MVFR First Dual Cross Country - today at 4pm

texasclouds

texasclouds

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Mark
We have a flight lesson scheduled today at 4pm central time / 2100Z. First dual cross country. CFI wants me to practice decision making. I called 800WXBrief for our direct flight KCLL to K3T5 (~51 mi, 30 min, C-172SP).

Current conditions at 1pm: CLL BKN 4400', 3T5 OVC 1500' (temp, wind, precipitation, visibility look fine to me). Very near CLL the cloud level is much lower (1600' at Coulter Field CFD).

Conditions at 4pm are expected to improve to 2500-4000' cloud level.

The WXBrief guy was very helpful when I told him I was a student pilot. He suggested I call back around 3pm to get updated briefing.

I believe my CFI will want us to be able to fly at 3000', so clouds need to go up to 3500'+. I'm thinking no-go unless clouds go to 3500' at each airport and in route.

What do you guys think?

wx.JPG
 
this is an awesome opportunity. unless there is icing, go for it.then you will know what not to get into when you get your cert/license (whatever its called this week)
 
WannFly said:
this is an awesome opportunity. unless there is icing, go for it.then you will know what not to get into when you get your cert/license (whatever its called this week)
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Go for it with what cloud level? Surely not if they stay at 1500'.
 
texasclouds said:
Go for it with what cloud level? Surely not if they stay at 1500'.
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if the CFI is a II, then yes, file IFR. if the CFI is just a I, then well, its up to the CFI, but i would want my CFI to take me up in MVFR conditions and show me first hand when to turn around if we cant make it to destination. my my CFI actually did that, more than once.
 
Good question, I assume 3000' MSL. If clouds were not an issue, I think we would be planning for 4500' MSL.

Field elevations are 321', 324' MSL.
 
WannFly said:
if the CFI is a II, then yes, file IFR. if the CFI is just a I, then well, its up to the CFI, but i would want my CFI to take me up in MVFR conditions and show me first hand when to turn around if we cant make it to destination. my my CFI actually did that, more than once.
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He is a CFI without the II, working a year to get to ATP.
 
My decision was to check again closer to departure and no-go if clouds are not at least 3500'. I was hoping experienced pilots would have suggestions or more insight.
 
TommyG said:
So your CFI put the decision on you as a student pilot. Therefore teaching you decision making skills. So you come on to a forum asking for advice. Do you see a problem with what you are doing?
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:yeahthat:
 
texasclouds said:
I was hoping experienced pilots would have suggestions or more insight.
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We do.... but we're also "tough loving" you to help you get to the proper answer yourself.

Waiting for another hour to check things again is a good answer.

And sometimes all looks okay up until minutes before departure, then the big change happens causing what would have been a nice VFR to quickly change to bad things.
 
texasclouds said:
Thanks for sharing that, I've never heard of WeatherSpork.
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It's a creation of a really good aviation weather educator, @scottd. It takes a huge amount of weather data and makes it into a form we can easily understand.
 
More data from your destination airport....

Meteogram:

upload_2018-9-28_14-48-1.png
 
In addition to reviewing immediate point forecasts, don't forget to review the trend for the past few hours......

What is the barometer doing? rising? falling?

What about temps? rising? falling?

When you combine these two bits of info, how does that info affect the cloud layer?
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Where are the fronts and High/Low pressures? What are their types and what is their movement?
 
A general comment about flight training......

I really wish the various lesson plans CFI's use would include more weather observation and interpretation training. Just before sending the student for their initial cross country solo, schedule classroom time versus flight time to go over the basics of how to get weather data, which products provide what info, and how to take it all and make a good go or no go decision.
 
texasclouds said:
My decision was to check again closer to departure and no-go if clouds are not at least 3500'. I was hoping experienced pilots would have suggestions or more insight.
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What's the MEF figures on your VFR chart for the area you are planning in?

How did you settle on 3500?

What are the actual minimums you can go down to?

What is Marginal VFR?

If you decide to go take a look and see, what are your plans if you can't back to your starting point?

If you had to divert to where its forecast clear and a million how far away is it and do you have the fuel to get there?
 
The CFI does not need to be a CFII to file ifr with a student if he is caught in the crud, only instrument rated and current. When I'm asked this by an instructor, I have two answers. The first is with my personal minimums. The second is whether I consider the flight doable with what I consider the instructor's minimums. Flying in crappy weather, within legal limits, is an invaluable lesson for any new pilot. Seeing what the legal minimums, or close to the legal minimums is really like is eye opening the first time you do it. I highly recommend doing this with a willing and properly qualified instructor.
 
A 4pm flight today directly conflicts with the start of Friday happy hour. Decision to cancel flight should have been made immediately and your CFI should have endorsed you for your check ride on the spot based on that display of advanced ADM.
 
PaulS said:
The CFI does not need to be a CFII to file ifr with a student if he is caught in the crud, only instrument rated and current. When I'm asked this by an instructor, I have two answers. The first is with my personal minimums. The second is whether I consider the flight doable with what I consider the instructor's minimums. Flying in crappy weather, within legal limits, is an invaluable lesson for any new pilot. Seeing what the legal minimums, or close to the legal minimums is really like is eye opening the first time you do it. I highly recommend doing this with a willing and properly qualified instructor.
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A student should not consider the CFI as an out for crap weather. Last time I had a student do that, I had to tell them I was out of currency by 1 week. So if we had flown we would have had to divert somewhere.
 
TommyG said:
A student should not consider the CFI as an out for crap weather. Last time I had a student do that, I had to tell them I was out of currency by 1 week. So if we had flown we would have had to divert somewhere.
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Hence my two answers. When I came back to flying my instructor was ifr current and proficient, we would go out dual on days I would not dream of going out by myself with my personal minimums. It was great experience to see what just above vfr legal conditions are and was very helpful in my decision to pursue my Instrument rating. An instructor who knowingly would go out in marginal weather without being ifr rated and proficient is probably not that good. I knew my instructor's capability and moreover we would talk about the conditions before during and after the flight. It was a great learning tool and one every new pilot should experience. We did this several times and he never had to file.

A student who did what happened to you is in need of more instruction for weather and decision making.

I do the same now with my CFII, I usually get a text on crappy days, saying what do you think? On days that are below my anticipated minimums but above his minimums I will answer, me alone no way, but using your minimums I think we look good. Then there was a day last week my answer was nope, not going, he concurred. It's good experience to shoot an approach in actual conditions. I've been lucky the past many weeks to fly actual approaches in conditions below what my minimums will be when I first get rated.
 
Well we made the trip and it was awesome! Weather cleared up and air was glass smooth. I will read your replies when I get home. Flght log got us there perfect. We played with VOR and GPS on way back. I feel like it was productive and my CFI did a great job. 800WX guys were very friendly and we filed/closed a vfr plan with them.
 
texasclouds said:
Good question, I assume 3000' MSL. If clouds were not an issue, I think we would be planning for 4500' MSL.

Field elevations are 321', 324' MSL.
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Going out or coming home?

Edit: disregard, just saw you made the flight.
 
Yes, we did have a weather lesson, i have read about it in a training book and the Cessna ground school. I even bought an app to help me learn the lingo. But that doesn’t mean i retained it all or mastered it with 16 hours of flying. Today i realized clouds in the metar are agl not msl. The details man, details. I feel both smarter and dumber every day.
 
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