Post by Joe on May 27, 2011 20:01:02 GMT -5
My wife has never been a flyer. She tried it once several years ago and though she gutted it out for 15 minutes she'd had all she wanted. This weekend her niece was playing in the Kansas HS softball playoffs in Salina. My wife was motivated to go so we planned for me to drop her off then go back a day or two later to get her.
The weather here is predominately west to east, as it was today. A line of minor storms blew through late morning and there was a high overcast here and very light rain. Salina looked good. It appeared to be better weather the farther west you went. Salina is Class D and has both METAR and TAF reporting, but there's practically nothing in between except for the automated at Emporia, about halfway there.
We were only flying at 2500 to start; I wanted her to get used to things. This time around she was loving it. She was talking so much I had to shush her a time or two to hear the radio.
We weren't 30 miles into Kansas when the OVC began to gradually drop and push me down and I steped us down in 100ft increments until we were cruising at 2000 and occasionally busting up skuds. I was too low to receive the Emporia ASOS yet. We went on to Coffey County and I landed to get a weather update and write down some frequencies on my map.
I'd reckon that the boundary between the Mississipi River Basin and the Rocky Mountain foothills lies somewhere not too far west of Emporia. You start seeing some terrain both on the charts and out the windshield, even though it is only 1100ft MSL there. I think my wife was having a little trouble wrapping her brain around the idea that though the clouds weren't really getting any lower, the terrain beneath is was rising gradually.
About 10-15 miles to the far side of Emporia, after flying along at 900 ft. AGL for way too long, I bagged it and did a 180. We kept thinking we'd break into whatever weather they were enjoying at the softball tournament, but we had 70nm to go and low clouds all around. I had, in the end, told my wife that if we got up to a certain change in the vegetation ahead a few miles, and there was no improvement, it was time to head back. She wanted to soldier on.
She stayed really really quit for quite a while and talked about not flying again, that too many things had to go right to actually get anywhere, etc. She sure seemed to really like looking down out of that window, though, so maybe I hooked her after all.
The weather here is predominately west to east, as it was today. A line of minor storms blew through late morning and there was a high overcast here and very light rain. Salina looked good. It appeared to be better weather the farther west you went. Salina is Class D and has both METAR and TAF reporting, but there's practically nothing in between except for the automated at Emporia, about halfway there.
We were only flying at 2500 to start; I wanted her to get used to things. This time around she was loving it. She was talking so much I had to shush her a time or two to hear the radio.
We weren't 30 miles into Kansas when the OVC began to gradually drop and push me down and I steped us down in 100ft increments until we were cruising at 2000 and occasionally busting up skuds. I was too low to receive the Emporia ASOS yet. We went on to Coffey County and I landed to get a weather update and write down some frequencies on my map.
I'd reckon that the boundary between the Mississipi River Basin and the Rocky Mountain foothills lies somewhere not too far west of Emporia. You start seeing some terrain both on the charts and out the windshield, even though it is only 1100ft MSL there. I think my wife was having a little trouble wrapping her brain around the idea that though the clouds weren't really getting any lower, the terrain beneath is was rising gradually.
About 10-15 miles to the far side of Emporia, after flying along at 900 ft. AGL for way too long, I bagged it and did a 180. We kept thinking we'd break into whatever weather they were enjoying at the softball tournament, but we had 70nm to go and low clouds all around. I had, in the end, told my wife that if we got up to a certain change in the vegetation ahead a few miles, and there was no improvement, it was time to head back. She wanted to soldier on.
She stayed really really quit for quite a while and talked about not flying again, that too many things had to go right to actually get anywhere, etc. She sure seemed to really like looking down out of that window, though, so maybe I hooked her after all.
