Express Elevator Up

As the morning waned, the weather picture improved greatly, with only scattered showers and clouds over the Mojave Desert and clearing over the west side of the Tehachapi Mountains. We ended up filing to go over Victorville and into Bakersfield to visit family. Soon, we were cruising in VMC at 10,000 feet and looking at the activity over the Mojave. Ahead, there were Pireps for icing above 8000 feet, so we asked for and received routing over Edwards AFB at 6000. Based on what we saw visually and on the FAAs flight information system (FIS-B), we thought we were well out of danger.

Editorial Staff

Sunday, January 27, 2019 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

A pilot and passenger unexpectedly encountered a severe updraft that pulled them into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) with heavy rain and hail, despite what appeared to be clear weather on their in-cockpit display.
The incident was attributed to the inherent latency of the Nexrad weather radar (FIS-B) used in the cockpit, which did not display the rapidly developing thunderstorm cell in real-time.
As a direct result of this experience, the pilot now strictly adheres to the FAA-recommended minimum 20-mile clearance from any convective activity.

See a mistake? Contact us.

I had passed my instrument rating checkride two weeks earlier, and my wife and I had flown to Palm Springs, Calif., for our anniversary. It was time to fly back to the San Francisco area, but the weather wasn’t cooperating. Severe rainstorms in the Los Angeles basin and thunderstorms over the Mojave Desert that morning meant we weren’t going anywhere soon.

The coastal route avoided convective activity, but likely would have us in constant rain and IMC the entire route, and limited our altitude due to potential icing above. The route over the western Mojave showed severe convective activity, but it was moving east.