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Showing posts from June, 2016

Long-distance Route Planning in Bad Weather

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Route portion Albuquerque, NM - Las Cruces, NM - Andrews, TX A recent trip from Dallas to Albuquerque, NM, to visit my daughter Ingrid went well. The weather cooperated for the flight except for a modest headwind.  During the visit, we hiked the first two thirds--the easy part--of the Pino Trail in the Sandia Mountains.  Start of Pino Trail, Albuquerque, NM. Photo courtesy Jeanette Bynum Bushes were in bloom; a perfect day. Banana Yucca Creeping Mahonia Fendlerbush When we fly to Albuquerque, we typically visit friends Lynn and Philip near Deming on the return trip. But this time, the schedule was tight, and we had to get back to Dallas in a hurry. However, the weather was not cooperating. The direct route to Dallas was blocked by nasty IFR weather; see above screenshot. An alternate route via El Paso seemed possible, but how could we plan it with rapidly shifting fronts? To the rescue came a feature of the Garmin Pilot that previously we had used just fo