desert flyer wrote:Dave, don't forget, those pictures can be 15 minutes old and on a fast moving front, you might fly into it unless you give it a wide birth. On the Options page, the time of the last update will tell when it was issued. Great pics. Down here in the desert, we don't get clouds that paint and I don't fly with crappy weather unless on a 4 hour cross-country trip so in 3 months, I have not painted very much much less what you got. I am hoping the new version software coming out soon will have less blocky presentation of the clouds.
Yes, I realize the potential delay. I actually wanted to turn sooner but my instructor told me to wait....wasn't sure why.....turns out it was a lesson in ATC guidance (we had flight following). You can see from the intended flight path where we were headed. ATC did eventually suggest a change of heading and we did so. In the future I would deviate sooner and advise ATC what we are seeing. Also had complete briefing prior to takeoff and they told us it was a slow moving system that should be no factor if we stay east of it.
Interesting but when ATC told us it looks ok to return to direct there was still a good amount of weather showing on our end (physical conditions verified it). It was almost as if their info was more delayed than ours. Advised them and stayed on heading for another 10min which brought us perfectly around the front. Clear sky's at our destination.
I have to say, the last time I encountered bad weather I felt very uncomfortable with just advisories. All went well but It was weird to blindly trust the info when the sky's are dark and gloomy for as long as the eye can see. This really helps give you the complete picture (with ATC's guidance) and I felt far more confident about the decision to continue to our planned destination.