EAA Sport Aviation - August 2011

making “preflight” plans because I was not yet to the line of weather, or was I making “in-flight” weather plans? Those satellites above were making FAR 91. 103 very obsolete.

I have spent a lot of time flying over the Great Plains in thunderstorm season, and just like those guys in the DC-3s 70 years ago, I have learned that lower is better over this flat land. Heck, maybe even the guys struggling across the Plains in tri-motors learned the same thing. When thunderstorms are over the Plains, the visibility outside of the rain shafts is usually very good so you can dodge the cells visually rather than getting your brains kicked in flying along in the bottoms of the clouds associated with the storms.

As I approached the now-broken area
of the line I was still in the clear.
Minneapolis granted my request for
4,000 feet, and that got me below the
bases for a time. As I flew into Sioux City
terminal airspace the approach
controllers there could clear me down to
3,000 feet, and I was again just below the
bases and cleared to deviate around the
rain shafts. By the time I got to Norfolk a
thunderstorm had moved on a few miles
to the north, and I landed in a gusty north
wind behind the cell.