Flying thru fronts

[danhagan]

And you still flew through it? Wow.

I hit a nasty one 15 south of Guadalupe Peak last year, gave a PIREP both to ATC and FSS. Approaching El Paso, a twin 10 minutes behind me (am sure he heard me on frequency) indicated he had an injured passenger with a big laceration right after he went through the same area (turned out it was a kid).

 

[labbadabba]

The best tool available to you as a pilot on the AWC site is the textual Forecast Discussion, IMHO.

So much this. I love reading the discussions, I'll read the discussions and then hit my prog charts to get a fuller picture. The discussions are often also filled with a bit of wry weatherman humor as well.

 

[WannFly]

@scottd was spot on, I spoke to a another pilot who flew on Saturday here, he said it was glass smooth after 2000 AGL and some mechanical turbulence since it was gusting to 30. Now I feel dumb about driving 10 hrs.... but when I made the call I had no idea what to expect so err on the side of wimpy

 

[Checkout_my_Six]

ya but....there were those times I was wish'n to be on the ground.

 

[WannFly]

I am always perplexed when pilots say, “it’s never a bad decision to cancel.” Sure, it is okay to be conservative when the weather is marginal, but can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you are making poor decisions when you could have flown, you will eventually make a bad decision to fly when you should have stayed on the ground. Education is the key. No you don't have to beat yourself up, but figure out what you were missing. Was it just a bad forecast, or more likely, did you interpret the forecast incorrectly?

I didn’t interpret it correctly, some parameters made me confused. Airmet for mod turb, LLWS potential, a cold front moving fast and a 30kt gust factor. There was another airmet for IFR around my destination, but that system was staying 50 miles west last I had checked. I need to get myself digging in skew-t to know this better. I read everything at the face of it and took a call.

 

[iamtheari]

I am always perplexed when pilots say, “it’s never a bad decision to cancel.” Sure, it is okay to be conservative when the weather is marginal, but can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you are making poor decisions when you could have flown, you will eventually make a bad decision to fly when you should have stayed on the ground. Education is the key. No you don't have to beat yourself up, but figure out what you were missing. Was it just a bad forecast, or more likely, did you interpret the forecast incorrectly?

I think that there's a difference between erring on the side of caution because the pilot understands that he has an inadequate knowledge or understanding of the weather to make the right decision (which is what I think @WannFly has done here) and acting on uninformed emotions. With perfect information, we can make perfect decisions, but if you have to make an imperfect decision because you lack perfect information, the consequences of getting it wrong are much lower when you decide to stay on the ground than when you decide to fly.

There are certainly pilots who make imperfect decisions based on emotion rather than an objective understanding that they don't have perfect information. Those are the pilots who are at risk to make the wrong decision to fly because of pressure to be somewhere.

 

[Clip4]

And you still flew through it? Wow.

What were you flying?

182RG. Was really surprised by the PIREP because there was no turbulence at my altitude. Slowed to turbulent air penetration speed though.

 

[iamtheari]

In hindsight, that may have been the case, but I don't think that was the reason the decision was made not to fly. I do believe there was confidence that the forecast was being interpreted correctly. "It's wind shear...that's gotta be bad, so I'll sit this one out." Versus, "I am not sure what the WS code means to me, so I'll stay on the ground since I don't understand it." These are two different cases. Either way, a poor interpretation of the weather and forecasts can be fixed with some education and that's the point of my message. The other thing that occurs is that a pilot who does fly in this situation and is expecting it to be really nasty, but the air is glassy smooth...then they blame the forecast for being incorrect, when in fact, it's not a forecast for turbulence at all.

With @WannFly, I firmly believe that he will post here if he flies into what he thought was questionable weather and it ended up being surprisingly smooth. I agree that most people don't ask enough questions to fully understand anything around them, but that hasn't been the OP's problem.

By the way, I watched your "What the FAA Doesn't Want You to Know About Weather" video last night. I'm adding it to my list of things that I pressure other pilots to absorb.