Sylvia's Journal

Despite the encouraging outlook briefings I received from various aviation websites yesterday morning, the sky was full of large clouds and remained so for most of the day. Cloud cover is measured in eights, called oktas; five oktas means that five eights of the sky is covered. That was about the condition when I arrived at the airport; impressive clouds with large patches of clear blue skies in between. Pilots call these holes. They allow you to go up and down, to be above or under the clouds, without having to go through them, which is not allowed under visual flight rules (VFR). Going under a cloud is only possible if there is enough room between the cloud and the ground (which includes large structures with blinking red lights on them). Going above the clouds assumes you have an engine that allows you to get up to where you to need to be to fly free of the clouds before the hole closes. That’s the problem with holes, they can close on you. Yesterday’s sky was so that some holes closed but others opened. Because there was little wind they did this slowly. With high winds you don’t even want to try.

Against the backdrop of 4 to 5 oktas of cloud cover, yesterday’s cross country presented a few more new experiences. One was flying higher than I ever have in our little Piper Warrior (7500 feet), another was having to navigate the considerable cloud cover at that altitude to stay VFR. It was beautiful and intense; so intense that I gave the controls to Bill at some point when the clouds started to push us higher and higher and me up beyond my comfort levels.  The third new experience was being scolded by Boston traffic control for changing our altitude without making a request first. This is not a good idea when the clouds are obscuring pilots’ view and traffic controllers assume everyone staying level at the altitude they have last communicated. I let Bill apologize to the angry controller person, while I registered the lesson. He then got us down through a large break in the cloud cover to a flight level I am more comfortable with, 2500, and handed the controls back to me. After that flying was a piece of cake.  I stayed below the clouds that had risen to give me more room until we got to our destination on the sunny southern shores of Connecticut with only a 2-okta sky. We took the scenic route back; this time entirely below the clouds at low altitude, over Newport, New Bedford, Norwood, Bedford and back to Beverly. We took our time and enjoyed the views, the ride and each other’s company.

When I told Axel the story of my encounter with clouds he said he could just imagine the beauty of the cloudscape with bits and pieces of New England peeking through. But he also caught the potential for panic, as expressed by the question “but what if you cannot find a hole to get back down?”  The answer is simple of course: don’t get to that point. I know I would not have gone up by myself to fly cross county and I certainly would not have tried to fly above the clouds and have to worry about visibility, clouds and holes. But with Bill’s experience and instrument rating I felt comfortable and was able to enjoy the view while he flew.

Arne showed me yesterday that when I am up in the skies and when I am assigned a transponder code, he can follow our flight on his computer by simply putting in my tail number at Flightaware.com. You can see where we have been and where we are heading at exactly which time. Big Brother is watching; that is, if we let him of course by asking for flight following. But when I travel cross county I prefer to tell people in front of big screens that I am up in the sky and enlist their help in looking out for me, especially when there are so many clouds that obscure other planes, moving very fast around us.