Check Weather

[Tony Rogers]

I had an awesome flight today, French Valley to North Las Vegas (F70-KVGT). I filed HDF.V283.BLD.LAPIN. I chose this route to keep me west of the WX coming from the northeast. The controller changed my route to HDF HEC V8 GFS V538 LAS. This routing effectively puts me right into the rain, in a Piper Archer at 11,000ft in December. As the controller read the route to me, I was gonna respond unable, but decided to accept the route to get some IMC practice.
I hit some snow south of Lake Perris but it was intermittent. Carb ice was present throughout most of the area around Big Bear. I was almost to Hector when I was given direct Goffs and that's where I really hit the ice. Windscreen covered in ice, carb-ice and structural icing. I had to close my IFR and descend to a VFR altitude. It all eventually worked out, but made for a fun and challenging flight. I was one minute off from filed/actual time.
Controllers, you guys need to check the weather too. Routing a Piper Archer through rain coming out of the north at 11,000ft in December probably isn't a good idea. The controller and I worked it out along route and the flight finished well.
This is NOT a complaint, I actually really, really enjoyed the challenge this flight gave both myself and the controller.
Before I even log on, just like in RL, I check the weather along the route and its trends. Controllers should be doing the same for their areas.
Thanks for the adventure.
Tony

[Alex Stjepanovic]

One thing to note, is that it's pretty much impossible to know if a pilot is using real weather or not, unless it's noted in the remakrs/advised on frequency/etc. For all we know, a pilot might be using storm-ridden nighttime conditions, during a VMC daytime in real life.

You get the idea

[Tony Rogers]

One thing to note, is that it's pretty much impossible to know if a pilot is using real weather or not, unless it's noted in the remakrs/advised on frequency/etc. For all we know, a pilot might be using storm-ridden nighttime conditions, during a VMC daytime in real life.

You get the idea

True, I could see that happening. Doesn't seem to make sense for the pilot to do that if he's getting altimeters & WX, etc from the controllers, but I didn't think about that. I always use RW when online and I'll be sure to note it in the remarks on future flights.
Tony

[Keith Smith]

Neat adventure, Tony. I am not sure that atc will proactively issue different enroute routing for weather. As far as I know, they will accept accept and disseminate PIREPS, and respond to requests for alternate routes and altitudes.

I have had atc warn me about areas of precipitation that are coming up in real life, but that is not something we can so here since we don't have a weather overlay. That, and the weather sources that drive the sim don't provide the information required to replicate the real world weather patterns. Even if we could overlay nextrad weather on our scope, it is not likely to correlate with the sim. Airports are handled well in the sim, but enroute is tricky.

PE pilots should feel free to request reroutes and deviations as the observed weather dictates. We can handle that!

Keith