The pilot of a extra flugzeugbau EA300 reported getting caught in a storm front that caused a brief ...

Narrative:

I was completing a personal flight in an extra 300. The route of flight was approximately direct. I was delayed on departure due to work and I completed a flight brief which warned me of building thunderstorms in the area. I departed and climbed to 9500. The first 2 hours of the flight went without any problems and then I had to descend to 5500 due to lowering clouds. I encountered heavy rain and inquired with flight following about conditions ahead. They reported all aircraft were diverting and there was extreme precipitation ahead. I turned back to the northeast and flew along the front eventually passing under a 6000 foot class bravo shelf. I had to cancel flight following shortly after the divert because they lost radar contact due to my low altitude. The thunderstorm front was moving rapidly from the south and I thought I was laterally offset enough to avoid the turbulence associated with the front. However; I encountered extreme turbulence temporarily losing control of the aircraft. The angle of bank was approximately 60 degrees and I pulled the engine to idle as I saw we were caught in a significant updraft associated with the front. I saw the altimeter reported 6150 feet which put us into the class bravo shelf above us. We were inside the class bravo for maybe 30 seconds as I recovered control of the aircraft and descended back to 5500 feet while diverting farther to the north to avoid any additional turbulence. After a few miles we passed the leading edge of the storm front and I turned the aircraft to the south and continued to [my destination] without incident with a stop to refuel since the weather divert had depleted our fuel reserves. At the time of the incident I was dialing in the ATIS at [a nearby airport] airport as it was my intention to land there to wait out the weather. This is a contributing factor to the incident since I elected to prepare for landing instead of checking in with approach control and request a class bravo clearance. This would have been the appropriate action to take. However; I was in a hurry to beat the front and I began dialing in [the nearby airports] frequencies. This ended up being a worthless effort since I passed the edge of the front and was able to turn south shortly after encountering the turbulence event.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: The pilot of a Extra Flugzeugbau EA300 reported getting caught in a storm front that caused a brief loss of control of the aircraft and an airspace violation.

Narrative: I was completing a personal flight in an Extra 300. The route of flight was approximately direct. I was delayed on departure due to work and I completed a flight brief which warned me of building thunderstorms in the area. I departed and climbed to 9500. The first 2 hours of the flight went without any problems and then I had to descend to 5500 due to lowering clouds. I encountered heavy rain and inquired with flight following about conditions ahead. They reported all aircraft were diverting and there was extreme precipitation ahead. I turned back to the Northeast and flew along the front eventually passing under a 6000 foot Class Bravo shelf. I had to cancel flight following shortly after the divert because they lost radar contact due to my low altitude. The thunderstorm front was moving rapidly from the South and I thought I was laterally offset enough to avoid the turbulence associated with the front. However; I encountered extreme turbulence temporarily losing control of the aircraft. The angle of bank was approximately 60 degrees and I pulled the engine to idle as I saw we were caught in a significant updraft associated with the front. I saw the altimeter reported 6150 feet which put us into the Class Bravo Shelf above us. We were inside the Class Bravo for maybe 30 seconds as I recovered control of the aircraft and descended back to 5500 feet while diverting farther to the north to avoid any additional turbulence. After a few miles we passed the leading edge of the storm front and I turned the aircraft to the South and continued to [my destination] without incident with a stop to refuel since the weather divert had depleted our fuel reserves. At the time of the incident I was dialing in the ATIS at [a nearby airport] airport as it was my intention to land there to wait out the weather. This is a contributing factor to the incident since I elected to prepare for landing instead of checking in with Approach Control and Request a Class Bravo Clearance. This would have been the appropriate action to take. However; I was in a hurry to beat the front and I began dialing in [the nearby airports] frequencies. This ended up being a worthless effort since I passed the edge of the front and was able to turn south shortly after encountering the turbulence event.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

Attributes
ACN	1401735
Time
Date	201611
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.TRACON
State Reference	US
Environment
Flight Conditions	Marginal
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Extra 200/300 Series
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 91
Flight Phase	Cruise
Flight Plan	None
Person 1
Function	Single Pilot
Qualification	Flight Crew Instrument Flight Crew Flight Instructor Flight Crew Multiengine Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 10 Flight Crew Total 1550 Flight Crew Type 200
Events
Anomaly	Airspace Violation All Types Inflight Event / Encounter Loss Of Aircraft Control Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence

The pilot of a extra flugzeugbau EA300 reported getting caught in a storm front that caused a brief loss of control of the aircraft and an airspace violation.