AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2021 - 78

The non-instrument-rated pilot decided to push
through the weather. If he made it to the other
side, where the weather improved significantly,
he'd be to his destination in less than an hour to
start his vacation.
Even though the weather
in Davenport was VFR, conditions along the route of flight
were marginal and the forecast
was for worsening conditions,
IFR with widely scattered thunderstorms-a fact the pilot was
possibly unaware of since there is
no record that he obtained a thorough weather briefing through
flight service or other aviation
weather sources.
Bonanza N1804E departed
Davenport at 9:42 a.m., climbed
to a VFR cruising altitude of 5,500
feet, and headed south.
THE FLIGHT

The 69-year-old, non-instrumentrated private pilot had flown for
more than 20 years and accrued
about 725 hours. Of that, 71 hours
were simulated instrument and 16
were actual instrument, for a total of
just more than 85 instrument hours
logged. But it had been a while since
he'd done any flying either under
the hood or in the soup-his last
logged simulated time was years
before, 1.6 hours between 2005 and
2009, with his most recent actual
time in April 2000.
The airplane was equipped
with a portable Garmin GPS
receiver and an Appareo Stratus 2S
ADS-B receiver. A Stratus provides
in-flight weather information via
the government's free groundbased system, Flight Information
System-Broadcast (FIS-B) and
is compatible with ForeFlight
Mobile, which the pilot had on his
iPad. That morning, the pilot used
ForeFlight to access the Extended
78 | AOPA PILOT May 2021

Convective Forecast Products,
but there's no evidence that he
checked anything else like the
TAF, area forecast, or notams.
The flight began smoothly, and
the pilot picked up VFR flight following. At 11:06 a.m., Kansas City
called N04E with information
about the weather:
" And zero-four-echo, area
of moderate-type precipitation
twelve o'clock, two-zero miles,
area is gonna extend, ah, at least
five-five miles on your route of
flight. "
" Is there any uh, any bad stuff?
You know, any thunderstorms in
there? " the pilot asked.
" I can't show whether or not
thunderstorms, " the controller
said. " It just tells me precipitation
and it is indicating moderate and
heavy. "
" OK, what's the tops? " the
pilot continued, perhaps hoping
he could climb over it.
" I don't have the tops reports,
zero-four-echo. "
" OK I might want to go up to
seventy-five hundred. "
" Zero-four-echo roger, maintain VFR, altitude your discretion. "
Undeterred by the report of a
band of moderate and heavy precipitation, 55 miles deep and less
than 20 miles away, tops unknown,
the pilot continued on a southbound heading, hoping his change
in altitude would allow him to get
to Muscle Shoals.
As the Bonanza approached
Kentucky, now at 7,500 feet, the
band of precipitation between
him and Muscle Shoals required

him to alter his route. Through
the next several sectors, controllers assisted the pilot. First, they
guided him east toward a VOR
that would keep him north of the
precip. At 11:30 and after several
vectors to avoid the weather, the
pilot asked ATC, now Evansville
Approach, for the conditions at
nearby Tradewater Airport (8M7)
in Dawson Springs, Kentucky.
The controller said he could look
up those conditions, and also said
that it looked better to the south.
The pilot continued.
The pilot then asked about
the weather at nearby Sturgis
Municipal Airport (TWT) in
Sturgis, Kentucky. The controller informed him that the airport
was closed, but since he was VFR,
he could head that way under his
own risk-only the taxiways were
closed, not the actual runway. The
pilot declined. The weather continued to deteriorate, and the pilot
had descended from 7,500 feet to
around 3,000 feet msl (about 2,500
feet agl), to contend with lowering ceilings, which were falling as
forecast. Time to divert was running out.
FINAL CHOICE

At 11:41, Evansville handed the
Bonanza off to Fort Campbell.
" Evansville said that you guys
might want to land somewhere, "
said the controller after N04E
checked in.
" Yeah, uh, we're gonna hold
[unintelligible] for this weather I
guess. "
Fort Campbell suggested
nearby Outlaw Field (CKV) in
Clarksville, Tennessee, which had
the enticing promise of a full-service FBO, 8 miles visibility, and a
ceiling of 1,100 feet agl.
" Alright we'll see if we can do
that, " said the pilot, who began his
diversion at 11:46 a.m.
Two minutes later the pilot
changed his mind. It seemed that
his onboard weather presented
AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2021

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