For the next half hour, though, you fixate on the precip spreading out more and more and wonder how much fuel you have to zigzag around all that. The “radar” feed on your tablet shows a bunch of little green and yellow blotches ahead north and south of your route, suggesting you could get through or around, if necessary. You level off at 11,000 feet in the middle of a high overcast the airports on the way are reporting marginal VFR with light rain. The only thing to really keep an eye on is scattered thunderstorms that could move towards Allentown. The terminal forecast for Allentown’s Class C airport a few miles away says it’ll be scattered clouds at 1800 feet with rain and 5 miles visibility at your ETA. You needn’t file an alternate airport per exceptions in 91.167, and its 1-2-3 rule. And, you’ve diligently followed 91.103 as far as knowing “all available information” for the flight, including weather, runways and some backup airports should you need to stop en route. This leaves one hour of reserve, slightly buffering the legal minimum 45-minutes of 91.167(a)(3). Meticulous flight planning shows 1.7 hours to get to KXLL, burning 9.2 gph. You load three other people, bags and as much fuel as weight permits-25 gallons. The plan is to stop for fuel at Queen City Municipal in Allentown, Pennsylvania on the way to Massachusetts. The day starts in Mansfield, Ohio by stuffing your Piper Arrow to its max gross weight. And just to make matters worse, you wished you’d taken along your FAR/AIM… So Far So Good Before you know it, you’ve got yourself a monstrous single-pilot workload. If it doesn’t, what starts as one small issue to handle can become a series of problems. And that’s when everything goes just right. Launching a flight with passengers, into iffy weather, with just enough fuel, can be stressful.
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