Small Aircraft
Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Private
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 43.2; Flight Crew Total 1450; Flight Crew Type 1450
Situational Awareness; Time Pressure; Workload
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter VFR In IMC
General None Reported / Taken
Human Factors; Weather
Returning on a business trip from KASH in New Hampshire to KHFD in CT; opted to fly VFR with Flight Following as weather conditions indicated ceilings of 4;000 ft+ and the flight is fairly short; approximately 42 minutes in duration. Flew initially at 4;500 feet but then lowered to 3;000 feet as cloud ceilings began dropping as the flight got closer to the destination. Initially dropped to 3;000 feet when approximately 40 nautical miles from KHFD.Ceilings continued to drop as a light rain weather front was moving rapidly through the area; centered close to the destination airport at this time. Although flight conditions were not dangerous; the situation rapidly changed from VFR to marginal VFR and continued deteriorating. With the airport approximately 11 miles away; I descended to approximately 1;300 feet to maintain VFR and stay below the clouds which were at approximately 1;800-1;900 feet but continuing to lower. Landed without incident; but was barely ahead of total IFR conditions.In review; I should have communicated to the controller at KBDL that was tracking me via flight following that I could not easily maintain VFR conditions and asked for an IFR pop-up and taken an LDA or VOR approach into KHFD in order to eliminate any possibility of entering IFR conditions. I believe that due to the fact that the destination airport was within 15 minutes of my remaining flight time; I made a poor decision to continue dropping altitude instead of switching to an IFR flight for the remaining distance; in order to avoid the possible IFR conditions and maintain flight safety.
A pilot enroute to HFD encountered deteriorating VFR weather; but continued to descend below the overcast and was able to land VFR.