My cumulus neighbour

One of the impassable borders of the private pilot is the cloud layer present during a flight.

Flying through clouds most of the time means that you put yourself in a situation where both visual flight basic references (ground and horizon) are unavailable. That is when you leave the Visual Flight Rules (VFR) for the Instrument Flight Rules (IFR). For this in Europe, we must hold a Commercial Pilot License together with an Instrument Rating, and we must be regularly trained in respect with the European rules.

To make it short, flying through clouds is unreachable for a private pilot. Except when the clouds are clement towards our small aircrafts, like they were on this picture. In this situation, the thin broken clouds allowed me to keep a visual on the ground and on the horizon even above them.

During this flight back from Deauville, the upper limit of the layer stood at approximately 3'500 feet and I gave myself the opportunity to watch the clouds from above, but I remained modest and only flew 1'000 above them.

It's so nice watching the sunny side of these aerial sheep. Just another good reason for flying !


Toussus - Deauville - Toussus, 2h49.