Blog #17 - Gloomy Weather in Battle Creek, MI

Welcome back to my blog about my time as a sophomore at Western Michigan University, College of Aviation. This past week was another week of canceled flights, gloomy weather, and low ceilings. Just like the weeks prior, the weather is just not giving in to allow me to fly at all. I am not alone in this, and a lot of my peers are also facing a lot of canceled flights and terrible weather that is just not suitable for flying in the Cirrus SR20. Because we do not have any de-icing capabilities we are unable to fly into known icing and areas of precipitation with freezing temperatures. This really limits us on what we are able to do in the winter because in Michigan, it seems like every day is just the same thing over and over. One might ask, "If you're working on your instrument rating, can you just fly into the clouds?" And sadly, the answer is no. Because the temperatures are below freezing most of the time at altitude, flying into clouds would be considered flying into known icing. Due to this, all flight operations have been shut down most days out of the week. Most students justify not flying in the winter months by flying during the summer. I have chosen to fly during the first three months of the summer, and hopefully gain some progress on my ratings while the weather is decent for flight operations.

This week there are a few days that are looking decent for flying so there is some hope. I will update you all next week on if I was able to fly, or if this week was another slow week of canceled flights.