Pushing my limits

When it comes to flying I am ultra conservative, probably too much to be honest. If I waited for what I consider to be ideal flying conditions then I’d fly approximately once a year. At the same time though, I really like flying so I’m constantly torn between the old “are the conditions actually conducive to flying or am I just saying they are because I want to fly?” dilemma.

Today was an excellent example, I haven’t flown in a couple of weeks and really wanted to but wasn’t sure weather wise. The cloud base was low-ish but the winds were ok. The snow that we’d had looked to be over but there was still a lot of moisture in the air, with vague threats of freezing drizzle.

Bob and I agreed to look at the weather first thing in the morning and judge it from there. I woke up, looked out the window and figured that we probably wouldn’t be flying. RTH helpfully pulled up a GFA chart and showed me the nice icing and turbulence reports on it. I was mildly surprised to get a text from Bob saying that he was good to go. I didn’t want to second guess him but I did point out the icing stuff.

Now Bob has waaaay more experience than me in judging weather conditions and I trust him implicitly not to put me in danger but there comes a time where if you’re uncertain you should speak up. I often employ the mindset of “what would you say at an accident investigation?*” How would you justify your decision?

What sounds better from a person who is meant to be training to be Pilot-In-Command, “my instructor told me we could fly, so I did­­” or “I looked at all the weather data available to me, I was still unsure if it was safe to fly, so I asked his opinion and he explained to me why it was safe for us to go and what special precautions we’d need to take to remain safe”?

In this case we kept a careful eye on the cloud base, waited until a flight that was due back arrived and got a PIREP from the instructor. We also discussed the fact that I’d have to fly a lower than usual circuit in order to remain VFR. There was also a C-152 right in front of us so we could keep an eye on what it was doing.

As it turned out I only managed to get a couple of circuits in before the cloud descended to the point where we needed to come back in. The visibility was not good. Bob said to me “we can call it a day if you like.” I was about to say that we`d keep it up for another circuit, but then I noticed that a) the C-152 in front of us had called it quits and b) I could no longer distinguish between the lake and the sky off to my left. It was time to land.

I`m still glad we took it up for a spin though. It was a good lesson in weather interpretation, deciding your personal limits, pushing your comfort zones and generally making good decisions. While I might not choose to fly in the conditions we had today. It`s good to know that I can keep my head and land in them.




* it may sound melodramatic but it is generally good life advice. If you are unsure if you are making the right call, explain your decision  to someone else. If it sounds wrong out loud, you are about to do something stupid!