Predicting the weather is hard

At least, it's hard for this region of the country. I like to say that predicting the weather for the Puget Sound region is far more an art than it is a science.

Early last week, the weather forecast was for pretty much crappy weather for the foreseeable future. However, because of the chaotic nature of the atmosphere around here, especially at this time of year, the forecast is always subject to change. As it turns out, the weather was actually nice enough last Friday afternoon (December 17) that I was able to go up for about an hour and a half. One of the reasons I went up was because I had filled the tanks after the previous flight, and I wanted to burn off some fuel in case I was able to take my father flying while we visiting from Arizona. As I'm sure I've mentioned, the weight and balance of my plane is such that I'd be over maximum weight if I had a passenger in the front seat, the required ballast in the baggage compartment to stay within the forward CG limit, and full tanks.

With that mission accomplished, it was just a matter of waiting to see if the weather would break again so I could take him flying. As it turns out, the forecast for today was for crappy weather up until yesterday, when it was updated to "mostly sunny". When I woke up this morning, the weather was as forecast, so I called my father to see if he would be able to today, since it might be the only chance the weather gives us before he heads home. Since he is not staying with me and my wife on this trip, I would go get him, go to the airport, fly, then take him back. He said that would be great, so I said I'd head out in a bit, and I'd be there in about an hour.

I took care of a couple of things and got ready. About 20 minutes after the call I walked out of the house... into thick fog. Wow. It didn't roll in, it just materialized. Generally, if it's foggy at my house, it's foggy at the airport because Harvey Field is located in the Snohomish River valley. So there was an excellent chance that the airport had become fogged in, even though the airport camera had showed it was clear about half an hour earlier.

I headed out anyway, headed north on I-5, and broke out of the fog around south Everett. I continued on to Marysville where my father was staying and picked him up. Then we headed back south to the airport. As expected, we drove back into the fog. However, when we got to the airport, it wasn't really fogged in. There was fog all around, and the ceiling was low, but the field itself was clear. Still not VFR, of course. We decided to wait and hung out in the FBO for a while. Dad sort of dozed off, and I started chatting with a young man who had recently obtained his PPL. We talked about what it's like to own an airplane, and what flight simulator application would be a good choice.

It wasn't long before the weather changed... for the worse. The fog started rolling in on the field itself. I was thinking it might be time to call it, but decided to wait a bit longer. I'm glad I did because, about noon, the fog rapidly dissipated and VFR conditions came into being. It was time to head over to the airplane and go flying.

That was the same thought that a lot of other people had at the same time. It suddenly got really busy really fast. When I finished the runup and got out onto the taxiway, there were four aircraft in front of me. When I finally got out onto the runway for takeoff, it looked like there about eight aircraft behind me.

We took off and headed out to the southeast. I had to duck under some small, low clouds before I was able to climb to a cruise altitude of 3000'. As we headed out along the river valley, we saw up ahead that there were enough low clouds that we would need to turn and head elsewhere or else we'd lose sight of the ground. So we headed north up toward Arlington and flew around up there for a while. I let my father take the controls for a time so he could once again get a feel for the airplane. He commented that it requires more effort to make control inputs compared to a 172, which is true. The controls are more firm, but when you do move them, the plane is pretty responsive.

After about an hour and a half we decided to head back. By that time, the traffic volume had decreased as folks doing pattern work had finished up, and others head headed out away from the airport like we had. I did a standard pattern entry, followed by a decent pattern, and a pretty darn good landing if I do say so myself. I asked my father if he was okay taking another trip around the pattern. He said yep, so that's what we did. After another decent pattern, and another rather good landing, we headed back to the hangar and I put the plane away.

As the day had gone on, the weather had improved. It turned out to be a beautiful day, and a beautiful flight. I'm so grateful I was once again able to take my father flying. Like I said after I took him flying earlier this year, I could lose the plane tomorrow and it would still be worth it because I was able to do that.