Flight Lesson #124 - Weather Or Not - In This Case Not.

Well that was a fizzle.

The day was beautiful and calm, until, of course, for my scheduled time for my flying lesson today. Then, the forecast did call for thunderstorms and such during my time of flight but it was rather clear when we started, and my instructor Ray said we might as well get out and see how far we can get.

I do a good preflight, run-up and takeoff heading to the northwest to Linden for both navigation exercise and then to do soft and short fields.

I get perfectly lined up and intercept the railroad and am navigating just beautifully when Pontiac tower radios us:

N1689H we are picking up precipitation 5 miles to your northwest." Exactly where we're going.

Sure neough, we start to run into soe rain. Nothing too serious but the clouds are getting darker.

We press on for a bit and then see some close lightening strikes.

Well, F that.

"Pontiac Tower, N1689H we have the precipitation and also reporting lightning strikes to the immediate northwest, returning to Pontiac."

"N1689H roger, cleared to land Runway 9L".

So I head back by the most expeditious route and speed, enter a base leg for 9L and do a really beautiful crosswind landing if I do say so myself. I mean really, really, nice and smooth in the crosswind that had just kicked up.

We head back and shut it down, beating the thunderstorm by a comfy margin, and it only started raining at Pontiac when I left the building to head home, at which point we did get some fun thunderstorm action. Certainly a good idea to call it when we did.

Ray said I do have terrible luck with weather.

But, he said it's time to start thinking about scheduling a checkride and he's going to talk to the head of the flight school to clear me to get a test date, so there's that.

0.5 and 1 landing.