There seems to be a lot of early convective this year (usually July/August challenge). We had a tight contest with a line of thunderstorms going east back into Rome (with a stop in Lost Nation) last week:

This had the excitement of a bolt of lightning surprising us on the descent into Lost Nation. We were committed to not repeating that experience.

This week’s excitement was again at Lost Nation (now Lake County Executive) trying to get to Indianapolis Greenwood airport (KLHY) with the boss in back. This initially looked impossible with the convective ringing the airport (Plan A was park it in a hangar and ride it out). But timing is the key (and latency on both NexRad and ADS-B has to be accounted for.) Great cooperation from ATC made this both possible and safe (with an escape south always in our plans if it got ugly).

What made this work was good crew coordination and complete agreement (and ATC cooperation) on a plan. Indie Center worked with us and pointed out the hole for our cut north (our radar shows straight ahead and ADS-B/NexRad lag badly). We came in just behind the storm and had a visual approach – we never even got wet on this leg.