Beating the weather (Part 2)

Coping with bad weather is like any other risk management technique – you can accept, mitigate, or avoid.

To accept a weather related risk you need to make sure that you ask yourself 2 important questions –

     1. Will this action violate any aviation regulations?
     2. Will this action compromise my safety?

If the answer to both of these questions is no, then go ahead and accept the risk. Remember, just because it’s legal to do something does not mean that it’s safe. Also, good training is necessary to develop the understanding to properly answer question 2. The weather that you can fly in as a visual only pilot is very limiting, so most of the time this is not a practical option. However, weather differs around the country by season and it is possible to accept a certain level of risk safely depending on your exact situation.

If you choose to avoid the risk, you can select an alternate method of transportation for this trip – driving or airlines. One could also choose to delay or reschedule the trip. As a VFR pilot, I have chosen this path many times. There is an old saying in aviation- “It is much better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air, than to be in the air wishing you were on the ground”.

The final option is to mitigate your risk. To do this you can elect to leave earlier in order to land before the weather situation worsens. This does not always work out as planned – so if you choose this option, be prepared to land or turn around. Another method is to fly part of the way, land and wait out the weather, and then continue. This usually works best if you have a narrow area of bad weather associated with a frontal passage.

Stay tuned for the last installment…

Clear skies and tailwinds!
Mike