Scudrunners

How would you advise an inexperience VFR  GA pilot on how to learn to evaluate the weather, 
make a safe  go/no go decision and what to do flying in different weather conditions?
Can you go back to your early days and share how you did it?

I dont have to go back very far... still learning.


Theres no magical answer as far as I know. I like to look at the weather reports for days when I am not flying, and compare that to what it looks like outside.


As I have progressed in my flying, I tend to look at different things. The more comfortable I became as a VFR pilot, the more I would push my personal limits and sometimes going up to "see whats out there". Most of the time these were great learning experiences, and a few "im not gonna do that again" moments. But I would never go past a point that I wasn't sure I could get back through if I had to turn around.


Watch the "big picture"... not just at your home airport, but the whole province... and the neighboring provinces. You will eventually be known as the weather geek at work or with your buddies.... you will be able to figure out local weather trends even when not flying.


As far as go/no go decisions, that's all about personal minimums and having options. In the beginning of my flying, I would always like more than just a plan B. I had C, D, E... As I leaned more about weather, its come down to usually just plan B, mabee a C. I still hate VFR flight with under 3000' ceilings - even on the prairies.

Read the weather forecasts and when you are in doubt don't go.

For VFR:

In flat terrain, wait until there is no cloud below
1500 feet all along your route.  Try to stay 1000
feet above towers and hills along your route.

Look at the radar, and avoid precipitation.  Is
it moving?  Getting stronger?

Dewpoint spread is what I look at.  It determines
ceiling and visibility.  Is it getting better or worse?

Generally dewpoint spread opens up in the morning
as the sun heats the earth, and decreases as the sun
goes down at night.  Be very careful, flying night
VFR, especially over unfamiliar terrain.

During the summer, you're going to deal with
CB's and daytime heating.  Toss a front or some
orographic lift in, and you can get some serious
thunderstorms.  Moisture and instability is a bad
combination in an air mass.

During the winter, it's a different story.  You
have poor visibility in snowstorms, and freezing
rain in warm fronts in winter will kill you.  Snow
is a real fog-making machine.  But sometimes
night VFR in the winter can be wonderful, with
all the light reflected from the ice and snow.

Everything looks different in the winter, and
is harder.  It's harder to get your aircraft out
of the hangar, it's harder to start it, it's hard
to tell if the runway is plowed.

I'm a bit of a wx geek.  I look at the locations
and strengths and movements of the lows
and highs and the associated fronts.  There
is lots and lots of internet wx data available -
look at the TAFs and METARs and radar.

Coastal and mountain flying have their own
challenges.  I'll let someone else address
them.

The Colonel as always has given a great outline on how to keep informed on weather so you can make sound decisions on when to fly and when not to fly.


Like the Colonel Met.  was my favourite subject when learning to fly and I still keep up to date on the weather even though I no longer fly.


And I can always depend on the Colonel to do the heavy lifting on these subjects, thus my very short first comment.  :)) :))

[quote author=dirtdr link=topic=7036.msg18946#msg18946 date=1504896173]


Watch the "big picture"... not just at your home airport, but the whole province... and the neighboring provinces. You will eventually be known as the weather geek at work or with your buddies.... you will be able to figure out local weather trends even when not flying.
[/quote]
LOL  I been typecasted  by family members as the '' know it all'' when it comes to questions about the weather :)

[quote author=Colonel Sanders link=topic=7036.msg18969#msg18969 date=1504922597]
For VFR:

In flat terrain, wait until there is no cloud below
1500 feet all along your route.  Try to stay 1000
feet above towers and hills along your route.

Look at the radar, and avoid precipitation.  Is
it moving?  Getting stronger?

Dewpoint spread is what I look at.  It determines
ceiling and visibility.  Is it getting better or worse?

Generally dewpoint spread opens up in the morning
as the sun heats the earth, and decreases as the sun
goes down at night.  Be very careful, flying night
VFR, especially over unfamiliar terrain.

During the summer, you're going to deal with
CB's and daytime heating.  Toss a front or some
orographic lift in, and you can get some serious
thunderstorms.  Moisture and instability is a bad
combination in an air mass.

During the winter, it's a different story.  You
have poor visibility in snowstorms, and freezing
rain in warm fronts in winter will kill you.  Snow
is a real fog-making machine.  But sometimes
night VFR in the winter can be wonderful, with
all the light reflected from the ice and snow.

Everything looks different in the winter, and
is harder.  It's harder to get your aircraft out
of the hangar, it's harder to start it, it's hard
to tell if the runway is plowed.

I'm a bit of a wx geek.  I look at the locations
and strengths and movements of the lows
and highs and the associated fronts.  There
is lots and lots of internet wx data available -
look at the TAFs and METARs and radar.

Coastal and mountain flying have their own
challenges.  I'll let someone else address
them.
[/quote]


Thank you ,excellent posting.

There is so much to learn about the wx, and as a former flight
instructor, I'd like to apologize about how badly it's taught in
ground school.

Wx is probably the most important subject in ground school.

I was lucky enough to grow up in an aviation family - my
father and uncle were pretty serious pilots - and there are
so many little bits of information to learn about aviation,
and the weather.

What I learned about the weather, is that you had to be a
better forecaster than the guy who did it for a living, because
you had more skin the game!  :o

Watch for a wx forecast that goes sour - they totally blew it.
It happens.

Some more tidbits ....

Beware the sucker hole.  Just because the sun is shining
(eg in the eye of a hurricane) doesn't mean you should go
flying.

I learned a long time ago, to fly from bad weather to good
weather.  If you are flying into improving weather, away from
a front, you will have an easy time of it.

Many years ago, I was leaving North Bay in my Maule and
there was a powerful front bearing down from the northwest,
during the summer.  I took off with CB's about to hit - it
looked pretty scary - but far enough away that turbulence
and hail wasn't an issue, and flew east to Ottawa where
the sun was shining.

Bad wx, to good.  As the man says, one hole in the overcast
is worth 10 published approaches.

Wx knowledge can be highly location (and season!) specific.

I got to know the crappy vis and low clouds around the
Great Lakes after living there for many years.  Travel west
to the high plains east of the Rockies, the dewpoint spread
is incredible and so is the visibility.  100 miles.  Never get
that around the Great Lakes.  Well, not often.

Coastal wx can be raunchy.  East coast VFR must be treated
with respect.  Where I come from, the wx can be 0/0 but
there will be no wind.  East coast, the wx can be 0/0 with
howling winds.  Never understood that.

Flying in the Rockies is something I do occasionally, but
don't know much about.  The main thing for me is to have
no wind aloft.  Bad things happen when you combine
hills and strong winds.  Insane turbulence and downdrafts
that exceed the capability of anything without two afterburners.

Like airshow pilots, ever notice that all the mountain flying
pilot experts end up dead?

I would never, ever fly up a dead-end valley (ICON, anyone?)
below the hilltops, nor would I fly up a valley below the hilltops
that had an overcast.  Suicide.  When you are a pro, you can
do stuff like that, but as I have noticed over the decades, those
pros seem to end up dead.

I like altitude in the hills.  Fly on days when there is no ceiling
and get that mother as high as it will go.  Yeah, I know,  O2.
Learn to grunt breathe.  Besides, I find that hypoxia improves
the mood.  j/k

Delta recently flew into Puerto Rico just ahead of Hurricane
Irma, and they were heroes because they rolled the dice and
it worked out well.  If it didn't they would have been the goats.

I'm not talking about the conditions when they landed - Delta
are good sticks, in my experience.  They can handle a little wind
and rain.

But they had their asses hung out, because what if they had a
mechanical after they landed?  Or couldn't get fuel?  Or some
other stupid detail that grounded them?  Were they prepared
to sacrifice that airplane to Irma?

What I'm trying to say ... in dealing with wx, always be thinking

What if?

I'm a paranoid "what if?"-er.  That's why I'm still alive after
decades of high-risk flying and motorcycle riding.  You simply
wouldn't believe what I do every day on a sport bike.  It would
blow your mind.

But you must always have an answer to at least ONE LEVEL of
what if?  Two levels is nice.

What if I'm flying along my VFR route and the wx deteriorates?

This happened to me on my last 3000 mile x/c in the biplanes.
What I did was land at an airport along my route.  This sounds
obvious, but I had checked NOTAMS for all possible divert
airports along my route.  Don't want the runway closed!  That's
the only NOTAM you give a shit about, VFR.

VFR in less than perfect wx, you hopscotch from airport to
airport, and if the wx gets bad, land.

Probably the most important thing I can teach you:

[b]Don't let the tractor beam of doom pull you in[/b].  Sometimes
you get tantalizingly close to your destination and the wx
slams the door shut with a wall of rain.

[b]Have the will power to turn around[/b].  If you do, you will live.
If you don't, sooner or later you will die, because if you keep
rolling the dice, sooner or later you're going to run across wx
that you simply can't defeat.  Don't care if you're Chuck Yeager
in an F-22.  Wx is more powerful than mortals - remember
that - and there is no shame in diverting.

That's why I'm alive.

Oh yeah, have lots of gas.  I mean, a lot of gas.  On my last
x/c I installed a ferry tank to double my gas.  It gave me
options and flexibility that I could only dream of.  No more
worries about headwinds or diversions causing me to run
out of gas.  Lots of gas gives you lots of options.



[img width=374 height=500][/img]

Remember, the only time you have too much gas is when
you are on fire.  Or, hit the trees at the end of the runway.

I always always top the gas up, x/c.  If you're over gross
because of fuel, it doesn't count  ;D

Hope this helps.  I have spent a lifetime learning this stuff,
and while it's nice to pass it on to Eric, who watches and
learns while we do this, it would be nice if this knowledge
lived on in the pilot community.  I get sad when stuff like
tailwheel (stick and rudder) skills disappear from the pilot
knowledge pool.

fly low on nice days, get comfortable with it so when you have to its nothing new. This will at least teach you to navigate from a different perspective.


Dew point,  pay attention to that closely especially on the coasts. I've been chased out of a few valleys as things socked in as the shadows grew long. Grey hair earned