Comments on: Diverting in the real world http://blog.aopa.org/flighttraining/?p=417 Wed, 15 May 2013 22:33:54 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: David http://blog.aopa.org/flighttraining/?p=417&cpage=1#comment-528 David Fri, 17 Jun 2011 09:05:28 +0000 http://blog.aopa.org/flighttraining/?p=417#comment-528 I had the pleasure of a double divert one time. I was on a return trip to Florida after taking a friend Mississippi to pick up a new plane he had just bought. I was still a fairly new private pilot building cross-country time for my commercial ticket. So there I was, watching the sky get darker and darker in front of me and I figured it was time to put it down and wait. I picked an airport from my sectional that wasn’t too far off course and notified center that I was changing plans and they gave me a vector to the new field. Once I arrived to where it should have been, I couldn’t find it for the life of me. Center advised me that it was 1 mile at my 9 o’clock and as I circled around the only thing there was a column of heavy rain. The weather was closing in around me fast. As I came around in my circle still looking for this airport, I noticed that straight west, and only straight west, there was still friendly looking sky. I leveled out and proceeded that direction. A look at the sectional showed another airport about 20 miles away and situated right along a highway that I already had in sight. 15 minutes later I was touching down. A couple hours inside and a cup of coffee or two later and I was able to head home in clear skies. Amazing how it cleared up.

]]> By: Hank http://blog.aopa.org/flighttraining/?p=417&cpage=1#comment-503 Hank Fri, 03 Jun 2011 13:44:26 +0000 http://blog.aopa.org/flighttraining/?p=417#comment-503 I’ve diverted due to weather, but with a sectional open in my lap and my direct-path marked and highlighted, it was pretty easy. Just look for an airport between where I was and where the sky ahead was black. All the information necessary was right there, but I opened the Flight Guide mainly for runway information anyway.

One time I had to set down in Roanoke, VA because the weather was getting too ugly to push into WV. Circling down through a hole in the clouds requires knowing where you are on the sectional, as there are both hills and antennas to watch for. Keep your sectional out, cross-tune VORs from time to time, and it’s not really a big deal.

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