Making the Great Escape

It was an hour-and-a-half flight that would test my decision-making acumen more than the typical trans-Atlantic trips of my professional career. No professional copilot. No dispatch.

Enter Hurricane Helene. I stared at the outdoor furniture that was nestled in portions of our living room. Helene had compelled us to drag everything outside from our lanai to the inside. Furniture moving was our SOP for storms. Date weekend was now in jeopardy.

Fortunately, as residents of northern Florida’s east coast, we were spared the severe wrath of the hurricane. Our area was inflicted with only a moderate amount of precipitation and high winds. The devastation to the state’s west coast and portions of western North Carolina were unimaginable.

In that regard, I felt it my obligation to volunteer our Piper Arrow as a supply airplane with one of the Air Care Alliance organizations regardless of our plans. My wife understood.

Unfortunately, scheduling issues didn’t allow me to depart until later that week, leaving only one day and limited missions open. Information regarding accommodations, or lack thereof, was understandably difficult to obtain. Regrettably, I was unable to participate. I applaud those pilots who were able to contribute in what appears to have been an incredible effort of aiding desperate communities in their time of need.

Although feeling a bit guilty, I decided that with Helene in the rearview mirror, our great escape to Fort Lauderdale was back on the table. Shifting gears, my pilot brain engaged in flight planning mode: Departure time. Destination airport. Weather. Database updates. Routing. FBO.

As was typical for Florida in September, convection began to boil around 11:30 a.m., so a morning departure was always the safe choice. The TAFs along the route confirmed this theory. Rain showers and thunderstorms were forecast to be in the vicinity beginning around 1 p.m.  

The weekend wouldn’t be a total washout, but you’d never make long-range plans in Florida if the weather always dictated your strategy. Wheels up from home became 9 a.m., a time early enough for my weather comfort and not too early for my wife. Our anticipated Uber arrival to the condo would coordinate well for a relaxing lunch.

As a side note, and part of the decision process, the Aspen Pro MAX 1000 upgrade that was newly installed after my legacy unit was found to be failing had lapsed into a one-minute coma on a previous flight. After a momentary blank screen, the display almost immediately began the initialization process and was back to normal as if nothing happened. A quick trip to the avionics installer, a diagnostic test, and a file download sent to Aspen revealed that it was best to replace the new PFD. Something internal to the unit had caused the problem. Yay.

On both the flight to see the avionics doctor and the return flight home, the PFD operated flawlessly. Based on the brief failure that I had experienced and that the backup analog gauges and nav systems were adequate enough to keep us out of trouble, I decided the risk was minimal. In the big jet, system redundancy, a minimum equipment list (MEL), and the immediate availability of a mechanic would have played a major role in the decision.

Well, the best laid plans… I awoke in the morning to a ForeFlight app displaying a line of lettuce and tomatoes in South Florida. By all indications of the convective movement, the bad stuff would be northwest bound, away from our destination of Pompano Beach (KPMP). However, our southbound route would potentially require a deviation or two.

Should I delay and wait for the weather to completely pass and risk afternoon thunderstorm activity?

It seemed best to depart as planned and be established en route such that the timing would place our arrival for the RNAV approach into Pompano in between the line of current weather and the afternoon convection. I advised my wife of the strategy. A simple “OK” and a subtle shrug of the shoulders was an acknowledgment of her relative comfort.

Although the cloud layer above became overcast as we continued south, below was a great sightseeing view and a smooth ride. Meanwhile, my periodic selection of the Pompano METAR on the G-430 was displaying an 800-foot ceiling with 2 miles in TRW. I cringed at the report, but it wasn’t unexpected.  

Using the ForeFlight map, I selected two contingency airports. The first was chosen as an alternative if deviating around the weather became unfeasible. The second was farther south and would become our new destination based on the possibility that Pompano continued to experience thunderstorm activity.

With only one deviation around a small buildup for spousal comfort, we soon found ourselves being vectored for a visual approach. I was about to request the RNAV procedure, noting the NEXRAD and XM Weather displays advertising light to moderate rain, but from 20 miles out, I had the coastline and the airport environment in sight. The weather had dramatically improved, only light rain remaining. This was another lesson in understanding the delay limitations of database radar information. The arrival was uneventful.

Our weekend getaway was relaxing. The credit card began to smoke from its activity at five-star restaurants. We are all familiar with a $100 hamburger, but how about a $100 cheesesteak?  Yup, it was on the menu of a steak restaurant we patronized. We chose the New York strip. It was cheaper.

As the weekend progressed, the tropical depression that was brewing to the north of the Yucatan Peninsula emerged as Hurricane Milton. The spaghetti track projections of various forecast models were mostly in agreement. The storm would strike the west coast of Florida with a vengeance and eventually hit us on the east coast as a weaker version but still a hurricane.

A leisurely Sunday afternoon departure was not in the cards. We needed to get home in preparation for yet another storm. The forecast weather en route was mostly a static repeat of our departure two days earlier, but it didn’t illustrate the dynamics of two conflicting systems to the extent the ForeFlight map did. One system was a line of weather that was working its way west from the Atlantic Ocean, and the other was the initial hurricane feeder bands that were moving east from the Gulf of Mexico. We had to squeeze in between before we lost our window.

An hour’s worth of solid IFR and an RNAV approach later, we were safely back home. The Arrow was tucked into the hangar with the hope that it would survive the hurricane. It did. I only wish that our fellow Floridians on the west coast had fared better. They desperately needed a break.

Our great escape was successful, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as challenging if the flight was completed in a 775,000-pound airplane capable of flight levels…not that I’m complaining.

This column first appeared in the December Issue 953 of the FLYING print edition.

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