"I have the feeling this low weather will hang around all day," I worried aloud. "We might not get back tonight."
"I know this interview is important to you," she said reassuringly. "We have a credit card, and there's no hurry. If we have to, we'll take a bus home." I was thankful for her support, and we launched as planned.
En route, we were in the clouds at 7,000 feet, but we were ice-free and there were no bumps. As forecast, the weather at Lancaster was VFR. Once on the ground, we rented a car, and I arrived for the interview on time. While I pondered the questions from the interview panel, my wife and son explored the nearest shopping plaza. After the interview, we packed off to the airport. All in all, the trip had been fun. Then I phoned flight service for a briefing.
The warm front had moved in faster than expected. Rochester weather was broken clouds at 200 feet, overcast at 600 feet, and visibility of two miles in light snow. The temperature-dewpoint spread was zero. Every airport within 100 nautical miles was reporting low ceilings and visibility. Pilot reports of icing were trickling in. Albany, 170 nautical miles east of Rochester, was VFR and forecast to stay that way. I filed for Albany, and off we went.
I called flight service at the halfway point for another shot at Rochester. The voice on the radio was not reassuring. "Rochester weather 300 overcast, visibility one-and-one-quarter miles in light rain. Temperature 35, dewpoint 35," the briefer reported. Conditions weren't much better to the east with Syracuse and Utica reporting extremely low ceilings and visibility.
"Uh oh," I thought. "Really low ceilings. But...you're an experienced flight instructor. You can do an ILS approach to 300 feet. I know you can do one to 700 feet," I told myself. I looked at my wife. She paid me the best compliment a pilot can receive about his flying. She was fast asleep. I glanced at the rear seat just as our son awoke from his nap. In the half-fog of being nearly awake, he smiled and said, "Hi, Daddy." Then he went back to sleep.
"That does it," I said aloud. "Albany approach, Mooney Nine Nine Two Golf for the ILS Runway 1, full stop."
It cost nearly $100 for the rental car. The drive took four hours. I knew that it would take a week to get the car and the airplane back where they belonged. One the drive home, I saw too many patches of clear sky, few snow showers, and little fog. More than once I grumbled, "Damn. The weather isn't so bad."
I was plagued by doubts for hours. But as we came to within 60 miles of home, we began to notice a thin coating of ice on the road. It soon became abundantly clear that I had made the right decision to land and drive home.
"Of course, when you've flown as long as I have, you know these things," I boasted to myself with new confidence.
I had done what I caution students to do: Leave yourself a way out, and have the courage to take it. Yes, courage. The decision not to push through to our destination was extremely tough to make.
In fact, the decision not to do something is usually among the toughest you'll have to make. These other nots are among those tough flying decisions.
Not landing after a bad approach. "I think I can make it, if I can just get these flaps...." Go around, dummy.
Not taking off after finding an equipment problem. "That magneto will clear up after we get her up and leaned out. " What were those procedures for an off-airport landing?
Not ignoring a weather briefing. "The weather looks pretty good. Besides, this baby can really haul ice." Haul ice?
Not terminating the flight after finding a problem in the preflight inspection. "Well, we got some of the frost off the wings. Most of it, actually. Anyway, what's that called when the ice just evaporates?" It's called tempting fate.
Of course, I've made my share of dumb flying decisions - probably many more than you have. So here are my hard-learned recommendations for making better go/no-go decisions:
Use your own judgment. Don't let anyone, even your own flight instructor, talk you into doing something that makes you uncomfortable. And don't let peer pressure influence your decision to terminate a flight. Pilots' tall tales of laughing in the face of death are just that - tall tales.
Unless you're a mechanic, don't try to diagnose a problem that could affect the safety of flight. And don't try to rationalize it away. Park the airplane.
Always get a complete weather briefing. Talk to a briefer and use other sources such as the AOPA Web site ( www.aopa.org/members/wx ), The Weather Channel, DUATS, and telephone access to AWOS. Regardless of how the weather looks from your window, if the forecast predicts bad weather, believe it.
Remember that you don't get any points for almost landing safely. Don't let others' boasts about their crosswind landing skills keep you from choosing a runway more in line with the wind - even if it's at another airport. Instead of pushing your luck, get with your instructor to hone those crosswind skills.
Remember that flying is supposed to be fun. If you aren't comfortable flying in wind, turbulence, or snow, don't do it. Enlist the services of your flight instructor to stretch your comfort envelope.
Make every flight predictable. Predictability is a result of good flight planning. That doesn't mean things can't go wrong. But good planning does reduce the risk of DPE (dumb pilot error).
Know your limitations and stay within them. Set personal minimums and use them. You can expand the boundaries as you gain experience.
Always leave yourself a way out. When you plan a cross-country flight, know where the weather is good and how long it's supposed to stay that way. If you're planning to fly IFR, be sure to ask the briefer, "Where's the closest VFR weather?"
Hold onto your convictions. Be ready to take the escape route, no matter how inconvenient it may be. The cost for failing to do so could be your life.
Years have passed since I made that trip to Albany, and in retrospect I am firmly convinced that my decision to divert, to use the safety net, was the right one. Had we tried to push on, we might have ended up as three more victims of a dumb pilot error.
