I recently flew in this muck for an hour. VFR. Did local pattern work at both my home airport and one 15 miles away.
I set the GPS, had the target on the nose, and didn’t see it until I was 3 miles away. Automated weather said that there was 5 miles visibility.
This stuff is terrible. Worst I have ever experienced.
Whiners. I grew up flying in L.A. in the '50s, '60s, '70s. Lucky I still have any lungs that work.
The usual weather reports at the inland airports especially, visibility 3 miles, haze and smoke (smog).
???
I think it was two years ago that smoke from western fires kept Oshkosh IFR until almost noon on the final Saturday. The sun was shining, and the sky was (sort of) blue, but visibility stubbornly stayed at 2 1/2 miles. About 10 seconds after the ATIS flipped to 3 miles, about a thousand engines started up at once. I was in just barely legal VMC all the way home to Idaho. Sure hope this year isn’t a repeat of that, both for Airventure itself and for all of us flying to and from.
June 15th I flew from just N of Chicago to my new hangar home in SC. About 673 miles. Was in the smoke the entire time. Had to stay under 2500’ until I left Chi airspace, then tried to climb out of it… Got up to about 6000’ and was still in it. Went back down to around 3000’ the entire way until I had to cross the Smokies and the Appalachians. Somehow, even though I had to divert N to avoid a storm system, it cleared up until I cleared the mountains. I’ve flown through forest fire smoke before, but this one has no odor to it. I have had a bad case of lung congestion ever since. I warn people, do not fly through this toxic smoke. Masks won’t protect you either. Just like they didn’t work for Covid. Does anyone know if information is available as to the altitude to go higher than this stuff?
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It was a rare day that we got up to 3 miles vs at Torrance in those days wasn’t it Roger. Of course it was smog and not forrest fire smoke, so we could get above it by 3,000 ft. We got pretty good at special VFR. Me in a Champ and you in your Mooney Mite. Needle-ball-airspeed. Miss those days.
I learned to fly in the fresh, clear air of Pittsburgh (once famously described as ‘hell with the lid off’). As a VFR cross-country student, I once failed to find an airport in what was advertised as VFR conditions. When I got back to my home airport (AGC) my instructor wanted to know how I made it back so quickly. I think I tried to fib a little bit, but he was too smart for that. (I assume the statute of limitations has expired by now!) It has been ugly around here also. Fancy GPS or not, when you can’t see you can’t see.
I think the phrase, “Canada battles its worst-ever year for forest fires,” though mentioned by many media sources, is false. Canada has actually seen a steady decrease in the number of annual wildfires per the Canadian National Forestry Database. https://globalnews.ca/news/8045796/canada-wildfires-yearly-trends/
Cloth and surgical masks are designed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus by catching respiratory droplets coming from the person wearing the mask (which is why everyone needed to wear them). Respiratory droplets are larger than smoke particles.