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Bob reminds me of when I flew into some pretty white cumulous clouds (before I had my Stormscope) at 18,000'. Tops looked to be about 25K. I asked the controller twice to make sure she did not vector me into something that showed on her radar (this was on approach to Raleigh-Durham, so it was approach radar, not center radar). She whined (literally) "you even want me to vector you around the level 2 returns?". I said yes ma'am, and she turned me 30 degrees. In the middle of downwind for an ILS approach they turned the airport around, and so I had to fly back in the other direction on another downwind. When I broke out of that overcast at 1500' it was the blackest, ugliest sky I never want to see me in again. I landed, turned off the runway, taxied to the ramp, and by the time I was walking into the office it was raining hard. They had my rental car right there ready for me, so in about another minute I was on my way out of the airport. Before I got off the airport it was raining so hard that I had to stop the car until it passed (as did everyone else on the road). Thunder, lightning, hail, the whole shot. Rained about as hard as I saw in Thailand during a monsoon. Probably 20 - 25 minutes from the time I entered that pretty, white, 25,000' cloud.
I couldn't afford it, but we put the stormscope in about 2 months later. It is my wife's favorite instrument in the whole airplane, and she thinks it is the best use of money we have ever made in regard to the airplane.
Kevin
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