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the atmosphere is cooled and typically there will be relatively mild conditions where it had been terrible just an hour or so before. In this case, it looked like Cedar Rapids (CID) would be well clear of the weather by the time of our arrival.
Now, one of the benefits of flying busi- ness jets as opposed to airlines is that we don’t have to land at our planned destination. Provided we can put our passengers within an hour car drive to where they want to go, they are often hap- pier than if we push into turbulence and bad conditions. Most of them understand this before departure and readily agree to use that plan if we need to. Oddly, an hour drive rarely proves to be much of a bother or inconvenience – certainly nowhere near waiting in a long TSA line. Occasionally, if we are forced to land short of the destination, rather than putting the passengers in a rental car, we will just get a crew car and take everyone into town for lunch while waiting for the destination weather to improve... something not possible for the airline crew. For most passengers, the business of mixing with the crew seems to make the whole affair more of an adventure as opposed to an inconvenience. They also appreciate the care we take to avoid truly bad conditions, all the while trying to get them where they want to go.
With our background strategy worked out, Scott and I decide to leave our base (KBVS) just north of Seattle at 0530 the next morning. It is a 1,300 nm trip which the computer says will take us about 2:45, and have us arrive at .just before 10 a.m. local time. With convective weather usu- ally growing worse as the day goes on, the departure and arrival time should be helpful. Plus, the funeral our passengers are attending is in the mid-afternoon, so that will also give them plenty of time to get there even if we have to land short of DBQ.
We take off shortly after dawn in clear West Coast weather, take up heading 082 and climb to FL410. As we depart, the weather radar on our iPads shows all red at our destination but with the system moving east at about 20 knots. Given our approximate 3-hour flight time, we think it should be clearing out just as we get there.
But within an hour of arrival, things at DBQ still do not look good, so I go back to
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Jet Journal July 2019 / TWIN & TURBINE • 33