I needed to go to St. Louis for a family event, and the weather was favorable to fly it. The trip is much easier flown, and saves a lot of time.
The weather was showing scattered clouds and a good tailwind at 5,000 so I filed IFR to take advantage of them. I checked the weather again on the way to the airport and an AIRMET Tango (Turbulence) had been issued for the whole area of my flight. I called flight service to check with them, see if there were any PIREPS that should show what was going on, but nothing to help. The forecast was for moderate turbulence, and I don’t like any turbulence, but this didn’t seem to be anything dangerous. I elected to go ahead and take off.
Climbing out of Willow, I called up ATC to pick up a clearance. My IFR clearance put me right at the base of a thin layer of clouds. I enjoyed the intermittent IFR for the first part of the flight, but after a while the mild turbulence seemed unnecessary, so I asked for, and got a lower IFR altitude.
The flight back was uneventful, but with a headwind. I was able to get night current landing back at home.
