Heavy Rain

We sat in the restaurant at Sebring. I had a really good BLT and he had the special of the day, a hamburger. As we finished we both started paying more attention to the weather. The puffy clouds were getting darker. He called for the weather brief and put it on the speaker. Typical afternoon Florida weather, "VFR was not advised."

We had lots of options. Most of the heavy stuff was north of KVDF moving south. Plant City and Lakeland were not options.  A few broken lines of cells were building to the south-west but I was sure we could get around them and if we needed to could get back into Venice.  Along the shoreline of Tampa Bay it was still clear and out along the gulf coast it was good. So Clearwater, Albert Whitted, and Peter O. Kight were all in play. (Sarasota was my "Ace in the Hole".)

The chart said it would take less than an hour of flight time to cover the 63 miles from SEF to VDF. Slight headwinds meant it might take a bit longer. We leveled off at 2000' and pushed the autopilot button to let Sally do the work while we discussed options. There was a dark wall of storms to the north clearly visible outside which matched the depiction on the Nexrad weather display. We would not go there. To the west, we could see thin isolated showers and the horizon through them. The south looked good and back to the east was still clear. We proceded on a west-north-westerly heading. It got darker.

There was a gap in the clouds slightly south of our track and we decided to take it. Clear blue skies were visible over the bay extending all the way to the gulf. But the track took us right over my "Nightmare Towers." He asked me for their height and I immediately responded "1650". We were at 2000' and saw the lights flashing on the towers as we passed north of them, Sally yelling "Obstacle" the whole time. It was still dark.

We started to turn the corner after passing I75. Rain to the right, sun to the left, we headed north to see if VDF was possible. AWOS told us that winds were from the south at 9G14 so I planned to go north of the field to set up for a long straight-in to RWY23. But once we had the field in sight we knew that plan wouldn't work. The storm was moving south and engulfed the northern edges of the airport. But RWY18 was still good. I announced an extended right base and made a no-flap landing as the rain started. It was a good landing.

We taxied to the hangar and waited for a moment before opening the canopy. When it let up we popped the canopy went into the hangar and waited for a while to allow the storm to pass. It was a good lesson.

BTW, wing lockers are not waterproof.