Category Archives: Trips

State #49 (New Mexico) and Vegas

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After spending entirely too much time in China during the past month,  I was finally able to squeeze in a good IFR x-country trip.  There was a meeting in Vegas that I wanted to attend and conveniently New Mexico was sort of on the way 😉

The routing was fairly direct, as you can see below:

I could  have done the journey with 2 stops.  But instead, I chose an extra halt so that I could stop @ familiar places where I knew the FBO hospitality was good and the gas was cheap.  Both TVR and DUA fit that purpose.
 
Along the way, the weather was perfect… Well almost perfect… Most of the journey was clear, blue sky.  However, there was one line of ugly weather that I had to cross.  As you can see below, there was just no good way around it.

So I used all of the enroute weather info I could get from ATC, Flight Service and the onboard  R9 weather.  Then I used the vector mode of R9 to dodge and weave through the line.
In the end, I encountered only moderate rain and light chop.
Aside from that brief weather encounter, the rest of the journey till New Mexico was uneventful. 

As far as New Mexico, I wanted to land somewhere in the northern part of the state so that it wouldn’t be too far out of the way.  So I decided to stop @ Tucumcari, NM.  It was a rather spartan airport with quite a bit of construction going on.  But it was still a good rest stop and more importantly the official 49th state! 

 

After NM, the final leg to Las Vegas turned out to be the truly memorable part of the trip for a couple of reasons.  

First, I was able to fly directly over the Grand Canyon, which is a restricted special flight rules area.  This was due to a friendly ATC controller from Denver Center who was willing to work out a clearance for me.  The views were awesome!  You can see some of the pix in the album below:

The second reason this leg was memorable was the “excitement” of the approach into Las Vegas.  When I was ~ 30 miles out, I requested the GPS 30L approach to North Las Vegas.  ATC was quite busy and basically said “NO… Go Away”.  In fairness, ATC was a bit more polite than that, and since the weather was clear, I was not concerned.  But the troubling part was that ATC wouldn’t give me a clearance to descend until the very last minute.  I was ~ 12 miles away from the airport and still level @ 10,000 FT!
At that point, ATC asked me “IF cleared for the visual approach to 30L via the left downwind, could I make it without having to do a 360″.  With the most confident radio voice I could muster, I said “Affirmative”.  After ATC gave me the official clearance, I pulled the power to idle, applied full right rudder and did what felt like a “nose dive”.  With a descent rate of ~2000+ FT/Min I aimed for the midfield point of the left downwind!
While I have practiced emergency descents before, this was the first time it felt real. I was at idle power almost the entire way to a full stop landing!  Unfortunately, it happened so quickly, I didn’t get a chance to setup the cameras to capture the amazing view of the strip as you land.
In fact, when I was on final, I contemplated declaring a missed approach just so that I could circle around and take some pics… But I decided not to, thinking that might be a bit rude to ATC 😉  
 
Next time, I guess I will need to setup the cameras before takeoff!

Cheers,
== T.J.==

Shaking Off the Rust / Test Flight

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Last week I returned from China and was planning to go a for a joyride with a fellow pilot named Ron, who was visiting town from Atlanta.
This flight was a multi-purpose mission:
First, and most important, I wanted to “shake off the rust” after 2 1/2 weeks of zero hours in the logbook.
Second, it is always fun to go for a joyride over Tampa Bay with a fellow pilot.  I was planning to fly over Clearwater Beach and shoot some approaches @ Sarasota and St Petersburg.
Third, I wanted to test out the new Lopresti “Ice-Skates”.
No … the “Ice-Skates” don’t let me land on ice… However, they allegedly add a “few” knots to your cruise speed and they also provide a cool little door that lets you get access to your tires.  This is such a simple modification, I have always been surprised that Cirrus didn’t make this a standard feature of all SR22s.  You can see the finished product (sans decals) below:

Ron and I got to the airport shortly after lunch.  I called from the car to have the line guys pull the plane out and have it ready right in front of the terminal.  (I know that sounds lazy… But I usually do this when I have passengers)  When we arrived, the first important task was to update the R9 charts/GPS.  While that was running,  I conducted the usual preflight.  Everything looked in order and we climbed in ready to go…
Unfortunately, “Murphy” had other ideas!  The plane simply would not start!!
Ugg… The only good thing was that I was at home base and Jonathan from Leading Edge was able to come over and quickly diagnose that I had a bad Mag 🙁
So my test flight was delayed for a couple of days… 🙁
A few days later, I finally got to take the test flight.  This time I was alone and being even more cautious than usual.  On the ground, I did 2 full mag checks and everything checked out perfectly.  Then after a simple take off, I climbed north of Zephyr Hills and leveled off @ 3500 FT.  Winds were 210@22 and I decided to do an in-flight mag check, which also checked out fine!
Confident that the plane was in good working order, I decided to check out the Ice Skate performance.  I climbed up to ~ 11,500 FT and leveled off at a typical cruise configuration.  Usually, this would yield between 175 – 180 knots.  However, the winds were now 240 @ 34.  Given the winds, I couldn’t figure out if the Ice Skates really helped or not.  So I guess that will need to be another test flight on a calm wind day.
With all tests complete, it was time to practice a little… I did a couple of 360s, slow flight and then did a couple of GPS approaches into Lakeland.  This time I wanted to play with the GPS features of the Contour camera and I think I have finally figured it out!  Haven’t had to time to edit the video yet… But hopefully in the next couple of days.

Cheers,
== T.J.==

Tough Start To A Very EZ Journey

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This week’s mission was to go from Tampa,FL to Danbury, CT, which is a perfect mission for an SR22 with one fuel stop.  
 
Surprisingly, the weather forecast was beautiful everywhere along the route except Florida.  Usually, it is the other way around.  So I was expecting a takeoff in moderate / heavy rain, which is OK.  (I don’t mind rainy takeoffs.)  But I was dreading the preflight in the rain.  
 
I left the plane in the hanger while I did all the usual checks.  At this point, one of the Tampa Exec line guys (Nathan), really went out of his way to help me and made the preflight as good as it could have gotten under the circumstances. 

After fuel and oil, Nathan towed me out of the hanger with me sitting nice and dry in the cockpit! Just when I thought the service couldn’t get any better,  Nathan parked my car in the hanger, closed the hanger door and brought me my keys!!!

As I sat in the cockpit getting ready to startup, I was feeling really spoiled. 

Then a dose of reality struck…

While trying to start up, I must have used a bit too much primer and flooded the engine.  Ugh!!

As I have mentioned before, starting an SR22 is a bit of an art.  Even after a 1000 Cirrus hours, I still feel my starts are less than elegant.  Usually, it is only tricky with hot starts….But for the first time, I screwed up a perfectly normal, cold start.

After waiting ~ 20 mins, I tried again with much better results.  The plane growled and came to life right away!

The takeoff was exactly as advertised on the ATIS, which meant heavy rain, low ceilings and a generally bumpy climb out. 

Since I already posted a very similar YouTube video of a rainy takeoff, I didn’t even bother setting up the video equipment this time.

During the climb-out, the weather onscreen looked awful:

But by the time I leveled off @ 17000 FT, I was above all the rain and clouds.  The rest of the trip to NC was totally smooth with not a single cloud or bump!  In fact, ATC was so quiet, I did a few radio checks just to make sure the radios were working.  I could have really used a flight attendant serving drinks and an in flight movie 😉

As I approached Duplin County, the Wilmington Approach ATC controller also went out of his way to help me.  He asked ” Where was I going after getting fuel @ KDPL? And did I want an onward clearance?”
 
This shocked me! He gave me a full clearance, including a squawk code and a frequency for my second leg.  I thanked him, cancelled my flight plan, and made a very easy landing in NC in calm winds and 10 miles visibility.
 
After fuel and a quick turn, my next leg was even smoother and in clear, blue skies.
Washington center laughed at my direct routing and gave me  a typical Northeast clearance with 3 victor airways and 6 fixes.  Luckily it was close to a direct routing and the weather was so nice, I didn’t notice the time go by.
As I was getting close to Danbury, I got some great views of the Hudson River and even the IBM office in Somers, NY, which you can see below:

IBM Somers Office

So what started out as a tough journey ended up being extremely easy!
The weather forecast does not look as promising for the trip home … 

Hmmm… Might need to take a creative detour home!
 
Cheers,
== T.J.==

Fuel Planning Over The Gulf

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Last weekend was a perfect example of why you must “get good” at flight planning while enroute.

I planned a simple direct flight over the gulf at 16000 FT from Tampa, FL to Galveston, TX.
Conventional wisdom says you do your flight planning on the ground and then simply execute in the cockpit.  It sounds simple … But that rarely seems to work for me.  There are frequently “surprises” enroute that I never seem to be able to predict in advance.

The flight planning on the ground looked quite promising.  The weather was clear and the winds aloft were quite tame along the route (210@10kts)  According to my calculations, the flight should have taken 4hours 9 mins.  This would allow me to land with comfortably more than 1 hour and 51 minutes of fuel to spare, which is about 30 gallons.

Since the weather and fuel looked good, I began my usual preflight.  However, because  this was a flight over the Gulf of Mexico, I took a couple of extra precautions.  First, I made sure my lifejacket was within easy reach. Second, I made sure my Personal locator beacon (PLB) was in my pocket and ready to go.

Shortly after takeoff, things started to change.  Tampa approach was dealing with a lot of traffic in the class B. As a result, my clearance was a bit inconvenient with a heading of 090, followed by several painfully slow heading changes before I was heading westbound. After I leveled off @ 16k FT, I rechecked the fuel projections on R9 and found it predicting 25 gals @ destination.

No problem… (My personal minimum is anything greater than 20) … So far so good …

Then Miami center said the dreaded words “We have an amendment to your routing, advise when ready to copy”.

Uggg… The new routing was direct Seminole (SZW), direct Crestview (CEW) direct destination.

After refreshing the fuel calcs in the R9, it showed 19gals @ destination… This was not good! I have read so many accident/incident reports where pilots “stretched” personal minimums only to realize later that this was part of the accident chain.

I decided if it didn’t improve above 20 by 1 hour from destination, I would divert.  But I still had plenty of time.  In the meantime, I reduced power to 65% to try to conserve fuel.

After about 20 mins, I found myself in and out of a thin cloud deck and facing increased headwinds (240@33).  No immediate danger… But fuel status was now getting worse and the R9 was now predicting 14 gals @ destination.

So I pulled up Foreflight on the iPad and started looking for a place to divert in Louisiana. In addition, I reduced power further to 60% to conserve even more fuel.

I also tried to be clever and “use ATC’s help” to conserve fuel.  Every time I got handed off to a new ATC controller, I asked for “a shortcut of 10 to 20 degrees.  This worked remarkably well.  Before I knew it, the R9 was predicting 21 gals@ destination!

But my optimism was short-lived.  The headwinds picked up to 244@42kts.

Now the R9 showed 18 gals @ destination 🙁

That did it, time to divert… Houma,Louisiana looked like a good spot.  I told myself 50 miles from Houma would be the decision point to change my IFR flight and start a descent.

Miraculously the winds died down before then and I was able to press on to my destination.

When I landed in Galveston, the R9 reported 20.7 gallons remaining! phew!!

I parked right next to a beautiful Citation CJ2 and a friendly lineman, named Eric, rolled out the red carpet for me!

After a wonderful flight, I am more convinced than ever, that flight planning enroute is an even more important skill than planning on the ground.

Thank goodness that there are cockpit gadgets that let us do that!

Unfortunately, with all the fretting over fuel, I forgot to take pictures!!

(Have to make up for that on my next flight)

Cheers,
== T.J.==

Fuel Planning Over The Gulf

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Last weekend was a perfect example of why you must “get good” at flight planning while enroute.

I planned a simple direct flight over the gulf at 16000 FT from Tampa, FL to Galveston, TX.
Conventional wisdom says you do your flight planning on the ground and then simply execute in the cockpit.  It sounds simple … But that rarely seems to work for me.  There are frequently “surprises” enroute that I never seem to be able to predict in advance.

The flight planning on the ground looked quite promising.  The weather was clear and the winds aloft were quite tame along the route (210@10kts)  According to my calculations, the flight should have taken 4hours 9 mins.  This would allow me to land with comfortably more than 1 hour and 51 minutes of fuel to spare, which is about 30 gallons.

Since the weather and fuel looked good, I began my usual preflight.  However, because  this was a flight over the Gulf of Mexico, I took a couple of extra precautions.  First, I made sure my lifejacket was within easy reach. Second, I made sure my Personal locator beacon (PLB) was in my pocket and ready to go.

Shortly after takeoff, things started to change.  Tampa approach was dealing with a lot of traffic in the class B. As a result, my clearance was a bit inconvenient with a heading of 090, followed by several painfully slow heading changes before I was heading westbound. After I leveled off @ 16k FT, I rechecked the fuel projections on R9 and found it predicting 25 gals @ destination.

No problem… (My personal minimum is anything greater than 20) … So far so good …

Then Miami center said the dreaded words “We have an amendment to your routing, advise when ready to copy”.

Uggg… The new routing was direct Seminole (SZW), direct Crestview (CEW) direct destination.

After refreshing the fuel calcs in the R9, it showed 19gals @ destination… This was not good! I have read so many accident/incident reports where pilots “stretched” personal minimums only to realize later that this was part of the accident chain.

I decided if it didn’t improve above 20 by 1 hour from destination, I would divert.  But I still had plenty of time.  In the meantime, I reduced power to 65% to try to conserve fuel.

After about 20 mins, I found myself in and out of a thin cloud deck and facing increased headwinds (240@33).  No immediate danger… But fuel status was now getting worse and the R9 was now predicting 14 gals @ destination.

So I pulled up Foreflight on the iPad and started looking for a place to divert in Louisiana. In addition, I reduced power further to 60% to conserve even more fuel.

I also tried to be clever and “use ATC’s help” to conserve fuel.  Every time I got handed off to a new ATC controller, I asked for “a shortcut of 10 to 20 degrees.  This worked remarkably well.  Before I knew it, the R9 was predicting 21 gals@ destination!

But my optimism was short-lived.  The headwinds picked up to 244@42kts.

Now the R9 showed 18 gals @ destination 🙁

That did it, time to divert… Houma,Louisiana looked like a good spot.  I told myself 50 miles from Houma would be the decision point to change my IFR flight and start a descent.

Miraculously the winds died down before then and I was able to press on to my destination.

When I landed in Galveston, the R9 reported 20.7 gallons remaining! phew!!

I parked right next to a beautiful Citation CJ2 and a friendly lineman, named Eric, rolled out the red carpet for me!

After a wonderful flight, I am more convinced than ever, that flight planning enroute is an even more important skill than planning on the ground.

Thank goodness that there are cockpit gadgets that let us do that!

Unfortunately, with all the fretting over fuel, I forgot to take pictures!!

(Have to make up for that on my next flight)

Cheers,
== T.J.==

Ribbon Cutting Flight In A Cub

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On the way home from Lansing, I decided to make a pit stop @ Dayton Wright Brothers airport.  Partly out of necessity (because I needed one fuel stop between Lansing and Tampa).  But more significantly, it was a great excuse to meetup with a fellow pilot blogger named Steve from the Mile of Runway blog.
 
As often happens when pilots get together, we found an excuse to go for a joyride in “his” Piper Cub.
I say “his” because it is one of several planes that he rents regularly and the one that I was most intrigued by.  This particular plane was a 1946 Piper Cub (NC98286) with 85HP and the most spartan panel I had ever seen!
When I saw this, I was excited to try a pure “stick and rudder” experience in this vintage airplane.  There was no paved runway, no radio, no transponder, no electrical system.  We even wore earplugs instead of headsets!As you can see, I sat in the front seat because the pilot in command typically sits in the back in a cub.

Shortly after takeoff, Steve performed a number of maneuvers that I found rather impressive since he was doing it from the backseat and probably couldn’t even see the instruments.  He later told me “… In a Cub the instruments are not that important because you feel your way around“!

As we were cruising along at 60-70 knots @ low altitude, I felt like I was enjoying the raw essence of flight in much the same way barnstormers did decades ago.  Then out of the blue, Steve gave me quite a surprise, which you can see in the pic below:

He held up a roll of Toilet paper and said “Wanna try ribbon cutting?”. I enthusiastically yelled “YES” Since we didn’t have headsets, I also gave  him 2 thumbs up in case he didn’t hear me.  We then climbed up to ~ 3000 Ft and he tossed the roll out the door, which had been wide open for the whole flight.

We then did a very smooth, spiraling dive to the left and clipped what looked like a white streamer with the right wing! It was more cool than I could possibly describe in words and something I could never do in a Cirrus!!

After that, we made our way back to Red Stewart airfield for a wild landing . I say wild because with no radio and no ATIS, we did (well… really Steve did) a mid field left downwind entry followed by a very steep forward slip to a nice, smooth landing on the turf.  It was wild for me… But Steve later told me that it was a rather typical approach in the cub.

Overall, a wonderful flight experience and one that makes it onto my Top 10 list!

Cheers,
== T.J.==

Migration 9 Trip Summary

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I have finally arrived in Colorado Springs and the journey was quite amazing!

It is hard to summarize a 4200 mile trip.   (But here goes…)

Some of it what was “as expected ” ; Some of it reinforced how flexible you need to be on a journey like this. Between weather, customs formalities, spotty radar, icing, even the exact route was not as planned.  You can see the “planned vs actual” route below:

The blue line was the planned route.  The magenta line was the actual route.  As you can see, I tried to follow my plan.  But needed to make lots of adjustments along the way.
 
On my first leg from Tampa to Hopkinsville, KY, the weather in the picture below forced me to do an enroute diversion to Shelbyville,TN:

I landed and topped off minutes before it started pouring!

After the storm passed, I continued to Sioux Falls, SD where I did my first overnight.
The next day started mostly as planned Sioux Falls,SD > Bismarck, ND > Glasgow, MT.

As I made my final Preparations to enter Canadian airspace, the Canadian authorities (Canpass) informed me that the Kamloops customs was “Closed for the day” So I had to pick an alternate destination and chose Kelowna, British Columbia.

With a new destination, I entered Canadian airspace for the first time to find more surprises. While crossing the Rockies, Edmonton ATC informed me that radar coverage would be “lost over the Rockies”, which was not very comforting!  They gave me a frequency and told me to “try calling Vancouver” in ~ 30-45 minutes.

 
Luckily, the weather was good and of course the view over the Rockies was breathtaking.
(I am still trying to sort through the pix to make a Picassa album.)
 
Kelowna turned out to be a wonderful destination.  The  airport is rather  unique due to the terrain.  It is in a valley, which causes you to fly an unusual approach with a fairly steep descent. (Still working on editing that video)
The next day I flew to Ketchikan, Alaska, which was a very challenging flight.   Canadian ATC instructions/phraseology is just a little different than the US.  But I managed several surprise instructions and even a last minute approach change and had an incredible landing, which is shown in the video below:

After that landing (and enjoying Alaskan hospitality and seafood), I thought that Ketchikan would be the highlight of the journey.  But after a couple of more states, the real highlight of the trip materialized in Leadville, CO.  Lake County Airport in Leadville, CO is the highest airport in North America @ 9927 MSL.  I landed there on a precision approach with a “circle to land” into an 18 KT headwind Gusting to 28 KTs, (Perhaps NOTmy most elegant landing… But certainly  one of the most difficult and satisfying landings I had done in a long time.  
 
As you can see from the pic below, they really do issue certificates for landing there!!

After Leadville, a short 20 minute flight to Colorado Springs and I was warmly greeted by the staff of Colorado Jet Center.  So after this incredible journey, I am now ready for the main event (Migration 9), which is scheduled to start tomorrow morning.
 
Cheers,
== T.J.==

The Scenic Route to M9

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As some of you know, this  week is the 9th annual Cirrus migration, known as M9.  While not as big as Osh Kosh or Sun N Fun, it is the biggest Cirrus event of the year.  This year, M9 is being held in Colorado Springs.  Cirrus pilots from around the country (and even a few from other countries) will be by flying their aircraft into KCOS for the event.

I wanted to make the journey to M9 memorable by taking a scenic route to get there.  In addition, this was a great excuse to work on my 50 state quest.  You can see my planned route in the video clip below:

It might be a bit ambitious… But this route should include stops in 7 new states and even a FIRST venture into Canadian airspace!

But every experienced pilot I spoke to about it, warned me that a trip like this requires a few things:
1. Detailed planning about routes, alternate routes, procedures, etc
2. A well maintained and prepared aircraft.
3. Flexibility DURING the flight

As a result, I’ve been planning for weeks…  Looking at lots of charts… Making sure the plane was in perfect shape in terms of maintenance.  Much to the surprise of the line crew in Tampa, I even  made sure the TKS de-ice fluid was full while  it was 95 degrees on the ramp in Tampa!

I am really trying to follow the advice …. We will see at the end of the week how it goes…

You can follow along in near real time on Flight Aware …. Or just wait till later this week to see my next post…(Hopefully I should be able to get some cool pix along the way.)

Cheers,
== T.J.==

 

White Plains and NYC Skyline

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I spent this week in NY, specifically in White Plains, which is just on the northern edge of the New York Class B airspace frenzy.  But more importantly, it is also the home of IBM Flight Operations.  The IBM fleet consists of a number of aircraft, including Gulfstream 550s, Falcon 200s and even helicopters.  As you can imagine, they have an enormous hanger to house this little fleet.
As you can see above, I was lucky in enough to arrange a tiny corner of the hanger to call home for the week.  In the photo below, you can see me with the CEO’s G550 in the background. 

Actually, the G550 is such an enormous and impressive plane, that my Cirrus could have fit under the wing.

Even more than the aircraft, the IBM Flight Operations staff are really impressive!  They have several dozen staff on the crew and they run a “mini airline” with everything from full maintenance, avionics work, to catering, planning, dispatch etc.  The entire crew showed me some incredible hospitality this week, which I truly appreciate!

The night before my trip home, I wanted to do a “fly-by” of the NYC skyline along the Hudson River.  I had read about this scenic route in numerous magazines and was eager to experience it firsthand.  There is an FAA procedure that has been established for this route that is very simple to follow.

Even though the procedure is not complicated, I went with a friend (Steve), who is a local pilot.  This gave me a safety pilot on board.  In addition, it gave me an extra set of eyes for traffic and another photographer on board.
If you have the opportunity to try the Hudson Corridor, I highly recommend it… The camera simply doesn’t do it justice!Cheers,

== T.J.==

The Art Of Flying IFR

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This week was another long  x-country that got me thinking about the “art of flying IFR”.
The route is shown below:

The map is not zoomed in enough to tell… But this routes goes through LOTS of  special use airspace along the way, including military operating areas, restricted areas, the dreaded Washington DC SFRA, and perhaps worst of all, the very congested New York airspace.  
 
Since  getting my instrument ticket, approximately  75% of my flying is in the IFR system ; another 20% with some type of VFR ATC services and the rest is just random joyrides.

However, what I learned during my instrument training was focused on the mechanics and legalities.  It didn’t cover the nuances of using the IFR system well.  Today’s flight was a perfect example of these nuances.

When I left Tampa, the weather was perfect (winds calm,  clear below 12000).  The first leg was heading to Farmville, VA, where the weather was also looking good.  But in between, most of South Carolina had lots of ugly weather.

So I knew I would need IFR… But not right away.  Instead of filing from Tampa to Farmville, I filed from Ocala to Orange County, VA with a departure time of ~  30 minutes after my real departure time.

I took off VFR from Tampa and headed northbound direct to my destination at a leisurely 400 fpm climb.  According to the R9 FMS, that would keep me under the Tampa class B.  After passing the class B, I increased the climb rate to ~ 900 fpm and called Jacksonville Approach to pick up my IFR.  This little trick avoided the usual eastbound, step climb that Tampa usually assigns when getting clearance from the ground.

After leveling off at 17000 FT, I was listening intently for other aircraft heading northbound to try visualize the deviations they were making.

As I approached the weather in south Carolina, I couldn’t see any “good” route on the R9.   As you can see below, it simply looked daunting, including 2 convective sigmets and lots of “red”.

Since the frequency was not busy, I called Jax center and openly asked for “help” navigating the weather.  The controller was fantastic!  In response, he offered me pireps of other aircraft that just flew through this weather and offered a routing that was smooth IMC 10 minutes prior.  While this is no guarantee, it is truly the safest, best advice you can get.

I happily accepted the amended clearance and had an uneventful crossing directly through the weather that was painted on my screen.

After a quick fuel stop, I departed for New York but realized that I had forgotten to return a couple of important phone calls.  
 
No problem…..
 
While inside the Washington DC SFRA, I called Potomac Approach and asked to divert to Frederick, MD.  As usual, the controller was very cooperative and quickly gave me the vectors that I needed.
 
After another quick stop and a couple of calls, I departed for White Plains.  This time I got multiple reroutes from NY Approach.  At first I couldn’t understand why.  Then the map cleared it up for me.

So my conclusion about IFR, is that what your instructor teaches you will keep you legal.  But to really keep yourself safe and get better at this craft, you need to focus more on the nuances of the art of flying and make optimal use of ATC by openly asking for the help you need and being flexible on what you get!

Cheers,
== T.J.==