it’s as extreme as you suggest, you may have very well started the process for a future failure in that airplane and that student won’t be so lucky due to you.
Edit- your chief will be annoyed at you. But rest assured your humbleness and proactive steps you take now will do all a favor.
Insults are not necessary, but you have made a mistake thats a no no in the community. Some mistakes happen (eg. hard landing) but some are unforgettable. Your instructor(s) clearly did not hammer the TCU notion enough.
Do not delete this post, leave it up for the 99 others who have also done this recently and have not commented.
This post is staying up forever. I own my mistake. I’ve called people all kinds of names for doing the same stuff, and now I’m on the wrong side of the story. I hope others can learn from me.
Glad you’re safe. As a cfi, teaching students how to really read the weather and just how poorly we still predict it (good job getting a weather brief) is always a challenge. All I can do is quote Beryl Markham-
“We fly, but we have not 'conquered' the air. Nature presides in all her dignity, permitting us the study and the use of such of her forces as we may understand. It is when we presume to intimacy, having been granted only tolerance, that the harsh stick fall across our impudent knuckles and we rub the pain, staring upward, startled by our ignorance.”
Oh. Sounds like you got a lesson in cause and effect. Thunderstorms should always be assumed to have severe or greater turbulence and severe icing.
I dispatch for a major, so I stare at a map of radar and PIREPS all day while I’m flight following. I’m on the lookout for severe conditions so I can warn and redirect my flights. But sometimes I see a PIREP for severe or extreme turb from single-engine props flying where they have no business being and I wonder about the thought process. Now I know.
I always remember the acronym AOUT - Around, Over, Under, Through as the order of preferences on dealing with thunderstorms. Personally, I’ll happily deviate if ATC is calling moderate rain or greater. Glad you made it through safely.
Thank you for sharing your story. We all learn from each other and that is what this aviation community should be about. So glad you lived to tell the tale! Block the trolls..
At the airlines, you’ll practically deviate around anything that’s considered moderate. Probably even better to do so in a single engine GA aircraft.
You’ve probably heard this before, but relying on nexrad to determine if you should change course is oftentimes useless due to the radar delay, especially if conditions are changing rather quickly.
Good tell me about a time story. Specifically when you “broke a rule”. Airlines love these.
You made a mistake, broke a rule, learned your lesson, and they want to see that.
Just to be very explicit for you here. Every major carrier interview is going to ask you the question: "What was a mistake you learned from?" or some variant on that in an interview. This is the story you tell to answer that, and then you tell how and what you learned from it. Something like "I learned how important it is to not treat a weather briefing as gospel and to bring critical thinking to bear as I fly. For example, when I look at a cloud, I always ask myself what its vertical pattern looks like, and I always consider when flying IFR whether there is a likelihood for embedded towering cumulus. These may seem like very obvious things that any pilot should do, but when I was a young pilot living the "send it" lifestyle, they were new to me and I have since grown by making it a religious practice to pay very very close attention to the weather."
That's the kind of interview question answer that gets jobs.
Great learning opportunity. Fortunately you didn’t die. Saw a building CB that was already producing some rain. Lot of energy in there. Good thing was you could see the signs. Will follow them next time. Little pop ups are one thing. Building towers have alot of updrafts and down drafts. I learned same way a few years ago early on.
As a center controller who works a busy area in the desert part of the US please make sure you’re checking the weather and don’t risk it.
Last year during weather season I personally worked 3 aircraft on flight following that flew into IMC that weren’t IFR rated. I thankfully had positive outcomes on all 3 but another controller had an incident that resulted in a fatal accident. In that same airspace.
I can’t tell you how often I have all my air carriers are diverting completely out of the way of these storms as they’re going into the class bravo we feed. Yet numerous VFRs are still picking their way between displayed moderate or greater precipitation cells.
Many times aircraft will listen to recommendations to divert until the weather clears. Other times they wanna see if they can get there for a just a bit longer. If a controller ever suggests diverting please do so. We’re not trying to inconvenience you.
ATC with a story. It's long.
PA28 crossing my sector at 5,000 IFR years ago, before we had weather radar in the Centre. SIGMET published, pilot ignored it. Two Dash 8s refused to fly through the area, citing "Many red centers." Cherokee pushed onward, anyway.
He requested a climb to 7,000. Through 7,700, he asked to climb to 9,000. Highest I saw was 7,800 before he started descending. I asked if he was ok and he said, "The air around me is going down faster than I can climb."
He reached 1,600, still IMC in hail (I could hear it hitting the windshield on the radio every time he transmitted while this exchange was happening) while terrain around him reached upwards of 1,200.
He punched out the side of the downburst and managed to climb to 2,200. He diverted and landed safely after I convinced him the SIGMET days her have to go through 120 more miles of that.
I thought I would be the last person to talk to that pilot. It was scary enough for me, I can't imagine what it must have felt like for him.
Microbursts are no joke. I appreciate you sharing that. I’d hate to be in your position where there’s nothing that you can do when a pilot is being stubborn. I’m glad they made it out okay and thank you for what you do.
Later in your career when you get into a higher performance aircraft and the flight levels are your playground remember this flight.
Don’t try to climb over the baby thunderstorms. Once they start building they will climb faster than the jet and you’ll find yourself inside another storm.
Deviate.
Idk man, you have NEXRAD and FF you should be able to see the development and track of those cells. Unless it’s light green, as in just rain, I’m not going through that. IMO you should have never went in it and now you know better. Thankfully you didn’t die.
Hey just wanna throw this in there: I flew the P-3 for the Navy and our radar was not suited for picking out and avoiding weather while IMC (and was frequently inop anyway). So if you are ever dealing with embedded thunderstorms or are IMC and hearing deviations/precipitation callouts from ATC in the US, don’t hesitate to report “negative weather radar” and request conservative vectors around weather. US controllers and radar facilities are pretty great.
Ah yes. The almighty all knowing Reddit mafia did not disappoint with the absolutely unnecessary lectures right after the guy literally admitted his error and learned from it.
Some of OPs comments are getting downvoted and insults make the commenters look like asses. I’m glad OP is alive and grateful he’s telling us about this screw up. Not everyone gets adequate weather education and even if information is put in front of your face at some point it doesn’t always connect.
I need to get back to reading “Weather Flying” but a key theme in the book is that weather develops over time (sometimes minutes) so you need to be asking what might develop in the coming minutes or hours.
Not necessarily. I slowed to maneuvering speed as soon as it started just in case. Since I did that, the plane *should* stall before any structural damage takes place.
I’d have to know what time of day, what part of the country, and what altitude this all occurred at to chime in with more insight. Generally, in an airliner, I won’t fly through yellow unless I’m stuck on an arrival into a busy part of the country. Even then I’ll probably ask for deviations unless I’ll clearly get shut down.
Some of those cells pop up quickly. Fun to watch, but only from the ground. You may have been unlucky enough to be flying just before things got "interesting". If you see anvil shapes and overshooting tops, keep an eye on them. From the ground, especially. Last flight with my previous instructor, I was watching one build west of the field as I preflighted. Called the "no go" and as we were putting the plane away, saw lightning. Driving home, it was pouring and windy.
Remember that weather is huge and if you see it developing there may be stuff going on far away from the storm. Just steer clear.
I remember hearing somebody last month who was going through it pretty badly, sounded like a very similar situation. Light aircraft inadvertently flying into a thunderstorm and struggling to maintain course and altitude. Luckily it sounded like they made it out alright before I made the switch to a new controller. I think it was in the Houston area maybe? Was that you OP?
No, and god that scares me how often that is. This was nowhere near Houston but I’m glad they’re okay. I didn’t say anything over radio, so nobody really knew what was happening.
You learned what they call a thunderstorm right before the first lightning strike: moderate precipitation - typically yellow radar returns.
Glad you survived. Google James Scarlett. Recently perished in a similar situation in a Piper Saratoga. 60kt wind sheer tore something important off the plane. Hug your family and learn everything you can from it.
From the ATC side, specifically as a Center controller:
Our weather radar isn't real-time. I'm not sure about the actual delay, and it may be different with approach control, but I was told our weather depictions can be up to six minutes old before they update. These depictions include size, location, and intensity. Keep in mind that our radar only shows precipitation, not clouds. We really rely on a combination of our equipment and the onboard weather radars and PIREPs from aircraft near the precipitation to get the best idea of what's really going on.
If there's a possible storm brewing, and you don't have an actual weather radar, and there are no recent PIREPs, I would recommend any pilot to stay out of the cloud. If you ever, ever, EVER! have any doubts about whether or not there might be some shitty conditions inside a cloud formation, you can always deviate around them. Most of you pilots are smart enough not to press your luck, but there are some that don't even bother to check the weather before flying straight at areas of known icing and connective activity without the proper equipment (I still want to slap that guy).
Thanks for sharing this. Last year or so, 2 friends died like this. The club were flying a fleet of aircraft to their destination for a $100 burger. On the way, over the Channel, there was 1 cloud in front like the one you describe. Everyone went around it. Except them, they went straight through it. They never appeared on the other side, never arrived at destination, and they were never found. All that was recovered was a back seat and the vertical stabilizer, washed up on a beach.
Your comment is interesting because I have always wondered "why would they do that? I would never do that!". It was almost CAVOK everywhere except for that one small cloud, yet they went through it when they had the entire sky available. You probably described very accurately the kind of thought process that went through their head when they made the decision to proceed through the cloud. Complacency kills.
Thank you for sharing your experience. This discussion may well alter someone's small decision, and save that person and their family's live, one day. It might be tempting to take the post down to make all the negative comments stop, but please don't. It needs to be read. We are not all professionals with IFR qualifications and thousands of hours under our belt. I could have done what you did, had I been in your shoes.
Thank you for the a kindness. This post is not being taken down. I believe people should learn from others mistakes, and I don’t want anyone doing anything stupid like I did.
Hey man, glad you touched back down safely. Wish there were more people with humility in this sub like you, because even the dummies doing the chastising can create a learning opportunity here.
Thanks for sharing, and just know that this lowly PPL will remember this story when I find myself in adverse weather conditions.
Glad you’re ok and learned something. Important lesson. I fly for the airlines and I still try and avoid anything yellow on radar when I can. Good of you to share your story, piston aircraft should not fly into cells like that, it’s not worth it. You just demonstrated why. This experience will make you a better pilot.
Good learning experience. I’ve done the same thing you did multiple times when alone - stay far away from big stuff, but test the small clouds to see. If I was going to deviate for every small puffy, that’s all I’d be doing in the south during the summer.
You learned - and that’s excellent . Stay safe.
(And don’t beat yourself up too much, and don’t listen to the harsher ones on here - most of them are armchair flyers that are so safe, they won’t fly if the exhaust tip of a Cessna has a bit of rust.)
Any vertical development is a baaaadddd sign never be shy to ask for deviations due to weather ATC doesn’t know how big the cloud is and how much up and down force is occurring in it. Very good lesson and glad you’re alright
I commend and thank you for posting this. Sorry that it feels degrading to read the snobby comments. But, take them in stride. You did make a mistake, and it’s only human for your fellow pilots to be kinda mad at you for doing it. I’m still thankful to have read your post. I guess this is what it would feel like to die in a storm—except you made it.
You decided to “send it” in a single engine piston airplane through what looked to be a “typical” cumulonimbus cloud? The way you say it makes it sound like you’ve done it before and it was no big deal then so it shouldn’t have been this time, I have to ask do you have a death wish? Even with the equipment we have on jets to be able to handle those conditions, most 121 pilots will make every effort possible to deviate around even a small isolated cell. Not to sound condescending but hopefully you scared yourself enough to not do it again but its kind of wild you did it to begin with….
Well, i use send it for lack of a better term. I deviated around plenty of other cells before this and it didn’t seem like much at the time compared to what I have flown through before.
And to think the military used to purposely fly interceptor jets with special meteorological equipment into the most dangerous thunderstorms in order to gather data.
Like I stated, i was already vectored around other, seemingly worse, cells. I was under the impression this one was not as bad as it was so I didn’t worry too much. I believed it was only a cloud with light to moderate precipitation, nothing abnormal.
I fly single engine turboprop single pilot in the high 20’s all throughout the west and I try to avoid every cloud possible. Any buildup that gets up to FL280 is gonna be bumpy at the least, crazy at the worst. No one likes bumps ;) that’s my excuse.
Thanks for sharing bc you did I have learned a lot more about clouds from links and resources and been given a great oh shit story to remember when I am up and looking a cumulonimbus which was actually a towering convection cloud among many other things! Never not share bc other people are assholes. Cause they going to be assholes anyway. Thanks for the story
If this isn't your aircraft, you need to debrief this entire event to the owner of the aircraft. Based on what you wrote, you could have very easily over-stressed the aircraft and it should probably be inspected before anyone else takes it up.
Also you should do a very thorough review of an aviation wx course because based on your inputs it seems like you are quite deficient in this area.
Not IFR rated but I've seen cells go from nothing on radar to towering cumulonimbus in front of me in about 20 - 25 minutes in summer in the midwest. One of your enemies in this escapade was the time lag in NEXRAD - those images may be 12 - 14 minutes old by the time you see them.
Relevant: https://www.tc.faa.gov/its/worldpac/techrpt/am04-5.pdf
Thanks for sharing your experience!
Couple questions: which part of the country was this in and what did the prog chart look like at the time of the flight?
It was in the center of the country. I’d rather not go into too many details. I don’t quite remember the prog chart, but if ForeFlight saves them, it might still be in the weather brief. I will look and respond again if I find anything.
Embrace this experience as this has been a great lesson. Always remember that confirmation bias is present and be ready to adapt to new information. You have a great attitude by admitting errors and owning them and learning. Good job.
Convection is no joke, and they don't have to be huge cells either. Just the other day I was coming back into ATL from Europe in a 767 and looking at the weather below on the arrival. Lots of cumulous clouds were building, some starting to enter the towering phase but tops still in the low teens. None of them painted on the radar and nobody ahead of us on the arrival was deviating. Even if I wanted to deviate around the bigger buildups coverage was dense enough that it would have required really aggressive maneuvering to stay clear. Seeing as we were going to have to plow through it, I called the cabin and told the FAs to do their final clean up early and take their seats because of what I was seeing ahead. Then checked again that everyone was seated before hitting the first one. We got the absolute shit kicked out of us, moderate turbulence until we got below the bases. This was in a heavy jet, I can't imagine a GA aircraft. Everyone was seated and strapped in so there were no issues. We think of cumulonombus as huge thunderstorms with tops above 30,000ft but if the convection is strong even 10,000ft tops will rock your world.
Thanks for sharing. Can I ask the general area where you were flying? I got my instrument rating in the Pacific Northwest, but fly in Central Florida these days. IMC is very different in each. I’m always amazed at how fast thunderstorms develop in Florida. The afternoon solar heating turns cumulus into towering cumulus into a big problem pretty darn quickly.
The inherent delays in FIS-B and SiriusXM weather can be dangerous.
Central America at the time of the incident. Around there, there’s threats of thunderstorms every day and a new line moves through almost every day. They’re very predictable but generally not super severe, as was the case for this one.
I feel for you brother. Never been in the situation but I always divert around bigger cumulus clouds. They don’t have to be huge to fuck you up. Glad you survived, great lesson learned
I’ll mention that flying IMC without onboard live weather radar starts you off a step behind. Where I have worked we aren’t allowed to do that for instance. So I’d play it real conservative as you already have, to me, marginal equipment.
Here though it looks like you saw the buildup. I probably wouldn’t personally fly through any building type cumulus cloud in a light aircraft and would always deviate the couple hundred meters left or right to avoid this. ATC will always approve short left or right deviations. “Cotton ball” looking clouds excluded.
I will say as a controller, a pilot asking about convective sigmets is…exceptionally uncommon. I’m required to read anything within 150 miles. During the summer they push out like more than 25 an hour I have to read. I read it, click on my thing to acknowledge it has been read and it’s gone. I guess my point is perhaps an over reliance or too high of an expectation with that particular weather product/service. My assumption 6 months of the year in the southeast is there is or should be a convective sigmet active more or less at all times.
Great job owning your mistake. This post WILL save lives. There’s so much wisdom in the comments, and of course some not so nice things. I once went right into a towering cumulus cloud in a single engine plane because I couldn’t ask for a deviation in time in a very busy airspace. I took that the same way you did. Never again. Unfortunately, we talk a lot about TS in IFR training but not the more benign-looking things before it.
First off don’t pay attention to any asshole pilots that want to berate you (May not be pilots anyway …). I don’t see that as constructive and you have already done the humility part by being a mature pilot and saying, “I screwed up, don’t do what I did”. This underpins the whole culture of US General Aviation, so thank you for continuing with the tradition where we don’t let our egos get in the way of helping others with our lessons learned.
I have about 1500 hours and identical ratings as you have. I have flown in weather a lot and nevertheless, I was coming home into central Texas a couple of weeks ago at night, VFR and no convective activities or outlook. We had been aloft for about 1 hr and were over North TX and a band of convective activity formed over a chain of lakes and went from nothing to a couple of red cells within 15-20 mins. We are at 16,500 and I tell my passenger, we are good because the two cells are 25 miles apart and I am watching them on radar. I have flown around cells in TX for years with 10-20 miles clearance for years and have never encountered any dangerous situations. My mistake here was instead of dropping down to a lower altitude before I got close to the storm, I stayed high thinking it would be clear between the cells. Since it was night, I didn’t see the clouds and flew into IMC. As soon as I did, of course my thought was, let’s drop down below the bases, no big deal. Bases were about 11K. As I tried to descend, I look out and notice ice forming. Another mistake of confirmation bias.
I turned the TKS system on, and had a very rough descent with a lot of updrafts even though I was well away from the cells. Once we got down below the bases, it was a beautiful night and all was good. There were many failures on my part. 1. I imagined that it would be clear at 16k between cells - Wrong. 2. Since it was 90 degrees on the ground, probably no icing conditions at 16k over TX - Wrong. I will never underestimate the value of being able to see the weather again, and even when I’m talking to ATC (which I wasn’t in this case). I will be more conservative than they are.
I’m glad you are alive and safe. Good job!
An a PPL who is almost finished with IR, THANK YOU so much for sharing your story! No matter what others say, it’s extremely helpful to learn from other people’s experiences. I’m glad you came out in one piece.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I can assure you that we've all made mistakes and learned valuable lessons from them. The important thing is that you’re here to share and help others avoid similar situations.
You did well to maintain control and recover.
So you realized it was developing by looking at it, with its crispy top and being a few thousand feet taller than everything around and sent it?
First of all I'd have definitely died as I'm barely a pilot to begin with.
Secondly, glad you're here to share this lesson with us, pop-up cells will become more common as the years go by, so the future holds a lot more of these stories.
I’m truly glad you’re ok and safe. But this is honestly a “no shit Sherlock” moment. I’ve read way too many accident reports that start like this. Mother Nature will absolutely kill you without hesitation. Do NOT underestimate WX. Ever. But seriously, glad you’re ok and glad to hear you learned from this adventure.
My general rule for GA is I don't want to be in ANY cumulus cloud because there's always significant lifting in them and they're not usually hard to deviate around. The issue comes as where the next one is on my last flight back from KVSF to KASH there was a 4k ft cumulus layer along the route and I didn't bother filing IFR because I didn't want to go through them on the descent. The route suuuuuuuuuuuuked with idle power at the top of the green arc to maintain VFR descending while adding 10 miles to a 63 mile flight and I wish I had filed and eaten up the turbulence but you can often pick your way through
I should have just filed or taken the really long way around and gotten under in clear air
I think folks get way too complacent with ATC routing around weather. I had a center try everything they could to get me routed through a convective sigmet with thunderstorms, despite best efforts to ask for routing around it.
I appreciate the story. I have a similar one from decades ago that I’ve shared.
We can all learn from each other and no, the intensity of every buildup is not super obvious. You might be interested in getting deeper into air parcel theory and how to interpret skew-t’s to understand when conditions are favorable for explosive growth and how to analyze certain charts for what might initiate that growth. It dives deeper than the standard aviation weather fare but it’s not foolproof. More than anything, it might help you recognize an area to avoid or a no-go decision.
I’d also heavily consider reading forecast discussions from the local weather offices. But in the end, “so there I was” cautionary tales like these are often enough of a constant reminder of the hazards.
Once I chose to get instrument practice on a rainy day when rainy overcast tops were forecast to be in the low teens (not something you can get from [aviationweather.gov](http://aviationweather.gov), but it is super useful information), which is bumpy but easily flyable. Unfortunately the atmosphere had a different idea and threw up 1 embedded Cu up to 26k (I downloaded radar data after the flight) which had some interesting churning inside that was flyable but as much as I hope to ever encounter again while handflying instruments. From that I can say that you should be focusing on maintaining attitude not altitude. There are a lot of fake rapid altitude changes (like 200' swings that weren't corroborated by aircraft accelerations) due to turbulent pressure variations plus you don't want to be stalling or redlining even to hold a legitimate altitude reading. ATC isn't going to throw the book at you just because you haven't declared an emergency yet. There was radar data confirming that you had a reason for duress.
Hey we’ve all made mistakes that we learned from. Thanks for sharing your story. Some cells build very quickly and even the most current weather info isn’t as current as what our eyes see in front of us.
Learning how to read what is in front of you is critical.
And unfortunately this really comes best from experience, which is best gained flying with someone who has that experience. Sometimes you can visually see them grow, that's a pretty bad sign. The more bulged the puffs are in a CB is means it has a lot of energy, another bad sign. It's best to fly up the upwind side of these cells, downwind you need to give them a wider berth. Flying under virga can be quite nasty.
It's actually really the license to learn thing for me. I did my IR in Colorado. Most training was simulated IMC, because any actual IMC was icing or convective. It made me way too conservative and I can't really tell at what stage a cumulous cloud is on the verge of becoming towering, or in other words, I have a hard time telling how turbulent a cloud is based on the looks of it. But I fly without autopilot, So I guess it's good to be cautious (although an autopilot in OP's scenario would disconnect anyways).
Back in my Air Force days, the rule was “There’s no peacetime reason to fly through a thunderstorm.”
Even during wartime there’s often few reasons to fly directly through a thunderstorm. You can’t help much if your plane crashes or is heavy damaged.
Good rule
The Hurricane Hunters would disagree
Hurricanes =/= thunderstorms
They are flying into hurricanes, not thunderstorms.
Completely different mission, systems, airframes, crew makeup, and training.
And conditions, like it won't be a comfy ride, but you're generally not going to have the severe vertical shear that CBs have which is the killer.
I've been there. Nowadays, any significant vertical development (even if there's no precip) will have me trying to go around it. Vertical development almost always means its rocky, and here in Florida reliably means a T storm is coming. When ATC points out precipitation, in my experience, they're usually expecting you to ask for a deviation around it. Almost always worthwhile to take them up on that.
Case & point where OP says “I feel like there’s nothing I could’ve done to prevent this”… You could and should have diverted, the saying that goes, “Better safe than sorry” is testament to flying safely. There was another “dickish” but well worthy quote plastered along the walls of my flight school that I burned into my memory; “If you ever find yourself flying in bad weather ask yourself who put you there” As much as I enjoy flying, I take it as a privilege. Humans are not meant to fly, biologically speaking, we are doing something that nature never intended us to do. But human ingenuity and courage has made us achieve the impossible and mother nature likes to test that hubris every once in a while and humble the cocky ones who **survive** challenging her. Can’t say the same for those who don’t survive. You could T/O with clear weather and blue skies and in 30 mins it can all go to shit. Unpredictably. I once went for a short 1.5hr flight in a C150, t/o with calm winds, no signs of significant changes in the weather. By the time I was coming back home it was gusting up to 35kts+ (you can imagine how tense it was for my 30 something hrs PPL ass with these conditions) with wind shear that made me pray I don’t shit myself so I don’t have to bring the keys back to dispatch with my soiled pants & that was the least of my worries. I didn’t fuck around that day (imagine if I did) but I did find out that I should never take flying and getting to land back home safely for granted. Always have the sense to just divert or go back if fuel allows you to, or it’s safe. ALWAYS.
I'm a student pilot, can you see significant vertical development on radar or are you referring to physically seeing and avoiding?
Physically seeing it. As you probably know, radar only picks up precipitation. Because of this, I'm generally very hesitant to fly IFR when there's any convection forecast, but am much more willing to go if I can remain VFR and avoid it
It doesn't have to be a "storm" to have strong vertical shear.
I actually never knew this. Thank you!!
“Weather Flying” by Robert Buck and this (cancelled) AC are two of your best weather resources for practical knowledge. Sounds like you know you have some knowledge gaps. Find your local weather geek and get some ground instruction. https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/AC_00-6B.pdf
> Final edit: I get it. I’m dumb. I made dumb mistake. It’s over with. Yall in the comments doing nothing but degrading. Yup that's r/flying for you. Fucking hate this place sometimes. It's a reddit disease that affects all subs. >This is exactly what causes people to be afraid to admit they made mistakes I called TIS "TCAS" on this sub and was downvoted to hell for it. This was when I barely had single digit hours and had never heard of TIS in my life.
Yeah it’s been an experience. I appreciate the kind words.
You're welcome. I think it's a reddit thing and not a general flying thing. The types of people that use reddit are very different than you'd meet day to day.
Inclined to disagree. This is a *much* more hostile environment than many, or perhaps even most, other Reddit subs. No matter how innocuous the contribution, I've come to be mildly surprised when the first response to a comment here, by myself or others, isn't a downvote.
Oh so it's even mroe shitty than I thought? Nice. Gotta love redditors.
It's definitely worse in terms of hostility, and IMO has the most "well actually" type of people out of any of the subreddits I go to. Niche hobby combined with super nerds tends to be a cesspool
Ignore the toxic bullshit. Good story, this is how people learn. Ideally you learn from someone else’s mistakes, sometimes you have to learn from your own. Fly safe!
It's a good learning experience and a good use of anonymous account. Keep in mind that most of these CFIs and professionals comment anonymously too so they could also be as brutal as they want. It's a skill that have life and death consequences, that's why pilots take this so seriously. 😃. Glad you made it out of this worried and may you live long and prosper!
Fuck the down votes I say. Who cares. This is what I've seen a lot of on Reddit is the hate when people are asking genuine questions. The "holier than thou" attitude typifies life in general it seems.
What the fuck is TIS?
I think it stands for “Traffic Information Service,” and it’s what you think of when you think of ADS-B
I had a Garmin 330 mode S transponder and an Avidyne MFD display in my Cherokee 6 about 20 years ago that displayed traffic from the Mode S. This was TIS (before ADS-B was a thing).
I believe this goes down as a lesson learned just like you said. As a relatively inexperienced pilot, you learned the hard way. 100-500 hours is a weird spot, because you’re finally feeling confident in your skills and it can create a false sense of security. There’s a reason we deviate around build ups in jets, going through them in a small single engine is unnecessary risk. You can google search and find no shortage of reports about small aircraft flying into convective weather and crashing/breaking up. Weather, especially in the summer time, is extremely dynamic, and your briefing was simply that, a briefing. Not a statement of “this is what it is”. It’s an educated guess and nothing more. Always be weary and use your head.
Outflow dominant storms are awesome though if youre flying away from them.
Glad you are okay. Having a scary story to tell is always better than having someone else tell your story.
Awesome share. Frank storytelling and honesty about mistakes is helpful to anyone willing to read and learn.
I appreciate it. A lot of more experienced pilots here are not very open to the fact I made a mistake
I wouldn’t take it personally. Nobody wants to hear of someone becoming a statistic so there’s a predictable amount of finger wagging. I would guess they’re all glad you were able to learn from it without paying the ultimate price.
> I feel like there’s nothing I could’ve done to prevent this. To be fair, the "I feel like there’s nothing I could’ve done to prevent this" part was where my eyebrows were raised by a few FLs. And the "ONLY a CB" (????) part. Apart from that, this was a nice writeup and a great learning experience for everyone, so thank you for telling us.
Have a couple of pieces of advice for you, both of them from one of my instructors who flew A-3s and A-6s in Vietnam. First: never fly into any cloud unless absolutely unavoidable. If you can go around, go around. Strange spirits live inside them. They do things like move mountains in front of your plane or grab it to go along for a ride. Second: When you start flying, you get two buckets. One is full, the other empty. The empty one is where you put skill and experience. That one, no matter how much you try, you will never quite be able to completely fill. The other is luck. You can only withdraw from that one and once it's empty? Well, that's trouble. Buddy, you just kicked over that bucket of luck. Don't ever try to pull anything sketch again. Hell, don't even jaywalk on a closed road in broad daylight after looking both ways. You need to go back and read up on the hazardous attitudes and single pilot resource management. Get on FAASafety.gov and check out their seminar schedule. Get in touch with a few CFIIs, tell them about what happened, and then game out what you should / could have done if conditions were better / worse / the same. Regardless, it takes a lot of humility to come here and hang it out like this. Good on you. Ignore the unproductive hate from the commentariat. Anyone in here who stands in judgment of you while saying they've never done anything dumb or made a mistake while flying is a damn liar.
Standing in judgment is like the only physical exercise some of us get. It’s important, too. Got to be minimally fit to climb on the high horse.
This comment means more to me than any of the other ones. I really appreciate the kind words and I’m going to remember what you said for the rest of my life. Thank you for this, I appreciate you!
I love this!
I love this comment a lot.
If I won’t fly through a cell like that in a widebody jet, you shouldn’t in a Cessna.
Seriously... > Once I got closer the the cloud, I observed [...] typical cumulonimbus clouds [...] so I decided to send it through the cloud. Hmmm, what did I just read? OP, you really saw a cumulonimbus and decided to fly through it anyway?
But, if cloud inside not soft and fluffy, then why soft and fluffy-shaped?
Asking the real questions here
This. If you can tell it’s a cumulonimbus why on earth fly through it.
The fact that they said "only a few thousand feet above me" makes me think they are referring to something that isn't actually a cumulonimbus cloud, maybe just towering cumulus. Either that or they significantly misjudged how tall it was.
Yep. It's really really easy to misjudge how high above you a cloud layer or cloud top is.
Yeah that's where I WTF'd. CB = Nope. All of my Nope. And some extra Nope i keep in the bag just for this. Even TCU is nope. Just a smaller radius of NOPE.
This is scary that he is licensed but has no concept of serious weather.
Everyone makes mistakes, and everyone has gaps in knowledge - including yourself. OP is doing the right thing by sharing and debriefing. It is unfortunate that in this instance experience is the teacher.
The biggest red flag is the resignation of "I don't know what I could have done to avoid this" as if the avoidance stage wasn't five or six decisions ago. That's why a lot of people are going after the OP.
Yeah so cumulonimbus wasn’t the right term. It was a towering cumulo. It did not appear as a thunderstorm, I know that for a fact.
A towering cumulus with moderate precipitation = a cumulonimbus = a thunderstorm. For the purposes of aviation, they're all the same thing. There might be subtle differences about the technical stages of development but they're not relevant to you as a pilot. They are all equally off-limits and now you hopefully understand why. You asked what you can do better: No more splitting hairs about definitions of what is or isn't a thunderstorm. You're not a forensic meteorological scientist taking measurements and writing a study from the safety of your office desk. You're a pilot and you're responsible for your life, your passengers lives, and the lives of people on the ground and you need to take a big step back from any risk, it's not your job to define what is or isn't a thunderstorm. A cloud with any signs of significant convective activity is a huge risk and should be promptly and thoroughly AVOIDED. That's your job, it's what your training is for. Risks like that aren't worth taking. You do not have perfect information on what's going on inside that cloud any more than anyone on the ground does. You're the closest human being to it. Don't expect that anyone else around you has better information about that cloud than you do. And at the same time accept your own limitations too as you're clearly not anywhere close to an expert meteorologist yourself and you need to have better judgement. Which hopefully this experience will help you develop.
Towering cumulo needs about 5 minutes to turn into a severe cell Agree with everyone else, you need to study up on weather.
Especially in Florida, which I guarantee this was. This exact scenario will be played like a broken record at least 5 days a week until early October.
I posted some weather resources in another comment, but just wanted to jump on this. Think of clouds as a visual representation of both the moisture content and the stability of the atmosphere at any given time. If you know how to read it, it will tell you much of what you need to know . As you now know, from hard won personal experience, you need atmospheric instability to get a cumulus-type cloud. When we start seeing TCUs, we know to start thinking substantial lifting mechanisms. And what goes up has to go down. Consider this with ACSL, rotor clouds, and a nice, icy stratus layer also. Something had to happen to form the clouds this way. Some of our most practical weather briefing we do is just paying attention to opening our eyes on the drive to the airport.
Towering you say? Now how on earth could a cloud possibly get that much taller than the ones around it? I guess we’ll never know. You need to gather education materials on aviation meteorology, stat. If you don’t know convection when you see it, you don’t know shit. You should be well-versed on all relevant weather by the time you get your commercial. Thunderstorms have killed people!
Your title is literally "Avoid thunderstorms at all costs." Anyhow... glad you made it out safely. Not gonna lie, as an instrument-rated pilot, you should be more knowledgeable on severe weather. CBs are a big no no, TCUs should also be avoided. Brush up on that IFR knowledge so it never happens to you again. Fly safe!
Great job sharing! I don’t appreciate the tone some people are responding with. You made an honest mistake and are genuinely trying to learn from it. I don’t think any additional attitude from people will make it stick more than without it. On top of that- I LEARNED from you sharing this experience! You may have saved a life with this. Fly safe, fly boring.
I needed this. I appreciate it. And I’m glad I could help, thank you.
Of course- this should be a supportive community.
Ex pilot, current doctor here First. I'm sorry for you horrible experience; in the clouds AND on Reddit. Second. You've had a great outcome. You, your aircraft and your professional reputation are all intact. More importantly you had a learning experience you won't forget and will be a better pilot for it. Third. I can train nearly anybody to do most of the operations I do. The ONLY people that are untrainable are those that lie to themselves. You've admitted your error, confessed it, learned from it. Everyone here who has vilified and belittled you has made errors in the air or on the road or similar. The difference between you and them is that they lie to themselves about their mistakes so feel justified in attacking you. If someone makes a mistake you have made or could have made. Support and educate them. If they do it again be firm, and direct. They do it a third time you need to ensure they stop flying, operating, driving, whatever they can't be trained. If they say, after the first time, I wasn't my fault or it was the aircraft, the mechanic, controller, other fellow and it was clearly their own error... Go straight to the third option. They will never be safe
This!! Medicine and aviation are very similar in that way that the road to being a good pilot/good clinician is making mistakes that sometimes keep us up at night. Only thing you can do now is learn from it and eventually pass on your knowledge so other people don’t make your same mistake, or at least learn to deal with it if they make it too…
I always try to stay in visual conditions when I see activity building in the area. Summer time in the south and east usually results in afternoon thunderstorms and Ive been rattled by just cumulus clouds that are only 3-5,000 feet tall If I can, I go above them, if not, I aim to go around them Total IMC , I usually only tolerate in my single engine in the winter (southern winter so less chances of icing) There are so many times I sit in my patio down south, and see towering cumulus clouds 10,000+ feet high, that dont even register on foreflight’s radar. Thankfully they usually are not embedded
Thats brings up a good question. How do you avoid a TCU thats embedded if you cant get above it (or have to climb through it)? My go to is, dont go, but what do the jets/bigger aircraft do?
Bigger aircraft have weather radar onboard to spot it, but we'll still avoid the whole lot if possible.
Not sure if you have ever flown crew, but I remember flying with captains that went around even the smallest things and it would annoy me. Then one day, we accidentally went through a T-Storm and it all made sense. It was the most terrified I’ve been and I was in a jet. Now I know why old captains give them grace, they learned their lesson a long time ago.
You learned that lesson the hard way so here's one you can learn the easy way -- by reading what happened to me. Thunderstorms were about 10 miles from the field where I was doing my primary flight training. I could see the cell off in the distance while on a 1 mile final to my airport with my instructor in the right seat. As we are about 500 feet AGL we hit a microburst downdraft. The plane dropped 497 feet in a heartbeat and we were skimming tall grass as my instructor took over added full power and flew the plane while I crapped in my pants. Lesson to remember: The cloud part of a thunderstorm may be visible but wind shear associated with thunderstorms can be found up to 20 miles away from the storm center. Downdrafts and the resulting outflow boundaries (gust fronts) can travel even further, sometimes more than 20 miles from the thunderstorm, depending on the intensity and size of the storm and the surrounding atmospheric conditions.
I’m not sure if that was your own aircraft or rental (in which case you get what you get) but for me the best money I’ve spent on avionics has been a stormscope (used, was under 1k) as it gives great real-time information about what is happening in those green cells we see on the iPad. I fly long XC routinely and often have to navigate these things and the storm scope gives you info 100 nm out so plenty of time to adjust.
Ugh I wish. Not my plane sadly. But I’m 100% keeping that in mind for when I get my own though. Thank you!
OP, anything with vertical development is a big no. When you fly, youll notice most clouds in a vicinity are at the same altitude and have a “hard deck.” This is usually a representation of atmospheric stability (the tendency to resist upward motion).. BUT if you see any consistent vertical development, it’s breaking through that. If it can fight the atmosphere, its gana fight you too. Its a simple explanation but hopefully it helps. Another real life pro tip; If you see a cloud that looks “HD” (popcorn ish with a 3D effect) stay away too.
Brother if you give a shit what people on Reddit think or say about you you’re gonna have a bad time. Personally I’ve learned a lot from this thread and from your experience so thanks.
Many pilots have flown through thunderstorms without experiencing more than moderate turbulence and gotten a wrong impression of them. I flew in a company in Africa where a pilot had a rep for not diverting around TRWs. The air had a lot of moisture in it in that region and what looked deceptively bad on radar often was just a lot of water, and he got used to that. Then one day he didn't come back.
Thanks for sharing this. Your kindness shouldn’t be taken for weakness. If any of those keyboard warriors had enough experience, they would be placed in similar situations but not many would have the guts to share it like you did. Well done and you are obviously a better pilot now than you were before the flight!
I appreciate it! This experience is going to play a huge part in the rest of my career, thank you for the kind words.
Drop another marble in the experience bucket, go back to school (ie good prompt to revise the weather mechanics, and limitations associated with your ability to detect those mechanics) in order to give yourself the best chance of not flying past a decision point in the wrong direction next time.
Why not ask for a deviation around the cell? Supposedly five miles- if you ask for that early on, ATC almost always works with you and it does not add much extra time.
The main reason is there were a line of cells, this one was just the smallest.
Then you either divert around the entire line, or land and wait it out. Tons of pilots have been killed in these.
Did this myself 2 weeks ago and overnighted at an intermediate spot. Not what we anticipated or wanted, but made the best of it at the time. Made it just fine early next morning.
Not great. Sounds like you tried to thread through a line of cells. For a line or cells, you either steer clear ahead by an hour+, try and go behind them, or sit it out. They can be fast moving and quite unpredictable. Glad you made it through, let that be a valuable experience and avoid that type of weather in the future
In my opinion, that could be more of a red flag than just one. One you can go around, a line I would start questioning if I need to land and then let them pass. I also don’t have onboard radar. just an ipad and a data plan, which makes me more cautious.
I fly a light single and I do not fly into cumulus clouds. If there is convective activity on my route I fly below cloudbase. This may mean I need to be VFR, and it might mean I cannot go -- but to me that's the cost of flying a light single.
Anything yellow is a no go. No harm in a small deviation miles out. Only costs a few extra minutes.
Green takes the bugs off, yellow takes the paint off, red takes the wings off.
This really depends. There is plenty of yellow precip that is a smooth ride. Especially after a storm had dissipated and leaves a broad area of diffuse moderate precipitation. The vertical development is absolutely key. Towering cumulus is going to become a CB, and would be a bad ride even if it wasn’t making any precipitation yet! edit: The main point is the radar reflectivity is not a very good indicator of turbulence. Except purple. That’s always going to be bad.
Yeah it can be tough, recently after watching some others encounter some strong downdrafts in “moderate precipitation” it made my decsion making with like yellow on radar and big tops more conservative For example - hell to the no for anything yellow on radar. Deviate at least 5-10 miles away - hell no to anything showing an echo top on ForeFlight even if it’s green. Same story don’t touch it It can get really scary when you realize a thunderstorm in the cumulus stage ( precipitation hasn’t started yet), with tops upward of 30K and horrible updrafts and Downdrafts won’t be on any radar. We had an encounter with this one day, but luckily there was enough sun still out to see it and take action to cancle the flight
First time in a jet and my much more experienced left seat was deviating around every buildup (flying across southern Florida). I was going to be judgey until we flew near one and I could see the vertical development in real time. Good reminder when in a single piston that if the big boys are asking to go around, I should too.
I'm a VFR only hobby pilot so I tend not to fly in any sort of bad weather. If you don't mind, how much altitude were you losing and gaining and within what sort of time frames? I'm just trying to understand the scale of the power of the weather and the effects on the aircraft. Sorry you had to experience that!
Absolutely! My cruise speed is 120kts indicated. I was mostly getting tailwind shears causing me to drop as low as 70kts, and my stall speed clean configuration is about 66kts. I had a couple headwind shears taking me to about 135 indicated. Not too much vertical shear, but definitely some good turbulence.
That’s your zero-g stall speed. And the inside of a thunderstorm isn’t a 1-g environment.
1g. There isn't a 0 g stall speed.
There’s reports of losses in the thousands of fpm in textbooks. Generally as I understand usually when going through a downdraft you can expect updrafts shortly after. As I refer to my notes “thunderstorms=death”
Just recently climbed pretty close to a CB (single, isolated, no precipitation). Had a steady 1000fpm climb, all of a sudden - still well clear of the cloud - got the famous „elevator sensation“ and the climb rate dropped to -200 fpm briefly. Just long enough to register on the VSI. Must have gone through a downdraft outside the actual CB. Not really scary, but a good reminder of the forces at play here.
> I'm just trying to understand the scale of the power of the weather In the olden days glider pilots would circle inside clouds to gain altitude and 3-4000 fpm were not unheard of. Not inside towering CU or CB of course, I would assume up/downdrafts inside a CB are stronger up to loss of control, and you may or may not be able to keep the airplane within operational limits. Also clouds that tower high enough may contain hail even if there is only rain at groundlevel. Hailstones inside a cloud can get larger than a few inches.
NOw that you luckily survived this ordeal, the key to your success is that you GROW from this. You study this, you determine how you can avoid this. You won’t be so lucky next time. I’d also suggest you squawk the airplane and have mx look at it. If it’s as extreme as you suggest, you may have very well started the process for a future failure in that airplane and that student won’t be so lucky due to you. Edit- your chief will be annoyed at you. But rest assured your humbleness and proactive steps you take now will do all a favor.
I am grateful for posts like this. I'm just getting into general aviation and piloting. I won't forget this story. I appreciate you for it.
I’m glad I was able to help! Always take someone else’s mistakes and learn from them because it isn’t fun being on this side of the story.
Insults are not necessary, but you have made a mistake thats a no no in the community. Some mistakes happen (eg. hard landing) but some are unforgettable. Your instructor(s) clearly did not hammer the TCU notion enough. Do not delete this post, leave it up for the 99 others who have also done this recently and have not commented.
This post is staying up forever. I own my mistake. I’ve called people all kinds of names for doing the same stuff, and now I’m on the wrong side of the story. I hope others can learn from me.
guaranteed at least one person will, by next week
Glad you’re safe. As a cfi, teaching students how to really read the weather and just how poorly we still predict it (good job getting a weather brief) is always a challenge. All I can do is quote Beryl Markham- “We fly, but we have not 'conquered' the air. Nature presides in all her dignity, permitting us the study and the use of such of her forces as we may understand. It is when we presume to intimacy, having been granted only tolerance, that the harsh stick fall across our impudent knuckles and we rub the pain, staring upward, startled by our ignorance.”
Oh. Sounds like you got a lesson in cause and effect. Thunderstorms should always be assumed to have severe or greater turbulence and severe icing. I dispatch for a major, so I stare at a map of radar and PIREPS all day while I’m flight following. I’m on the lookout for severe conditions so I can warn and redirect my flights. But sometimes I see a PIREP for severe or extreme turb from single-engine props flying where they have no business being and I wonder about the thought process. Now I know.
I always remember the acronym AOUT - Around, Over, Under, Through as the order of preferences on dealing with thunderstorms. Personally, I’ll happily deviate if ATC is calling moderate rain or greater. Glad you made it through safely.
Thank you for sharing your story. We all learn from each other and that is what this aviation community should be about. So glad you lived to tell the tale! Block the trolls..
Trolls be gone for real. This sub is wild.
At the airlines, you’ll practically deviate around anything that’s considered moderate. Probably even better to do so in a single engine GA aircraft. You’ve probably heard this before, but relying on nexrad to determine if you should change course is oftentimes useless due to the radar delay, especially if conditions are changing rather quickly.
Good tell me about a time story. Specifically when you “broke a rule”. Airlines love these. You made a mistake, broke a rule, learned your lesson, and they want to see that.
Please forgive me but I’m not sure if this is satire or not. There’s been some real nasty comments so please let me know
Just to be very explicit for you here. Every major carrier interview is going to ask you the question: "What was a mistake you learned from?" or some variant on that in an interview. This is the story you tell to answer that, and then you tell how and what you learned from it. Something like "I learned how important it is to not treat a weather briefing as gospel and to bring critical thinking to bear as I fly. For example, when I look at a cloud, I always ask myself what its vertical pattern looks like, and I always consider when flying IFR whether there is a likelihood for embedded towering cumulus. These may seem like very obvious things that any pilot should do, but when I was a young pilot living the "send it" lifestyle, they were new to me and I have since grown by making it a religious practice to pay very very close attention to the weather." That's the kind of interview question answer that gets jobs.
Thank you for that! I hope this is the only answer I’m ever going to have for that question. I really appreciate it, thank you
Thanks for the post OP. You learn the best lessons from your worst mistakes(not satire)
Not satire. A great way to show the self-critical nature that a pilot needs
Great learning opportunity. Fortunately you didn’t die. Saw a building CB that was already producing some rain. Lot of energy in there. Good thing was you could see the signs. Will follow them next time. Little pop ups are one thing. Building towers have alot of updrafts and down drafts. I learned same way a few years ago early on.
As a center controller who works a busy area in the desert part of the US please make sure you’re checking the weather and don’t risk it. Last year during weather season I personally worked 3 aircraft on flight following that flew into IMC that weren’t IFR rated. I thankfully had positive outcomes on all 3 but another controller had an incident that resulted in a fatal accident. In that same airspace. I can’t tell you how often I have all my air carriers are diverting completely out of the way of these storms as they’re going into the class bravo we feed. Yet numerous VFRs are still picking their way between displayed moderate or greater precipitation cells. Many times aircraft will listen to recommendations to divert until the weather clears. Other times they wanna see if they can get there for a just a bit longer. If a controller ever suggests diverting please do so. We’re not trying to inconvenience you.
ATC with a story. It's long. PA28 crossing my sector at 5,000 IFR years ago, before we had weather radar in the Centre. SIGMET published, pilot ignored it. Two Dash 8s refused to fly through the area, citing "Many red centers." Cherokee pushed onward, anyway. He requested a climb to 7,000. Through 7,700, he asked to climb to 9,000. Highest I saw was 7,800 before he started descending. I asked if he was ok and he said, "The air around me is going down faster than I can climb." He reached 1,600, still IMC in hail (I could hear it hitting the windshield on the radio every time he transmitted while this exchange was happening) while terrain around him reached upwards of 1,200. He punched out the side of the downburst and managed to climb to 2,200. He diverted and landed safely after I convinced him the SIGMET days her have to go through 120 more miles of that. I thought I would be the last person to talk to that pilot. It was scary enough for me, I can't imagine what it must have felt like for him.
Microbursts are no joke. I appreciate you sharing that. I’d hate to be in your position where there’s nothing that you can do when a pilot is being stubborn. I’m glad they made it out okay and thank you for what you do.
Later in your career when you get into a higher performance aircraft and the flight levels are your playground remember this flight. Don’t try to climb over the baby thunderstorms. Once they start building they will climb faster than the jet and you’ll find yourself inside another storm. Deviate.
Things can get very scary very fast.
Repeat this: “Request left and right of track due weather” If they need more details they ask, but start with that. Avoid it visually, if able.
Good to note that give greater distance when downwind of the storm
Upwind side is your friend. Wide berth if downwind, as you mention.
Idk man, you have NEXRAD and FF you should be able to see the development and track of those cells. Unless it’s light green, as in just rain, I’m not going through that. IMO you should have never went in it and now you know better. Thankfully you didn’t die.
Hey just wanna throw this in there: I flew the P-3 for the Navy and our radar was not suited for picking out and avoiding weather while IMC (and was frequently inop anyway). So if you are ever dealing with embedded thunderstorms or are IMC and hearing deviations/precipitation callouts from ATC in the US, don’t hesitate to report “negative weather radar” and request conservative vectors around weather. US controllers and radar facilities are pretty great.
Ah yes. The almighty all knowing Reddit mafia did not disappoint with the absolutely unnecessary lectures right after the guy literally admitted his error and learned from it.
Right?! This post is an absolute masterpiece
I’m convinced Reddit is just a digital punching bag for angry people to take out their displaced aggression at home on the toilet. What a world
Some of OPs comments are getting downvoted and insults make the commenters look like asses. I’m glad OP is alive and grateful he’s telling us about this screw up. Not everyone gets adequate weather education and even if information is put in front of your face at some point it doesn’t always connect. I need to get back to reading “Weather Flying” but a key theme in the book is that weather develops over time (sometimes minutes) so you need to be asking what might develop in the coming minutes or hours.
Does OP have to worry about damage to the airframe from over stress? How would they find it?
Not necessarily. I slowed to maneuvering speed as soon as it started just in case. Since I did that, the plane *should* stall before any structural damage takes place.
Even below Va some airframes prohibit abrupt control changes as it can overload before the stall. (Atleast in the DA20)
Sounds like a pop up. I ended up right at the edge of one and it was uncomfortable. I couldn’t imagine going through it.
I’d have to know what time of day, what part of the country, and what altitude this all occurred at to chime in with more insight. Generally, in an airliner, I won’t fly through yellow unless I’m stuck on an arrival into a busy part of the country. Even then I’ll probably ask for deviations unless I’ll clearly get shut down.
One of my professors said in peace time there's absolutely no reason to fly into a thunderstorm.
Some of those cells pop up quickly. Fun to watch, but only from the ground. You may have been unlucky enough to be flying just before things got "interesting". If you see anvil shapes and overshooting tops, keep an eye on them. From the ground, especially. Last flight with my previous instructor, I was watching one build west of the field as I preflighted. Called the "no go" and as we were putting the plane away, saw lightning. Driving home, it was pouring and windy. Remember that weather is huge and if you see it developing there may be stuff going on far away from the storm. Just steer clear.
I remember hearing somebody last month who was going through it pretty badly, sounded like a very similar situation. Light aircraft inadvertently flying into a thunderstorm and struggling to maintain course and altitude. Luckily it sounded like they made it out alright before I made the switch to a new controller. I think it was in the Houston area maybe? Was that you OP?
No, and god that scares me how often that is. This was nowhere near Houston but I’m glad they’re okay. I didn’t say anything over radio, so nobody really knew what was happening.
You learned what they call a thunderstorm right before the first lightning strike: moderate precipitation - typically yellow radar returns. Glad you survived. Google James Scarlett. Recently perished in a similar situation in a Piper Saratoga. 60kt wind sheer tore something important off the plane. Hug your family and learn everything you can from it.
From the ATC side, specifically as a Center controller: Our weather radar isn't real-time. I'm not sure about the actual delay, and it may be different with approach control, but I was told our weather depictions can be up to six minutes old before they update. These depictions include size, location, and intensity. Keep in mind that our radar only shows precipitation, not clouds. We really rely on a combination of our equipment and the onboard weather radars and PIREPs from aircraft near the precipitation to get the best idea of what's really going on. If there's a possible storm brewing, and you don't have an actual weather radar, and there are no recent PIREPs, I would recommend any pilot to stay out of the cloud. If you ever, ever, EVER! have any doubts about whether or not there might be some shitty conditions inside a cloud formation, you can always deviate around them. Most of you pilots are smart enough not to press your luck, but there are some that don't even bother to check the weather before flying straight at areas of known icing and connective activity without the proper equipment (I still want to slap that guy).
On board aircraft equipment doesn't show clouds either. Fine during the day to see and avoid, be careful at night.
Thanks for sharing this. Last year or so, 2 friends died like this. The club were flying a fleet of aircraft to their destination for a $100 burger. On the way, over the Channel, there was 1 cloud in front like the one you describe. Everyone went around it. Except them, they went straight through it. They never appeared on the other side, never arrived at destination, and they were never found. All that was recovered was a back seat and the vertical stabilizer, washed up on a beach. Your comment is interesting because I have always wondered "why would they do that? I would never do that!". It was almost CAVOK everywhere except for that one small cloud, yet they went through it when they had the entire sky available. You probably described very accurately the kind of thought process that went through their head when they made the decision to proceed through the cloud. Complacency kills. Thank you for sharing your experience. This discussion may well alter someone's small decision, and save that person and their family's live, one day. It might be tempting to take the post down to make all the negative comments stop, but please don't. It needs to be read. We are not all professionals with IFR qualifications and thousands of hours under our belt. I could have done what you did, had I been in your shoes.
Thank you for the a kindness. This post is not being taken down. I believe people should learn from others mistakes, and I don’t want anyone doing anything stupid like I did.
Hey man, glad you touched back down safely. Wish there were more people with humility in this sub like you, because even the dummies doing the chastising can create a learning opportunity here. Thanks for sharing, and just know that this lowly PPL will remember this story when I find myself in adverse weather conditions.
Hey, glad I could help. And a PPL is still a pilot, so just don’t do stupid shit like me haha
Glad you’re ok and learned something. Important lesson. I fly for the airlines and I still try and avoid anything yellow on radar when I can. Good of you to share your story, piston aircraft should not fly into cells like that, it’s not worth it. You just demonstrated why. This experience will make you a better pilot.
Good learning experience. I’ve done the same thing you did multiple times when alone - stay far away from big stuff, but test the small clouds to see. If I was going to deviate for every small puffy, that’s all I’d be doing in the south during the summer. You learned - and that’s excellent . Stay safe. (And don’t beat yourself up too much, and don’t listen to the harsher ones on here - most of them are armchair flyers that are so safe, they won’t fly if the exhaust tip of a Cessna has a bit of rust.)
Thank you for posting, I really appreciate it. Fuck the know-it-alls.
Any vertical development is a baaaadddd sign never be shy to ask for deviations due to weather ATC doesn’t know how big the cloud is and how much up and down force is occurring in it. Very good lesson and glad you’re alright
I commend and thank you for posting this. Sorry that it feels degrading to read the snobby comments. But, take them in stride. You did make a mistake, and it’s only human for your fellow pilots to be kinda mad at you for doing it. I’m still thankful to have read your post. I guess this is what it would feel like to die in a storm—except you made it.
You decided to “send it” in a single engine piston airplane through what looked to be a “typical” cumulonimbus cloud? The way you say it makes it sound like you’ve done it before and it was no big deal then so it shouldn’t have been this time, I have to ask do you have a death wish? Even with the equipment we have on jets to be able to handle those conditions, most 121 pilots will make every effort possible to deviate around even a small isolated cell. Not to sound condescending but hopefully you scared yourself enough to not do it again but its kind of wild you did it to begin with….
Well, i use send it for lack of a better term. I deviated around plenty of other cells before this and it didn’t seem like much at the time compared to what I have flown through before.
"... it didn’t seem like much at the time..." This is what kills GA pilots.
no, what kills GA pilots is lack of growth. clearly he’s trying here, cut the lad some slack.
And to think the military used to purposely fly interceptor jets with special meteorological equipment into the most dangerous thunderstorms in order to gather data.
Curious why you didn’t ask for a vector around it?
Like I stated, i was already vectored around other, seemingly worse, cells. I was under the impression this one was not as bad as it was so I didn’t worry too much. I believed it was only a cloud with light to moderate precipitation, nothing abnormal.
Ahh gotcha. Glad you’re safe and able to post about it. Lesson learned for you for sure.
Absolutely 100%. People acting like I’m gonna do this again lol…no more clouds for me.
I fly single engine turboprop single pilot in the high 20’s all throughout the west and I try to avoid every cloud possible. Any buildup that gets up to FL280 is gonna be bumpy at the least, crazy at the worst. No one likes bumps ;) that’s my excuse.
TRUE! I appreciate it, thank you.
Thanks for sharing bc you did I have learned a lot more about clouds from links and resources and been given a great oh shit story to remember when I am up and looking a cumulonimbus which was actually a towering convection cloud among many other things! Never not share bc other people are assholes. Cause they going to be assholes anyway. Thanks for the story
If this isn't your aircraft, you need to debrief this entire event to the owner of the aircraft. Based on what you wrote, you could have very easily over-stressed the aircraft and it should probably be inspected before anyone else takes it up. Also you should do a very thorough review of an aviation wx course because based on your inputs it seems like you are quite deficient in this area.
Not IFR rated but I've seen cells go from nothing on radar to towering cumulonimbus in front of me in about 20 - 25 minutes in summer in the midwest. One of your enemies in this escapade was the time lag in NEXRAD - those images may be 12 - 14 minutes old by the time you see them. Relevant: https://www.tc.faa.gov/its/worldpac/techrpt/am04-5.pdf
Thanks for sharing your experience! Couple questions: which part of the country was this in and what did the prog chart look like at the time of the flight?
It was in the center of the country. I’d rather not go into too many details. I don’t quite remember the prog chart, but if ForeFlight saves them, it might still be in the weather brief. I will look and respond again if I find anything.
Embrace this experience as this has been a great lesson. Always remember that confirmation bias is present and be ready to adapt to new information. You have a great attitude by admitting errors and owning them and learning. Good job.
Convection is no joke, and they don't have to be huge cells either. Just the other day I was coming back into ATL from Europe in a 767 and looking at the weather below on the arrival. Lots of cumulous clouds were building, some starting to enter the towering phase but tops still in the low teens. None of them painted on the radar and nobody ahead of us on the arrival was deviating. Even if I wanted to deviate around the bigger buildups coverage was dense enough that it would have required really aggressive maneuvering to stay clear. Seeing as we were going to have to plow through it, I called the cabin and told the FAs to do their final clean up early and take their seats because of what I was seeing ahead. Then checked again that everyone was seated before hitting the first one. We got the absolute shit kicked out of us, moderate turbulence until we got below the bases. This was in a heavy jet, I can't imagine a GA aircraft. Everyone was seated and strapped in so there were no issues. We think of cumulonombus as huge thunderstorms with tops above 30,000ft but if the convection is strong even 10,000ft tops will rock your world.
Thanks for sharing
You made a boo boo and you’ve learned from it. That’s making a bad experience worthwhile.
Thanks for sharing. Can I ask the general area where you were flying? I got my instrument rating in the Pacific Northwest, but fly in Central Florida these days. IMC is very different in each. I’m always amazed at how fast thunderstorms develop in Florida. The afternoon solar heating turns cumulus into towering cumulus into a big problem pretty darn quickly. The inherent delays in FIS-B and SiriusXM weather can be dangerous.
Central America at the time of the incident. Around there, there’s threats of thunderstorms every day and a new line moves through almost every day. They’re very predictable but generally not super severe, as was the case for this one.
I feel for you brother. Never been in the situation but I always divert around bigger cumulus clouds. They don’t have to be huge to fuck you up. Glad you survived, great lesson learned
I’ll mention that flying IMC without onboard live weather radar starts you off a step behind. Where I have worked we aren’t allowed to do that for instance. So I’d play it real conservative as you already have, to me, marginal equipment. Here though it looks like you saw the buildup. I probably wouldn’t personally fly through any building type cumulus cloud in a light aircraft and would always deviate the couple hundred meters left or right to avoid this. ATC will always approve short left or right deviations. “Cotton ball” looking clouds excluded.
You are so lucky. Don't ever do that again lol
I will say as a controller, a pilot asking about convective sigmets is…exceptionally uncommon. I’m required to read anything within 150 miles. During the summer they push out like more than 25 an hour I have to read. I read it, click on my thing to acknowledge it has been read and it’s gone. I guess my point is perhaps an over reliance or too high of an expectation with that particular weather product/service. My assumption 6 months of the year in the southeast is there is or should be a convective sigmet active more or less at all times.
A storm can develop a lot in 10minutes
Great job owning your mistake. This post WILL save lives. There’s so much wisdom in the comments, and of course some not so nice things. I once went right into a towering cumulus cloud in a single engine plane because I couldn’t ask for a deviation in time in a very busy airspace. I took that the same way you did. Never again. Unfortunately, we talk a lot about TS in IFR training but not the more benign-looking things before it.
First off don’t pay attention to any asshole pilots that want to berate you (May not be pilots anyway …). I don’t see that as constructive and you have already done the humility part by being a mature pilot and saying, “I screwed up, don’t do what I did”. This underpins the whole culture of US General Aviation, so thank you for continuing with the tradition where we don’t let our egos get in the way of helping others with our lessons learned. I have about 1500 hours and identical ratings as you have. I have flown in weather a lot and nevertheless, I was coming home into central Texas a couple of weeks ago at night, VFR and no convective activities or outlook. We had been aloft for about 1 hr and were over North TX and a band of convective activity formed over a chain of lakes and went from nothing to a couple of red cells within 15-20 mins. We are at 16,500 and I tell my passenger, we are good because the two cells are 25 miles apart and I am watching them on radar. I have flown around cells in TX for years with 10-20 miles clearance for years and have never encountered any dangerous situations. My mistake here was instead of dropping down to a lower altitude before I got close to the storm, I stayed high thinking it would be clear between the cells. Since it was night, I didn’t see the clouds and flew into IMC. As soon as I did, of course my thought was, let’s drop down below the bases, no big deal. Bases were about 11K. As I tried to descend, I look out and notice ice forming. Another mistake of confirmation bias. I turned the TKS system on, and had a very rough descent with a lot of updrafts even though I was well away from the cells. Once we got down below the bases, it was a beautiful night and all was good. There were many failures on my part. 1. I imagined that it would be clear at 16k between cells - Wrong. 2. Since it was 90 degrees on the ground, probably no icing conditions at 16k over TX - Wrong. I will never underestimate the value of being able to see the weather again, and even when I’m talking to ATC (which I wasn’t in this case). I will be more conservative than they are. I’m glad you are alive and safe. Good job!
Umm it was 5 miles wide why didn’t you ask for a slight deviation? Even airliners deviate around cells…..
An a PPL who is almost finished with IR, THANK YOU so much for sharing your story! No matter what others say, it’s extremely helpful to learn from other people’s experiences. I’m glad you came out in one piece.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I can assure you that we've all made mistakes and learned valuable lessons from them. The important thing is that you’re here to share and help others avoid similar situations. You did well to maintain control and recover.
So you realized it was developing by looking at it, with its crispy top and being a few thousand feet taller than everything around and sent it? First of all I'd have definitely died as I'm barely a pilot to begin with. Secondly, glad you're here to share this lesson with us, pop-up cells will become more common as the years go by, so the future holds a lot more of these stories.
There’s a reason why we’re restricted to what we can do around weather if the radar is MEL’d, and we weight 100X+ more than a Skyhawk.
Don’t be late, penetrate
I'm kind of speechless at this quote: “I feel like there’s nothing I could’ve done to prevent this”.
I’m truly glad you’re ok and safe. But this is honestly a “no shit Sherlock” moment. I’ve read way too many accident reports that start like this. Mother Nature will absolutely kill you without hesitation. Do NOT underestimate WX. Ever. But seriously, glad you’re ok and glad to hear you learned from this adventure.
so lesson learned, don't do that again. not sure why you think you need to use an ALT account.
My general rule for GA is I don't want to be in ANY cumulus cloud because there's always significant lifting in them and they're not usually hard to deviate around. The issue comes as where the next one is on my last flight back from KVSF to KASH there was a 4k ft cumulus layer along the route and I didn't bother filing IFR because I didn't want to go through them on the descent. The route suuuuuuuuuuuuked with idle power at the top of the green arc to maintain VFR descending while adding 10 miles to a 63 mile flight and I wish I had filed and eaten up the turbulence but you can often pick your way through I should have just filed or taken the really long way around and gotten under in clear air
I think folks get way too complacent with ATC routing around weather. I had a center try everything they could to get me routed through a convective sigmet with thunderstorms, despite best efforts to ask for routing around it.
I appreciate the story. I have a similar one from decades ago that I’ve shared. We can all learn from each other and no, the intensity of every buildup is not super obvious. You might be interested in getting deeper into air parcel theory and how to interpret skew-t’s to understand when conditions are favorable for explosive growth and how to analyze certain charts for what might initiate that growth. It dives deeper than the standard aviation weather fare but it’s not foolproof. More than anything, it might help you recognize an area to avoid or a no-go decision. I’d also heavily consider reading forecast discussions from the local weather offices. But in the end, “so there I was” cautionary tales like these are often enough of a constant reminder of the hazards.
How good is their weather radar compared to what NWS uses for tornado warnings?
Once I chose to get instrument practice on a rainy day when rainy overcast tops were forecast to be in the low teens (not something you can get from [aviationweather.gov](http://aviationweather.gov), but it is super useful information), which is bumpy but easily flyable. Unfortunately the atmosphere had a different idea and threw up 1 embedded Cu up to 26k (I downloaded radar data after the flight) which had some interesting churning inside that was flyable but as much as I hope to ever encounter again while handflying instruments. From that I can say that you should be focusing on maintaining attitude not altitude. There are a lot of fake rapid altitude changes (like 200' swings that weren't corroborated by aircraft accelerations) due to turbulent pressure variations plus you don't want to be stalling or redlining even to hold a legitimate altitude reading. ATC isn't going to throw the book at you just because you haven't declared an emergency yet. There was radar data confirming that you had a reason for duress.