ON A FRIDAY MORNING IN MID-MAY 2017, a pilot and his passenger prepared to depart from Davenport Municipal Airport, Davenport, Iowa (DVN) to Northwest Alabama Regional Airport, Muscle Shoals, Alabama (MSL) in a Beechcraft Bonanza A36. The weather at Davenport was favorable, and the flight was supposed to take less than three hours-they'd be in Muscle Shoals in time to start their vacation with a late lunch. Even though the weather in Davenport was VFR, conditions along the route of flight were marginal and the forecast was for worsening conditions, IFR with widely scattered thunderstorms-a fact the pilot was possibly unaware of since there is no record that he obtained a thorough weather briefing through flight service or other aviation weather sources.Bonanza N1804E departed Davenport at 9:42 a.m., climbed to a VFR cruising altitude of 5,500 feet, and headed south.THE FLIGHT The 69-year-old, non-instrument-rated private pilot had flown for more than 20 years and accrued about 725 hours. Of that, 71 hours were simulated instrument and 16 were actual instrument, for a total of just more than 85 instrument hours logged. But it had been a while since he'd done any flying either under the hood or in the soup-his last logged simulated time was years before, 1.6 hours between 2005 and 2009, with his most recent actual time in April 2000.
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