MassPilot
Cleared for Takeoff
I flew my wife and her friend to Nantucket yesterday in a C172. I checked the weather thoroughly as I always do and saw there was an Airmet Tango for the entire northeast U.S. for moderate turbulence below 10,000 feet. Of course this gave me pause, but I have flown in Airmet Tangos dozens of times and it's not an automatic no-go for me. The surface winds were forecasted around 12G22 for the departure airport and destination. I looked at the Graphical Turbulence Guidance on aviationweather.gov which showed the entire route of flight to be at the edge between light and moderate for my planned flight times both there and back. There were no sigmets, active or outlooks, and absolutely no convective activity forecasted in the region for that day. I spoke with 1-800-WX-BRIEF and there were no red flags.
I spoke to my wife and her friend and mentioned that there was a warning out for some turbulence but I didn't think it would be too bad. I told them it was not a safety issue, just a comfort issue, and we could turn around and land if they were uncomfortable or scrub the flight all together if that's what they wanted. It's about a 45 minute flight.
My wife decided to call her father for an opinion. He's a 767 airline captain with around 20,000 hours of experience. He learned to fly in the Air Force where be became a T38 instructor. I don't think he's ever been too comfortable with me flying his daughter, but never seemed too worried about it. We've always gotten along well and talk about flying all the time. He told her that it was extremely dangerous to go up in those kind of conditions and that moderate turbulence could easily go to severe and cause loss of control of the aircraft and/or structural damage. He said he's seen forecasted moderate go to severe many times. I spoke to him and got him to admit that it was up in the flight levels with jet streams in excess of 100 knots, not the 4500/5500 feet altitudes I'd be at. He was still adamant that it was suicide for us to go (he's often over-dramatic).
We decided to drive the 40 minutes to the airport and decide there. We got to the airport and forecasts are the same. There are a few pireps along the route for negative turbulence. I spoke with two CFI's that just landed and they said it was smooth up there. We decided to go. We hit one bump the entire flight. It was smooth as can be otherwise. We landed in Nantucket and I texted my father-in-law that we hit one bump and it was a very nice flight. He responded with "Great. Sometimes a sigmet warns of severe turbulence and you get no bumps. I think it was a very foolish decision and for somebody who has as little flying time as you, I'm very surprised. To me it shows very poor judgement... you're a risk-taker. If the airmet had moderate turbulence, I wouldn't have gone, but that's your decision. Quite frankly I think it was an unnecessary risk. As your father-in-law, that deeply cares about you and my daughter, I now have to wonder what other judgment calls you will make in order to do what you want to do based on emotion instead of removing emotion and doing what is right... safe flight home....".
I ignored him and we all had a nice day in Nantucket. We flew home that evening and it was perfectly smooth the whole flight home (despite the Airmet Tango still in effect) until we hit some mechanical turbulence below 1000 AGL on the approach going home, and it was nothing to write home about.
Later that night he sent a number of texts to my wife that we're lucky we survived and we easily could have ended up in severe turbulance. He told her that she should never fly with me again and if that if I'm going to continue to fly that I better make sure I have good life insurance. He went on and on and really upset her.
I always take my go/no-go decision very seriously, especially with passengers. I have cancelled many many flights due to weather and don't hesitate too when I'm not comfortable with the conditions even when I really want to go. I've even cancelled flights over turbulence before when the indications were there that it would be uncomfortable.
I never saw yesterday's go decision as a safety issue, just a comfort issue. I think my wife believes me that I made a reasonable decision to go and that her father is just being overprotective and over-dramatic. What do you guys think? Did I make a stupid decision or is my father-in-law being ridiculous, or something in between?
I spoke to my wife and her friend and mentioned that there was a warning out for some turbulence but I didn't think it would be too bad. I told them it was not a safety issue, just a comfort issue, and we could turn around and land if they were uncomfortable or scrub the flight all together if that's what they wanted. It's about a 45 minute flight.
My wife decided to call her father for an opinion. He's a 767 airline captain with around 20,000 hours of experience. He learned to fly in the Air Force where be became a T38 instructor. I don't think he's ever been too comfortable with me flying his daughter, but never seemed too worried about it. We've always gotten along well and talk about flying all the time. He told her that it was extremely dangerous to go up in those kind of conditions and that moderate turbulence could easily go to severe and cause loss of control of the aircraft and/or structural damage. He said he's seen forecasted moderate go to severe many times. I spoke to him and got him to admit that it was up in the flight levels with jet streams in excess of 100 knots, not the 4500/5500 feet altitudes I'd be at. He was still adamant that it was suicide for us to go (he's often over-dramatic).
We decided to drive the 40 minutes to the airport and decide there. We got to the airport and forecasts are the same. There are a few pireps along the route for negative turbulence. I spoke with two CFI's that just landed and they said it was smooth up there. We decided to go. We hit one bump the entire flight. It was smooth as can be otherwise. We landed in Nantucket and I texted my father-in-law that we hit one bump and it was a very nice flight. He responded with "Great. Sometimes a sigmet warns of severe turbulence and you get no bumps. I think it was a very foolish decision and for somebody who has as little flying time as you, I'm very surprised. To me it shows very poor judgement... you're a risk-taker. If the airmet had moderate turbulence, I wouldn't have gone, but that's your decision. Quite frankly I think it was an unnecessary risk. As your father-in-law, that deeply cares about you and my daughter, I now have to wonder what other judgment calls you will make in order to do what you want to do based on emotion instead of removing emotion and doing what is right... safe flight home....".
I ignored him and we all had a nice day in Nantucket. We flew home that evening and it was perfectly smooth the whole flight home (despite the Airmet Tango still in effect) until we hit some mechanical turbulence below 1000 AGL on the approach going home, and it was nothing to write home about.
Later that night he sent a number of texts to my wife that we're lucky we survived and we easily could have ended up in severe turbulance. He told her that she should never fly with me again and if that if I'm going to continue to fly that I better make sure I have good life insurance. He went on and on and really upset her.
I always take my go/no-go decision very seriously, especially with passengers. I have cancelled many many flights due to weather and don't hesitate too when I'm not comfortable with the conditions even when I really want to go. I've even cancelled flights over turbulence before when the indications were there that it would be uncomfortable.
I never saw yesterday's go decision as a safety issue, just a comfort issue. I think my wife believes me that I made a reasonable decision to go and that her father is just being overprotective and over-dramatic. What do you guys think? Did I make a stupid decision or is my father-in-law being ridiculous, or something in between?
