IFR decisions... one more tale

[Antoine]

I know, I should have listened and bought a DA42 - but here's my latest story

After spending a gorgeous week on our island (check LFEY) and meeting a few pilots there, we had to go home. Our rented apartment or any other accommodation were not available for extending and that forced us out yesterday.
I had been watching weather forecasts from Meteo France and they had declared orange level alerts for basically all of western France and yellow alerts for the central part. The alert map looked like the french flag in orange/yellow/white instead of blue/white/red.
We checked METARS and TAFs more thoroughly and found that the weather was flyable with "just" a high likelihood of bumping into a CB on the way. We have a stormscope on board and I can assure you this paid for itself.

We left the island of Yeu at 1410 in clear blue skies for a first leg of 1:45 hours to our favorite stopover, Chateauroux (LFLX) in central France. We asked for vectors to the ILS and landed in very hazy and cloudy weather.
The sky looked "electric" and one could feel the storm preparing to unfold.
When established I heard ATC vector another aircraft away from the incoming storm. Then we more or less "discovered" a CB that was already over Chateauroux-city ( a small village) and ready to sweep over the airport. No echoes on the stormscope though.
Chateauroux is a surprisingly large, almost unused airport that can accommodate military jets and training/certification of airliners, so the area is very open and it was quite a sight to watch the CB march on us.
We landed and asked for a quick refuel. The controller gave us "accelerated taxi" clearance and we almost took off on our way to the fuel station.
We were met by the first drops of rain. Too late...
Nearby were two people who had dismantled the interior of a Cesnna 340 and were hurrying to put everything back on board.
We got off the plane, the marshaller jumped on his bike and rushed to shelter. We got to the terminal seconds before all hell broke lose. The rain was unbelievable. (actually good for our plane since it had been sitting on a dusty tarmac for 1 week ). It didn't seem to stop and we had to delay our IFR departure and eating up my safety margin: our destination airport (LSGL) closes at 8 PM.

We ended up in the ops office reading books while listening to tower diverting planes away from LFLX.
It was quite amusing to hear him describe the situation. "Broken 200 ft, CB, heavy rain, wind gusts, visibility - I dont know, can't see anything from my tower - just forget about landing here man"! I was glad we were warm and dry!

Suddenly the admin manager stood up and yelped in a high pitched voice: "What the hell is that".
We looked behind us through his office window into the main terminal hall.
The ceiling was collapsing! Water was flowing and we could see big "mattresses" of glass wool dropping into the hall.
A bunch of firemen took care of this (they seemed to enjoy some workout!) but the incident did not help our timing. It was now 1730 and we needed to get out by 1800 at the latest as the leg would last 1:45 hours plus allowance for avoiding weather.

We delayed our flight plan again, got a printed confirmation and persuaded the poor ops manager to let the firemen work and help us refuel. We could not walk straight to the plane as all of the official pathways were completely drowned in huge water ponds. Eventually got there. The plane had been turned by the high winds but nothing serious.

We got very wet refueling under the last drops of rain as the skies were starting to clear and I was mentally busy preparing my plans "B and C".
In order to shorten our leg time we had changed our flight plan to Z (VFR departure) with a join point up north, while our desired heading was East. (The IFR departure would have sent us westbound!).
As we started the engine, I asked tower to expedite clearance (!) and he replied that regional ATC did not have our flight plan.
We lost another 10 minutes at the holding point, waiting for this. Eventually took off at 1805. There was absolutely no way we would go north, as the CB was busy drowning that area.
The first regional controller let us fly our eastbound route off the airways and cleared us to FL090.
I could already see that this was not enough to give us a good view of what weather we were going to punch through. I wanted to at least see the tops from time to time in order to detect CBs that were not yet active and detectable to the Stormscope.
So I had quite few tasks at hand:
1- watch Stormscope and manage GPS accordingly
2- manage engine to maximize performance and keep CHTs in check
3- negotiate with ATC
4- examine the sky and analyze the "picture" for route selection.

We got to FL090 real quick despite the plane at MTOW and were handed over to Paris - one of the busiest ATCs in France. I could hear the controller approving avoidance headings to airliners. Getting through was a challenge. but I managed somehow and we reported "perpetually unable" to go to our IFR join point.
We asked for FL120 and got it. At this point the plane's performance was becoming critical - I did not want to sacrifice airspeed too much so we stayed at 90 KTAS , but the climb rate had dropped to 300 fpm or so and we did not get the tailwinds I had expected.

We were approaching a cloud fence that was not nice looking. It went from maybe 8000 ft to 1500 ft, but the tops were ugly and I decided not to fly below in order to at least detect the nastiest ones.

807DS eventually got to FL120 and I started breathing consciously on top of all of my other tasks. The autopilot was doing its job and I was grateful for not having to compensate for the light turbulence myself.
We were doing 140 KTAS but the winds had turned against us: 45 knots of which a 10 knot headwind.

I asked ATC if he had weather radar - negative - but he said there were no known active cells on our track.
This was consistent with my weather briefing - we were supposed to have OK weather on this leg.
But ATC asked one airliner for a pirep and they reported a CB near Nevers. This sent shivers through my spine as the next VOR on our track was ... "NEV"

I could see the tops and while it did not look nice, this was not a CB. However, on our 2 o'clock heading, there was one. Difficult moment here: I weighed my info and decided the PIREP was wrong by some 50 NM and there was no threat at NEV. I prepared for an emergency maneuver to exit the clouds and pushed through.

Tension was high in the plane as my girlfriend/navigator was also hearing the many diversion requests by airliners and hearing ATC. She could read the GPS moving map and had questions...

We reduced speed and entered cloud tops (we did not have the time/oxygen to climb above)
Despite the very hot day, we were now seeing 2 degree C temps in the clouds. So I asked my copilot for "icewatch" and switched pitot heat on. The clouds turned out to be surprisingly "not bumpy" and I increased speed again.

We check the FPL page and saw our landing at 19:57 local. OOoooops. This was getting really tight.
We started discussing diversion options when we finally broke out of the cloud line.
We had hazy skies ahead and poor visibility and significant weather on the left of our route, but it now seemed ok to continue.

We asked for step down clearances and pushed power to maximize speed in a 200-300 fpm descent. This got us to FL090 at a solid 160 KTAS or so. The FPL page was happy again...

The rest of the trip was uneventful and we got home 18 minutes early. When I did customs paperwork I saw a major weather alert for ... today. Good job we got home yesterday.

We got ourselves a very nice bottle of wine for dinner, was really needed!

[Tommy]

What would the 42 have offered you that the 40 could not or did not?

[Antoine]

Hi Tommy, I guess much more climb rate at 10 K and de-icing . It was a hot summer day and we still dropped to +2 C in the clouds.

Now that you are asking the question, a supercharger would have helped here of course, but I would have needed a solid O2 solution to go on top. FL 160 would have done the trick.

[CFIDave]

What would the 42 have offered you that the 40 could not or did not?

Yes, the DA42 climb rate and TKS de-ice makes a huge difference (not to mention having O2 onboard).

Last week on the way back from California I flew from a fuel stop in Denver to St. Louis in about 3.5 hours while dodging thunderstorms and TCUs at least half the time. To stay visual between the towering cumulous and cells we (easily) climbed to 17,000 feet, but soon hit a horizontal cloud layer and started picking up ice; it was -2C at that altitude across eastern Colorado. 19,000 feet would probably have had us above the icy cloud layer, but the DA42 unfortunately isn't certified above FL180.

So after turning on the de-ice (to MAX) I called ATC and was immediately granted a descent to 13,000 feet. A few minutes later the ice-prone horizontal layer above us disappeared somewhat, and we again needed to climb back up in order to dodge and remain visual on the vertical CBs and towering CU that went much higher than 20,000 feet, so we climbed back up to 15,000 feet. ATC didn't seem to mind that we were diverting left and right to find holes we could fly through with smooth air.

Later in the flight we had to divert about 100 miles north of a line of major thunderstorms across Missouri. We again had to fly high at 17,000 feet to stay visual and avoid the surrounding cells. Unfortunately the storm was heading to our St. Louis destination, and according to what I could see on the XM satellite weather display, looked like it might beat us there. So I put the "pedal to the metal" and increased the throttle from our usual 75% power up to 85%, and with a 30 knot tailwind component we saw about 220 knots across the ground. The rain was just starting as we taxied to a tie-down.

There's no way we could have made this flight in our DA40.

[Tommy]

What would the 42 have offered you that the 40 could not or did not?

Yes, the DA42 climb rate and TKS de-ice makes a huge difference (not to mention having O2 onboard).

Last week I flew non-stop from Denver to St. Louis in about 3.5 hours while dodging thunderstorms and TCUs at least half the time. To stay visual between the towering cumulous and cells we (easily) climbed to 17,000 feet, but soon hit a horizontal cloud layer and started picking up ice; it was -2C at that altitude across eastern Colorado. 19,000 feet would probably have had us above the icy cloud layer, but the DA42 unfortunately isn't certified above FL180.

So after turning on the de-ice (to MAX) I called ATC and was immediately granted a descent to 13,000 feet. A few minutes later the ice-prone horizontal layer above us disappeared somewhat, and we again needed to climb back up in order to dodge and remain visual on the vertical CBs and towering CU that went much higher than 20,000 feet, so we climbed back up to 15,000 feet.

Later in the flight we had to divert about 100 miles north of a line of major thunderstorms across Missouri. We again had to fly high at 17,000 feet to stay visual and avoid the surrounding cells. Unfortunately the storm was heading to our St. Louis destination, and according to what I could see on the XM satellite weather display, looked like it might beat us there. So I put the "pedal to the metal" and increased the throttle from our usual 75% power up to 85%, and with a 30 knot tailwind component we saw about 220 knots across the ground. The rain was just starting as we taxied to a tie-down.

There's no way we could have made this flight in our DA40.

I was being flight specific. Specifically Antoine's flight.

[Antoine]

If I had had the time (in the schedule) and power to climb further, and the oxygen to cope with it, I would have done it. If I had done it I would have certainly hit the remaining tops now and then and needed de-ice.

But it is somewhat frustrating to hear that even with a DA42-VI, you could no longer climb to FL 190. (Dave, why didn't you do it? I mean as the PIC you could have legitimately said "for safety reasons I may not go down through this icing layer and it is preferable to bend the law for 60 seconds". There was no material risk and it was only a paperwork-related breach. Just curious...

My flight had me thinking a lot. I need to find a way to revive my oxygen solution:
It has let me down twice (someone accidentally opened the supply a little and it was empty when I needed it and
We have a horribly expensive refill solution ($ 110 for a refill and this is a really small bottle).
Will check if it makes sense to own a medical O2 bottle plus the hardware... Jean: help, I need your insight on this one.

The other thing that I need to consider is the supercharger. I wonder what is happening and why Rod has not arrived with a big "tadaa" yet. You did make a downpayment in Tommy, right? Any news from Rod?

[Aart]

Antoine,

As to oxygen, check scuba-diving outfits, although I don't know if there are any at Lac Leman..
Better yet, go to a local blacksmith. I am fortunate to know one in my village and I really have to make an effort to pay him. O2 in a welding bottle costs really very little he tells me, and I don't think that 'medical' O2 brings anything. Else I guess I would have noticed by now..

[Tommy]

Antoine, I get my O2 from a welders supply house and have been for years. Read the following article from John Deakin.http://www.avweb.com/news/pelican/18207 ... directed=1
I have had two normal size welding cylinders (I don't know how much they hold. They stand about 5' high and about 10 inches in diameter.) last me for two or three years depending on use. I have the "Mountain High O2D2 delivery system with composite cylinders. http://www.mhoxygen.com/index.php/portable-pulse-demand As far as the "supercharger" goes, I have been in contact with Rod on a monthly sometimes bimonthly basis regarding progress. Suffice to say there have been numerous setbacks all of them by the FAA from what I can see. The "supercharger" is definitely on the near horizon and will become reality in months and not years barring any more gov stupidity. I have put my $10,000.00 deposit down well over a year ago, I don't exactly remember when. I am patiently waiting and hope to make my trip out to Colorado for the install before the snow flies or gets to deep this year. It's going to happen.

[Antoine]

Thank you Tommy, very useful.
Wishing Rod luck and patience...

[CFIDave]

But it is somewhat frustrating to hear that even with a DA42-VI, you could no longer climb to FL 190. (Dave, why didn't you do it? I mean as the PIC you could have legitimately said "for safety reasons I may not go down through this icing layer and it is preferable to bend the law for 60 seconds". There was no material risk and it was only a paperwork-related breach. Just curious...

There were 2 reasons I didn't climb to 19,000 feet to avoid the ice:
- For legal reasons: the aircraft isn't certified for that altitude (although if it were really an emergency I would not have hesitated to fly higher). The plane would have quickly climbed to that altitude.
- I didn't have O2 masks in the cabin at the time; we were using cannulas. There's a rule somewhere that says you can only use cannulas up to 18,000 feet; above that you need a mask to maintain sufficient O2 saturation rates. (Our plane with built-in O2 system actually shipped from Diamond with a single mask with built-in microphone.) I wasn't ready to experiment to see if a cannula would work OK at 19,000 feet.

As an aside, I bought an adapter/regulator from Mountain High for about $250 that permits the portable Mountain High O2D2 pulse-demand "black box" (which I previously used with our DA40) to attach to any of the 4 built-in O2 outlets of the DA42; 2 people can then attach the Mountain High cannulas or masks to the O2D2 box.

This pulse-demand system makes the DA42's built-in 50 cubic foot tank last much longer, and even better, the Mountain High system automatically adjusts the O2 levels to match your altitude as you climb and descend. We always saw better than 90% O2 saturation rates (measuring with a pulse oxymeter on your fingertip) at any altitude.

And with 2 people and the Mountain High system we made it both ways across the US coast-coast, usually flying at 16,000 westbound/17,000 feet eastbound with a single fill of the DA42's O2 tank.