That's all fine. Swimming in the community pool is great, even with the ocean just over the next hill. Staying within your limits is a sign of safe thinking for a pilot, especially an inexperienced one. Here's the catch--sooner or later, any active pilot is going to find that caution is not always a match for happenstance. Then it becomes evident that this ride may not remain within the secure parameters that you set for yourself. Once that happens, you're no longer simply on a pleasure flight. This has become a training flight.
But it's not something to get upset about--not an emergency of any kind. Unlike more predictable flights that you've conducted before, this one is becoming, shall we say, interesting. You sense that it may call on those second-level skills you have learned, not for everyday flying, but "just in case." Or the flight may simply be sending you a signal that it is time to do some advanced decision-making: change course, turn back, or land at the next airport. In either case, the simple fact is that you're in over your head. Whatever the original intent of your flight was, now the focus is on concluding it safely. If you feel oddly like a brand-new student pilot again, that's not a bad thing. The difference is that you now possess coping skills that you didn't have back then. So, sort out your options, pick the best one, and execute your new plan.
It can start with something as innocent as a burble of turbulence, growing into a nasty chop, when none was expected. Or you look down at an airport you're passing and note with interest that its windsock is fully extended and flapping about. Clouds--especially low clouds--when none had been forecast are a guaranteed attention-getter. So is rain, with its implied question of whether the conditions ahead will remain good enough for visual flying. Not being sure you are on course, especially in unexpectedly poor visibility, is another spoiler. Ground delays that threaten to extend your flight's duration past sundown, when a night flight wasn't on your agenda, is another frequent cause of exceeding one's limits. An instrument or system fails, or an unkind combination of the above occurs together.
One mental-toughness challenge to remember in situations like this is not to let the surprise you feel at being in a predicament morph into a more negative emotion, like guilt or anger. Venturing into deep water wasn't a naughty thing to do. You haven't reduced yourself to the level of the overconfident fellow who winks at the sky and takes off without a shred of preparation, eventually encountering much more than he bargained for. Usually, the remedy involves reaching back to your training and pulling out those coping skills you learned but hoped never to have to use. You remember the method: Your instructor outlined a set of circumstances, then asked, "What will you do now?" Identify the problem. Put it in its proper perspective. Choose the best solution.
Take the example given of looking down at an airport and noting with surprise that the windsock is full out and flopping about. According to the forecasts, this was not supposed to happen. That's why you chose today to take two friends up for a pleasure flight in your favorite rental aircraft or the Skyhawk you bought to celebrate earning your pilot certificate. So, the problem, identified more fully, is that you may be faced with a tricky approach and landing. Or more than one landing (plus a takeoff) if you are going somewhere and then returning home.
What's the proper perspective for the identified problem? First, go ahead and congratulate yourself just for observing that conditions have changed. This puts you ahead of many pilots and makes you less likely to have an accident.
There's other good news too: The airplane is fine. There's no immediate threat. Your passengers, chatting amongst themselves, don't know that in your mind, wheels are turning. Keep it this way if possible. Is this strong surface wind strictly a local phenomenon? Possibly. Terrain effects vary; search for visual clues as you proceed, such as smokestacks, lakes, trees. Automated surface weather reports from other airports may be within reach of your radio reception--dial them in and check. If that doesn't provide a satisfactory answer, update your weather briefing over the Enroute Flight Advisory Service frequency. Strong surface winds can be predictive of hazardous conditions you'd want to know about: a stormy front moving in earlier than forecast; another failing to depart, keeping the pressure gradient tight; or wind shear. Be sure to get recent pilot reports.
If you find it's a widespread condition, not forecast to improve any time soon, you're stuck with a windy approach. Now what? If it's strong enough so that once you land you'll be happy calling it quits for the day, you may have to announce to your passengers that plans have changed. This will go down easier and head off any added pressure to continue if your invitation to them to fly with you made clear that this was possible. Now you can focus on your return and landing. Will there be much of a crosswind component? Think about the runway you'll use, and try to visualize how strong or gusty surface winds interact with landing approaches there. Calculate, or estimate if necessary, the gust factor and plan ahead to carry half of that value as added airspeed on final approach. Consider the alternatives, too--perhaps another airport, not too far away, has a runway that's better aligned with this unexpected wind.
Monitor the tower, unicom, or common traffic advisory frequency (CTAF) from as far out as possible to hear how other aircraft are doing. Ask the tower to request a report from someone who just landed. If it's a CTAF, it's not bad manners to query someone about the ride on final, after he or she is safely down. Try to make it someone whose report you can trust as accurate and not overly dramatic. Usually such reports are reassuring. Consider a partial or no-flap landing--here's where your having practiced landing in nasty air on multiple occasions during training will pay off. (You did, didn't you?) Explain to the riders that it's soon going to be time for a sterile cockpit. You'd do that in any case. Get everyone to tighten up their seatbelt and harnesses; distract them from nervousness by asking them to help watch for traffic. Remember that a go-around is your friend--but only if done right: Review the sequence of steps and avoid the accident-producing errors made by the careless and the rusty.
Whenever a new pilot feels overtaken by events, there is a tendency to rush things, to get down as quickly as possible, when often the solution lies elsewhere. Take bad turbulence encountered en route. If it's serious enough for you to decelerate to design maneuvering speed (VA), and you're flying along at cruise in a Cessna 172RG Cutlass, you'll be slowing down by 20 knots or more. Be patient and ride it out.
Flying beyond your limits isn't really new. Every step you took in training--solo, cross-countries, the checkride--was an unfamiliar threshold to which you were delivered by your prior training. But you crossed each threshold alone. That continues after certification as a pilot looks for opportunities to experience new flight realms, preferably with a guide. There are short runways, and mountain flying, and high-density-altitude conditions, all waiting for you. Or sample marginal VFR with an instructor--this could even whet an appetite for instrument training.
Flying with a private pilot for his first flight review some years ago, we headed away from a low cloud deck. But opportunity was knocking, and we turned around. There was plenty of sunshine above the clouds, which thickened from scattered to broken to a solid overcast beneath us as we progressed. Shreds of stratus were appearing closer to our cruise altitude now, and it was evident that a pilot who stubbornly pressed on would get into trouble. When we turned back, he was happy for having probed the limits of his comfort in a safe, controlled manner.
There are occasions when a pilot makes a conscious, calculated decision to fly beyond his limits without any onboard assistance--not as a daring or foolish act but because he knows he's ready. Perhaps it's a result of gaining some experience in a high-performance aircraft and deciding that it's time to put its capabilities to better use. Or a first venture into highly controlled airspace might be necessitated by a planned destination. A flight's length itself could be new, taking the pilot into unfamiliar territory and testing physical endurance. A new instrument pilot might decide that he's ready to take on weather conditions more challenging than those he has experienced alone before.
All these cases illustrate flying beyond one's limits the way most pilots do it at various points during a lifetime in aviation. Confidence, preparation, and those lessons learned in training long ago pave the way for doing it safely and well.
Dan Namowitz is an aviation writer and flight instructor. A pilot since 1985 and an instructor since 1990, he resides in Maine.
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