Pilot intuition or paranoid passenger

Tristar

Tristar

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Tristar
I know this is going to sound silly but I was wondering if anyone has ever canceled a flight because they didnt like the weather the airliner would be going through? I had a flight scheduled this morning out of FL to memphis and there was a line of thunderstorms moving through the area. I know I'm not flying the plane and it is an RJ but for some reason the thought of being thrown around the cabin didnt seem comfortable or quite all safe. We had two airplanes go down here recently because the pilots were dumb enough to fly into it and they were ripped apart midair, one was a cessna 421, so maybe thats what has me a little skittish. I know I was taught as a pilot not to do something that I wasnt comfortable with, and a cold front with tornado watches everywhere made me feel iffy. So my question is am I just a paranoid passenger thats willing to spend $100 to change flights or a smart pilot that knows what I'd be getting into and trying not to practice "get there itis?"

Just curious,
Tristan
:blueplane:
 
Tristan:

Your savvy at such a young age never ceases to amaze me. Your flying history(and determination), having attained PP-ASEL, should be an inspiration to all student pilots. I hope college -- particularly the aviation segment -- is going well for you.

HR (or W & w, depending where you may be visiting)
 
Very few passenger planes crash.

Even fewer crash because of only bad WX.

If the passenger was worried about a rough ride & sickness I could see cancling.

If it were just for the life & death part, I see no real danger or reason to cancle.
 
Lawreston said:
Tristan:

Your savvy at such a young age never ceases to amaze me. Your flying history(and determination), having attained PP-ASEL, should be an inspiration to all student pilots. I hope college -- particularly the aviation segment -- is going well for you.

HR (or W & w, depending where you may be visiting)
Click to expand...
Aww stop trying to butter me up, hehe. College is tough and I'm having my own challenges with it, but like with anything, I'll get through it eventualy.
 
Eamon said:
Very few passenger planes crash.

Even fewer crash because of only bad WX.

If the passenger was worried about a rough ride & sickness I could see cancling.

If it were just for the life & death part, I see no real danger or reason to cancle.
Click to expand...

Eamon's right.

OTOH, I'd completely understand if you canceled solely because you have to ride in the back of an RJ.... :eek: ;)
 
wsuffa said:
Eamon's right.

OTOH, I'd completely understand if you canceled solely because you have to ride in the back of an RJ.... :eek: ;)
Click to expand...
Funny enough, I'd take an RJ over an ATR! Lets see... faster jet with no leg room, or giant human-mailing-system 172. Its a tough call so I guess I'll just go with the prettier and faster one, LOL
 
A bunch of years ago I had a dream I was sitting in the upper deck of a 747-400 in seat 17j (window on the right side). At the time I was flying a lot of 747-400s to Asia and I would sit up top where there was no smoking (I said this was a while ago). In my dream we hit severe turbulence that resulted in the right wing breaking away. As we spiraled down I could feel my self being thrown about and I was watching the world outside and thinking to myself as I made this plunge that there was no way out and I was going to die. As we hit the ground everything went into slow motion. I watched the front of the plane (from the inside) start to crush, people were screaming and I knew I was about to die. At that time the seats started to break away, I felt myself pushed into the seat forward and felt my legs snap, then my arm was ripped off by metal and pieces of the cabin started to penetrate my flesh. It was horribly painful and when I awoke I was sweating and a little freaked out.

The strange thing was that even though I was flying 747-400s I never would sit at a window, I want an aisle seat all the time.

A month later I had a flight to Japan and I boarded a 747-400 and had not paid attention to where I was seated. I sat down in the exact seat and BOY did I have a bit of an anxiety attack. I wanted off of that plane ASAP. I stood up three times to leave but then managed to back down the panic and just say that it was only a dream and a coincidence. When we took off I was still on edge and over Canada we started to hit rough air and I was sure that we were goners.

But obviously it all worked out as I am posting. I am not sure I would still get on aboard a plane if I had another dream like that and ended up in the same seat.
 
Wow, you have some incredibly detailed dreams! I think I'd freak out too. I have an uneasy relationship with reality and coincidence when it comes to dreams. I don't mind flying on airliners but it does make me nervious because as a pilot you want to be in control. But in the back, you feel like a hopeless piece of luggage with a "how to fly" book tucked in the side pocket. Although it is nice to usualy know what all the noises are. I see passengers freaking out when the gear drops or the throttles are pulled back.
 
Tristar said:
Wow, you have some incredibly detailed dreams! .
Click to expand...

Well that is the funny thing. Normally I do not remember my dreams. A whacky one, once in a while. I do get bad nightmares from time to time and I do remember them but they are attributable to something altogether different than flying.
 
Oh I love my dreams for the most part, I get so subconsiously inventive! I think the craziest one lately was I had an engine out on my bycicle strapped to a hangglider. I landed at someones grass strip, folded it up, put it in the car and left. I'm seriously not going nuts...just a little inventive! (wait...why is everyone backing up?)
 
smigaldi said:
A bunch of years ago I had a dream I was sitting in the upper deck of a 747-400
Click to expand...
I had a very creepy dream TWICE, in fact. My wife was pregnant with our first son. I dreamed we were visiting her mom, and our son was a toddler. We pulled into the garage and got out of the car, and our dog began to attack him. For some reason I was wearing a pistol in a belt holster. I knocked the dog to the floor, kneeled on its neck, and shot it in the head. I looked up and saw horror on the faces of my wife and M-I-L. I looked down again. I was kneeling on my son's neck and had shot him, and there was no dog to be found.

The first time I had it, I woke up drenched with sweat and in a panic, and didn't sleep again that night. The second time I simply woke up with a pounding heart and didn't sleep again that night.
 
Ken Ibold said:
I had a very creepy dream TWICE, in fact. My wife was pregnant with our first son. I dreamed we were visiting her mom, and our son was a toddler. We pulled into the garage and got out of the car, and our dog began to attack him. For some reason I was wearing a pistol in a belt holster. I knocked the dog to the floor, kneeled on its neck, and shot it in the head. I looked up and saw horror on the faces of my wife and M-I-L. I looked down again. I was kneeling on my son's neck and had shot him, and there was no dog to be found.

The first time I had it, I woke up drenched with sweat and in a panic, and didn't sleep again that night. The second time I simply woke up with a pounding heart and didn't sleep again that night.
Click to expand...

Dreams like that are the reason I don't remember dreams anymore.:no:
 
I elected not to get on a commuter flight from CVG to HTS (Cincinatti to Huntington, WV) once when the weather picture in the airport lounge showed massive thunderstorms and a tornado watch enroute. I flew the next morning in sunny skies. Turns out the plane boarded... went to the end of the runway and sat for over an hour before departing - safely.
 
I have very detailed weird dreams (sometimes repeats), and I tend to remember them where most of my friends don't. They think that's a little strange (probably rightly so :D ).

Way back when.... I used to have scary duty related dreams and I would wake up in a panic. I was always a little freaked about them, and was always a little bit afraid to go to work the next day for fear someone was trying to tell me something. At first I didn't tell anyone about them, then I had an FTO (training officer) tell me about one of his strange dreams one time. He explained that it was normal for me to have them considering the stress and responsibility of the job. Just the minds subconscious way of sorting through the whole "someone's life may depend on me today" pressure (especially a young 21 year old officer). It made me feel better knowing he had them too.

His advice helped me out in a dream once too. I dreamed that I walked into a bank robbery in progress and the suspect started shooting at me. In my dream I fired back, but the bullet just rolled out of the barrel and fell to the floor. I'm standing there looking at the bullet rolling around the floor in shock while everyone else is frozen in place (like I hit the pause button), when my FTO walks in, picks up the bullet off the floor and shoves it back in the barrel and tells me, "Try again", smiles and walks out. Action starts back up, I fire again, and I hit the bad guy this time. We got a good laugh out of that dream during my next shift. :D

Haven't had one of those kind of dreams in a long time though.
 
I was in Tx on business when a storm blew through. There was large hail and numerous reports of tornado sightings. Flew out the following day for home only to have the plane sit on the tarmac for over an hour as a similar storm blew through.
Left the house at 4am for a flight to Pa. We spent 5 hours on United at the gate while the pilots waited for permission to push back (the tailend of a blizzard). From about hour 2 to hour 5, we watched numerous other craft depart. They hustled us off the craft and later canceled the flight. 5 hours more, I finally left the airport on a TWA. Arrived at the hotel that night at 11.
Yea, I'd cancel if I wasn't comfortable with the weather. And in the above, I wish I had.
 
Tristan:

I don't blame you for sitting out a hand if you're unhappy with the current deal, but you may not be getting weather information that directly applies to where you'll be flying off the TV and even on the DUATS or other weather brief sites.

Airlines have admin sections that monitor weather continuously with qualified people in those centers. They advise the crew on where weather can be circumvented and are pretty successful. Other airline plane crews are reporting actual conditions aloft.

For example: I flew from Dallas to Bartow, Florida about ten days ago. Made a post on the board here. The NEXRAD weather showed a continuous line of storms going north and south across my route. (from the Gulf of Mexico all the way up into Kentucky. I was to cross that line at Jackson Mississippi.) Before leaving, I looked at all the weather briefing info and had no information as to where tops were and if folks were getting through. I called Center and asked a few questions; was told most folks were above all the bad stuff at FL200.

As I approached that area, on board NEXRAD showed a large wide green area with a thinner yellow area in the middle, and red at the center for much of the length of that system.

My on-board radar, which can be tilted up and down, showed no convective activity at my altitude (FL210). I contacted Atlanta Center and got a PIREP from a King Air that had just passed through at FL200 from the other direction and had no problem; just some light rime ice. I got nothing at my altitude.

Guess my point is, there are times what you seen on TV may be something that is very manageable in the air. DUATs may not convey the information you need to thoroughly evaluate an entire route at your altitude at the time you will be there. Other folks flying through spots that work may not be reported.

Of course, there are times when it would be nuts to depart. Many times the airlines do cancel under clearly bad conditions.

I'm not saying there never times I would not be comfortable departing when an airliner does depart. The flight could be bumpier than you'd like. But do consider that you may not be privy to all the weather information the airlines have; how conditions are changing while you're in the air and all the options open to a jet that can climb to the high 30,000s to get above and around things.

Best.

Dave
 
:hairraise: :D :yes: :goofy:
Eamon said:
I heard thatl etting em sit too long on the tarmac is how snakes get on airliners... That is scary :)
Click to expand...


Thanks for that. I laughed out loud at my laptop.


One of my pals had a funny dream when he was learning to fly. In the dream he went to the FBO but his instructor wasn't around. They gave him a plane anyway so he preflighted, hopped in, and started up. After taxying out to the runway and doing his run-up he realized that since he hadn't learned to land yet he'd be in a fix if he took off. So, he taxyed back to the FBO and out the airport gate onto the road. He had the plane checked out for the whole afternoon so away he went down the road. Pretty quick he realized that driving a 172 around on city streets might attract attention so he turned onto the gravel road along the airport boundary and headed out into the country side for an afternoon of cross-country taxying along country roads.

MM
 
I know right at the time of my departure the storm was right over the top of the airport and my flight was already delayed getting into the airport I was leaving. I know you guys are right though, something just made me not want to go on that flight.
 
Tristin, it's better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air than in the air wishing you were on the ground. It's an old saying but I feel it is also appropriate to your decision.
 
Ken Ibold said:
I had a very creepy dream TWICE, in fact. My wife was pregnant with our first son. I dreamed we were visiting her mom, and our son was a toddler. We pulled into the garage and got out of the car, and our dog began to attack him. For some reason I was wearing a pistol in a belt holster. I knocked the dog to the floor, kneeled on its neck, and shot it in the head. I looked up and saw horror on the faces of my wife and M-I-L. I looked down again. I was kneeling on my son's neck and had shot him, and there was no dog to be found.

The first time I had it, I woke up drenched with sweat and in a panic, and didn't sleep again that night. The second time I simply woke up with a pounding heart and didn't sleep again that night.
Click to expand...

HOLY %^$# Ken that would have me reaching for a glass of bourbon.
 
It's all an excuse for Tristan not wanting to come to my house today. Lets just see if "lil'Missy" gets picked up at the airport tomorrow!!! :)
 
Hey Tri... here's the way I look at it. I've never had the true heebies-jeebies before I got on a flight. But I have this gut feeling that I trust 110%. It hasn't killed me yet, and when I find myself in a situation where the gut guy starts pounding the "STOP" button... I always end up safer.

Example:

Last week I did a three-summit 12 mile hike through Acadia National Park, hitting Cadillac, Dorr, and Champlain. Coming up the west side of Cadillac, we were tooling along through a stream-bed that was pretty caked with ice. Lacking my ice axe or my crampons... this made for some sketchy moves. About halfway up, we came across one pretty ugly and wide field covered with clear glaze, with no route around without a large deviation from the trail.

My gut said "No, bad idea". I thought about it, and said "it's only three short moves until I find my next protection". I ventured out, slipped, slid 20 feet down the face, grabbed onto a boulder about 20 feet above the face lip and "self arrested" 20 more feet and it would have been a 50' plunge to rocks below.

Moral of the story: you won't win any medals listening to gut guy, but he keeps your rear out of the sling.

Cheers,

-Andrew
 
smigaldi said:
A bunch of years ago I had a dream I was sitting in the upper deck of a 747-400 in seat 17j (window on the right side). At the time I was flying a lot of 747-400s to Asia and I would sit up top where there was no smoking (I said this was a while ago). In my dream we hit severe turbulence that resulted in the right wing breaking away. As we spiraled down I could feel my self being thrown about and I was watching the world outside and thinking to myself as I made this plunge that there was no way out and I was going to die. As we hit the ground everything went into slow motion. I watched the front of the plane (from the inside) start to crush, people were screaming and I knew I was about to die. At that time the seats started to break away, I felt myself pushed into the seat forward and felt my legs snap, then my arm was ripped off by metal and pieces of the cabin started to penetrate my flesh. It was horribly painful and when I awoke I was sweating and a little freaked out.

The strange thing was that even though I was flying 747-400s I never would sit at a window, I want an aisle seat all the time.

A month later I had a flight to Japan and I boarded a 747-400 and had not paid attention to where I was seated. I sat down in the exact seat and BOY did I have a bit of an anxiety attack. I wanted off of that plane ASAP. I stood up three times to leave but then managed to back down the panic and just say that it was only a dream and a coincidence. When we took off I was still on edge and over Canada we started to hit rough air and I was sure that we were goners.
Click to expand...

And then you wrote the movie Final Destination? :dunno:

I'da got off the plane, if for no reason than to avoid the 12-hour claustrophobic panic attacks a la John Madden.
 
Tristar said:
I know this is going to sound silly but I was wondering if anyone has ever canceled a flight because they didnt like the weather the airliner would be going through? Tristan
:blueplane:
Click to expand...

Keep in mind the pilot has dispatchers helping them workout good routes
through all the crud when it's out there. I've had delays from storms, but
don't ever remember a cancel. And since I fly a lot to Miami via Houston
there's a lot of storms around those areas. I enjoy watching them from
the air.

One thing I've liked about Continental is their "well .. lets just go have
a look" attitude. I recall one flight we left Miami going to Houston and
ended up clear up about to Tennessee working our way around some
big stuff. Finally after a couple hours of driving around the pilot said ..
"well folks the good news is we're pretty much past this stuff and
have a clear shot to Houston. The bad news is we've got to stop in
Dallas and buy gas to get there".
 
RogerT said:
And since I fly a lot to Miami via Houston
there's a lot of storms around those areas. I enjoy watching them from
the air.

".
Click to expand...

I used to fly from Lafayette, LA to Lake Charles, LA to Houston,TX 5 days a week.

That whole place is a magnet for T-Storms. I dont miss that route at all except for the food :)
 
smigaldi said:
A bunch of years ago I had a dream I was sitting in the upper deck of a 747-400 in seat 17j (window on the right side)...

A month later I had a flight to Japan and I boarded a 747-400 and had not paid attention to where I was seated. I sat down in the exact seat and BOY did I have a bit of an anxiety attack. I wanted off of that plane ASAP. I stood up three times to leave but then managed to back down the panic and just say that it was only a dream and a coincidence. When we took off I was still on edge and over Canada we started to hit rough air and I was sure that we were goners.

But obviously it all worked out as I am posting. I am not sure I would still get on aboard a plane if I had another dream like that and ended up in the same seat.
Click to expand...

I had a deja' vu incident almost exactly like that.

I remember having a dream where I had the view of the "Fasten Seat Belts" light display at the front of the SWA 737 and the jet ended up making a crash landing.

I was on the actual plane leaving Nashville when I recognized the view I had from my seat was THAT view. Oh sh*! The plane is gonna crash! I was actually in a cold sweat for a while. It took a few minutes for me to calm down. Of course, nothing happened.

I still have those deja vu incidents. I'm fascinated by them but I don't take them as omens of bad things anymore.

As I've bored people in telling, I have two recurring nightmares that I'm facing when buying my house:

1) I'm excited as I agree to rent an office or storage space and then when I have to make the first payment I realize I have no way to pay for it. There's no money coming in.

2) I wake up and walk around this huge suburban house which somehow is mine. Some echoes of nightmare #1 are in the background.

I'm about to face both nightmares in real life. I've actually realized that the house in #2 is pretty much the house I'm buying, but I think my brain has conveniently tailored the memory of my imagination to fit the reality.

No matter how much I try to convince myself I have it under control, I'm apprehensive. I've now had both my accountant and lawyer tell me that if I eally can't swing it something is seriously wrong. What do they know? They don't have an airplane to support! :redface:

I just remembered that I actually imagine entire detailed newspaper articles that I "read" as I fall asleep. The brain is amazing.
 
smigaldi said:
Never saw that movie. Is there a scene like this in it? BTW this dream happened about 1992. It was so vivid that I still recall how I felt when I awoke.
Click to expand...

That was like the whole first opening sequence. I think it was a band trip or some high school thing. Kid has this dream about the plane going down which starts with his tray table breaking as they're boarding. When they board the plane in real life, kid's tray table breaks. He freaks, gets off the plane with a couple of others trying to calm him down. The doors close before they can get back on, and while they're chastising him about causing them to miss the trip, the plane blows up.

The rest of it is kind of about fate or something. I kinda lost interest and didn't finish it.

BTW, I watched it on an airline flight from MKE to RDU. :rofl:
 
Eamon said:
Very few passenger planes crash.

Even fewer crash because of only bad WX.

If the passenger was worried about a rough ride & sickness I could see cancling.

If it were just for the life & death part, I see no real danger or reason to cancle.
Click to expand...

Rare but not unheard of in the commuter ranks. I've not gotten on several commuter flights because of enroute & terminal weather.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
That was like the whole first opening sequence. I think it was a band trip or some high school thing. Kid has this dream about the plane going down which starts with his tray table breaking as they're boarding. When they board the plane in real life, kid's tray table breaks. He freaks, gets off the plane with a couple of others trying to calm him down. The doors close before they can get back on, and while they're chastising him about causing them to miss the trip, the plane blows up.

The rest of it is kind of about fate or something. I kinda lost interest and didn't finish it.
Click to expand...
Yeah, the rest of the movie is all about how they avoided death or cheated death and they weren't supposed to, so now death was coming after them, in order of their seating arrangement.

So they kept coming up with inventive ways to get dead... that was kinda funny actually.
 
astanley said:
Hey Tri... here's the way I look at it. I've never had the true heebies-jeebies before I got on a flight. But I have this gut feeling that I trust 110%. It hasn't killed me yet, and when I find myself in a situation where the gut guy starts pounding the "STOP" button... I always end up safer.

Example:

Last week I did a three-summit 12 mile hike through Acadia National Park, hitting Cadillac, Dorr, and Champlain. Coming up the west side of Cadillac, we were tooling along through a stream-bed that was pretty caked with ice. Lacking my ice axe or my crampons... this made for some sketchy moves. About halfway up, we came across one pretty ugly and wide field covered with clear glaze, with no route around without a large deviation from the trail.

My gut said "No, bad idea". I thought about it, and said "it's only three short moves until I find my next protection". I ventured out, slipped, slid 20 feet down the face, grabbed onto a boulder about 20 feet above the face lip and "self arrested" 20 more feet and it would have been a 50' plunge to rocks below.

Moral of the story: you won't win any medals listening to gut guy, but he keeps your rear out of the sling.

Cheers,

-Andrew
Click to expand...
Umm, wow, Glad you're okay?!!
 
My dreams of turbulence and sweating usually involve "babysitting" over at The Playboy Mansion.
 
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