Personality plays an important role in the limits we set for ourselves. Adventuresome, fearless, confident - these personality traits tend to make for more aggressive limits than you'd see in a pilot who is cautious, hesitant, and deliberate. Of course, it's a small step from adventuresome to brash, fearless to crazy, and confident to overconfident. An enthusiastic novice pilot who immediately signs up for multiengine training may be a confident, aggressive pilot. A brash novice pilot who launches on a family cross-country jaunt in marginal visual meteorological conditions is something else. It takes mature judgment to recognize the sometimes-murky zone where aggressive becomes dangerous.
Experience is another important factor in setting personal limits. Generally, we're comfortable with what we know and have experienced, while we may be anxious about what we haven't seen for ourselves. I've known several freshly minted pilots who had a lot of apprehension about flying into a short, unimproved field for the first time. When all you've experienced in your short flying life is 5,000-foot-long, 100-foot-wide paved runways, a 2,000-foot-long, 60-foot-wide grass strip can be an intimidating challenge. Yet, to a person pre- pared with the proper training, that first short-field landing is exhilarating.
That leads to an important point about setting personal limits. Experience guides us on what limits we set and also helps us to adjust those limits. Personal limits shouldn't be seen as permanent. Any pilot who is reasonably active sees a natural progression in his or her skills and abilities. With that comes the confidence to go a little further. Over-water flying in a single-engine, single-pilot airplane can seem dangerous to someone who hasn't tried it. Why take the chance that the engine will lose power miles from land? But by analyzing the miniscule risks involved and taking prudent precautions, such as obtaining instruction in normal and emergency over-water procedures, the doubters who give over-water flying a try will see that it is an extraordinary and unique experience, and they'll likely be hooked.
Setting personal limits can be as easy as listing maximums and minimums on a sheet of paper. A simplistic example: "I'll fly in no worse conditions than six miles visibility, with a minimum ceiling height of 3,000 feet mean sea level. The maximum crosswind component I'll accept is 10 knots." Now I have a set of hard-and-fast weather specifications to guide my decisions.
Of course, it's rarely that easy or straightforward. Personal limits should be seen as guidelines to apply rather than rigid standards to observe and never violate. Yes, I could whip out my personal limits checklist to make a go/no-go decision before each flight, but that approach sacrifices flexibility and opportunity to obstinate obedience. Much of the fun and challenge of flying is seeking out new experiences, new situations, and new knowledge and skills. The challenge is expanding our personal envelope and pushing our limits, as slowly and deliberately or as quickly and aggressively as we choose.
That's why a commitment to flight instruction should not end after the examiner hands you a temporary pilot's certificate. Whether to maintain currency, achieve tack-sharp proficiency, or go after advanced ratings and certificates, a regimen of instruction should be part of your approach to piloting. And it's all done in the context of enjoyment. The object is to have fun and enjoy the satisfaction that comes from raising the bar on your skill level.
To be inflexible in applying or adjusting personal limits is to ignore the dynamics that go into flying. If you've devoted time, effort, and money to arranging a flight, you're in no mood to hear that the wind has kicked up and now exceeds your "published" minimums. In that case, you might decide that your proficiency, skills, and will are up to tackling a crosswind stronger than your limits normally would permit. The best bet in that situation is to spend a little time with an instructor reviewing crosswind techniques in the airplane you plan to fly. You'll be prepared for the flight, and you'll probably relish the experience. Of course, it's not a good idea to "push" your limits unless your skills are up to it and you've had the appropriate training. Departing simply because you don't want to change your plans can be dangerous. By the same token, you might launch when one factor - a crosswind for example - exceeds your limits, but you should pause if that crosswind is combined with other no-go factors.
It's not possible to anticipate every aspect of a flight, so you sometimes have to rely on your gut to provide guidance where your minimums leave off. Typically, the gut check comes when en-route weather turns out to be worse than reported or forecast.
My gut saw plenty of service early in my flying career when I flew trips from Wellsville, New York, to points south. The foothills to the south don't rise any higher than Wellsville's 2,100-foot msl elevation, but those central Pennsylvania valleys get deeper and the forests grow thicker, so the visual effect is of increasingly rugged, hostile terrain. Overlay that terrain with an active climate disposed to cloud cover, and you've created significant stress for a tentative VFR pilot of limited experience.
With few airports to provide observations, weather reports and forecasts were ballpark guesses at best. Visibility may have been good below the clouds at Wellsville and at the destination, but I could never be certain what to expect on those lonely stretches in between.
In the beginning, lack of knowledge and experience allowed anxiety to take charge. I clearly recall the churning in my stomach as I listened to the Buffalo flight service station specialist paint a word picture of "not exactly" weather - not exactly good, but not exactly bad, either. What's a new pilot to do? Take off and hope that the weather turns out to be more good than bad? Not exactly.
I probably cancelled as many flights over that route as I took. But as I acquired experience with the weather and gained confidence in my piloting skills, I began recalculating the limits of my personal weather envelope. My dispatch performance gradually improved.
That period marked the beginning of my practical, on-the-job-training aviation education. I went on to earn an instrument rating, at which point I adopted a new set of personal limits. And started the cycle of redefining them all over again.
