Flew round trip to Myrtle Beach in my Cessna 182 on Monday this week (381 nm each way). The forecast included a few storm systems along the way. I took a CFI with me in case we needed to file IFR (I'm a VFR pilot only currently). We were able to maintain VFR the whole way. I'm a "fair weather pilot" so this was great fun getting over or around the cumulus cloud build-ups along the way. I learned a lot about weather and "Flight Following" services. We flew 10,500 MSL & 12,500 on the way down and 11,500 on the way back. The trip took about 2 hours and 45 minutes each way in my 182. Here are a few pics. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
In the first panel picture above, I had the autopilot in "HDG" mode and was picking my way through the cloud canyons using the heading bug. You can see we are "off course" at the time of the pic as we dodged some clouds. ALT = 12,500, KIAS = 106, KTAS = 131, GS = 129. In the second panel picture above, you can see we have the autopilot in GPS navigation mode and are right on course, flying in a section of clear air. ALT = 11,500, KIAS = 119, KTAS = 145, GS = 142.
Thanks for the beautiful and interesting pictures. Sixty eight years ago I flew my solo X-country in mid-summer Florida weather with storms on the way and in my way but I was at 2400-3000 ft. getting the butt kicked. Great stuff at 12500 ft. with the great instruments and aircraft that they have now...and better training. I had a C140 with a compass and a radio that worked sometimes.
Thanks Bob. Yes, the new technology is amazing. My plane has the Garmin G1000 panel in it. Here is a picture of the right-side display showing our position on the GPS map. If you look closely you can see the colored triangles showing which airports are reporting VFR weather conditions or not. The small blue triangles are VFR, the green triangles are Marginal VFR, the yellow triangles are IFR. Also, you can see the weather overlayed on the map. The plane is passing a line of storm clouds to our left. If we were to zoom in on the screen, you'd see the cloud boundaries more clearly. And on the left side of the screen, you can see we have the engine insturments set to "Lean Assist" mode. We're looking at the individual cylinder head & exhaust gas temps as we lean. Notice our ground speed is 129 kts and our fuel burn is 9.6 gph at that point. I normally lean for about 11.5 gph at cruise speed. . Image Unavailable, Please Login
This is what those storm clouds looked like on our left as we went around them to the right. . Image Unavailable, Please Login
Exactly. They basically say you are to "maintain VFR" as you deviate your direct course to stay a safe distance from the clouds. BTW, the pics were taken on my crappy iPhone 4. I forgot to bring my point-and-shoot camera on the trip. .
better to vector around those "pretty white clouds"... stick your nose in one for a rude awakening... they don't have any lights turned on in there and it's usually wet in there too :=)
yep, I had an awakening going to Chicago just last month, in August! Of course I was 17k, but those little pop ups have bad ice too!
This is more my kind of flying. Notice the "bad clouds" are now behind us and we have an hour or so of clear air before we go through another line of clouds you can start to see at the top of the GPS screen. All the engine gauges are "in the green" and ground speed is 142 kts (with no tail wind). You can see the winds aloft in the upper right corner at 26 kts straight from our left. Fuel burn is about 11 gph on that FFLOW gauge. And we have over 6 hours of fuel left with only 2 hours to our destination. . Image Unavailable, Please Login
Mine is not a turbo, by the way. It's a regular 2009 182T. So, at 12,500 feet, you can feel the climb performance slow down some. I bought my plane new in 2009 when I got my PP license finally. .
great plane! I never used the Turbo much because the OX was such a pain. I have my own OX refill tanks in hangar now for Columbia, so rarely fly below 16k.
Yep, I like my plane a lot. I trained in a 172 so a non-turbo 182 is an easy step up. Here is my plane on the ramp at CRE (Grand Strand Airport in Myrtle Beach, SC). . Image Unavailable, Please Login
That is the plan but I got sidetracked with my class III medical for a while. I got things figured out on those health issues so now I'm ready to start my IFR training. I don't think I'll ever be a "solid IMC down to minimums" kind of pilot but I would like to be proficient in IFR procedures and go through solid cloud layers to fly on top of them when I need to. My plane has the GFC-700 autopilot so it does a great job flying approaches. My G1000 also has the "synthetic vision" option so that is always great fun to watch. .
Thanks. They made the 182's in 3 colors in 2009: blue, red, and a golden-burnt-orange. I wanted one of the blue ones and ended up having to do a dealer trade out of Texas to get it. Here is what the red and burnt-orange ones look like. The orange ones are very rare. . Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
just like ice in a martini, you can get shaken or stirred :=) at 17k the temps are going to be freezing with a lot of shaking going on when trying to go through one, and occasionally may even have some fire in there... I find I prefer to vector around any build ups, a lot of energy can be built up waiting to let go
