One Way Out

Anthropomorphic Stealth

Dynamic weather is a constant adversary of pilots, challenging decision making and ability. In my thirteen years of living in Upstate New York, I have seen January present the most consistently inconsistent weather patterns of the year. January weather arrives stealthily and often shrugs off our forecasting attempts. During the first few weeks of each year, it can be tempting to ascribe willfully sinister motivation to the weather.

For these reasons, I usually stay close to home in January and most of my landings are at airports in the local area. Even with such a hedge, surprises still occur.

Tongue Lashing

Date	Aircraft	Route of Flight	Time (hrs)	Total (hrs)
05 Jan 2019	N21481	SDC (Sodus, NY) - DSV (Dansville, NY) - SDC	1.4	1906.8

Cold morning air filled the vast dome of clear blue sky, the biting chill held at bay by aluminum skin, Plexiglas, and indirect heat from the Warrior's powerplant that produced an artificial bubble of warmth in the winter atmosphere. A tiny black dot off my left wingtip was a Piper Colt carrying Lee and Mike to our breakfast destination in Dansville. Despite clear conditions, weather was anticipated to move in hours later, but our breakfast excursion would be long over by then.

The most exciting moment en route came when another pilot flubbed a readback to Rochester Approach.

"Sir, you need to pay attention," the approach controller lectured the nameless pilot sternly. "You have screwed up every readback you've made this morning." I make it a personal goal to avoid having these kinds of comments directed at me.

Fat, Dumb, and Happy

Finished with breakfast, we were dawdling in the restaurant in the thick of aviation-themed conversation when Mike's eyes suddenly widened as they focused out the window behind me. Low scud had rolled over the Dansville airport, catching us in a proverbial state of fat, dumb, happiness.

We hustled back to the airport and surveyed the conditions. Low clouds were sliding in from the northwest and the departure course off runway 32 was completely socked in. Clear blue sky still prevailed beyond the airport boundary off the departure end of runway 14 to the southeast. For VFR traffic, Dansville had become a one way airport.

Per the ASOS, the ceiling was 600 broken with a visibility of seven miles and light wind out of the northwest. With the Colt departing first, we launched downwind from runway 14. It was the most marginal VFR departure I had ever made, but perfectly legal given the Class G airspace extending to 700 feet above the ground (Class G daytime VFR requirements are 1 mile visibility and remaining clear of clouds). As soon as I cleared the airport boundary, I was back under clear blue sky and climbed to a suitable cruise altitude for the flight home to Sodus. We escaped just in time.

Looking north from just south of Hemlock Lake

At altitude, the view beyond the Warrior's windows took my breath away. During our brief breakfast, a stealthy and premature ceiling slipped in and seemingly covered the entire world.

Looking east toward Canandaigua Lake

Racing the Weather

En route home, Canadiagua was IFR in fog while Sodus still reported a clear sky. However, radio chatter around Sodus made it clear that weather was moving in at home, too. Ten minutes out, the AWOS began calling scattered at 1,000 feet.

"Put the coals to it, Lee," I suggested over the radio to my friends in the slower Colt. I took comfort in knowing that I could simply request a pop-up IFR clearance if the field went IFR before I arrived, but that would not be an option for Lee and Mike. "Give me a call if you have to divert - I'll come get you." Fortunately, I could also hear VFR radio traffic at Skaneateles to the southeast, indicating that there were safe VFR harbors in that direction.

I landed with several other aircraft whose pilots were throwing in the towel for the day, every one of them snookered by the unpredictable January weather. With the engine shut down in front of my hangar, I waited in the Warrior with the radio powered until I heard Lee announce that he was on final approach with a landing assured.

All pilots know that one of the most crucial tools for understanding weather is a window because it provides a reality check on anything we might believe from a forecast. Thankfully, the restaurant that morning had one and it was pointed in the right direction.