Focus should be on the big wx picture

[Scott Dennstaedt, PhD]

8 minutes ago, steingar said:

Yeah, but if the flight is that short you're not going to get beat up for long.  

Sure.  It's not always about turbulence...icing, convection, IFR conditions, etc. are also something that I can usually avoid when altitude is flexible.  

[steingar]

Just now, Scott Dennstaedt said:

Sure.  It's not always about turbulence...icing, convection, IFR conditions, etc. are also something that I can usually avoid when altitude is flexible.  

Scott, that is true.  The main thing I was to avoid with altitude is heat.  Short flights are hot ones in the warmer months.  Then again, on a short flight with a Mooney you don't sweat long.  Once the days get a bit longer I think I'm going to restart my own IFR training.  

Also, I thought I'd add my own voice to those giving thanks fur your participation here.  Nice to have informed opinions, unlike my own spew.

[Scott Dennstaedt, PhD]

6 hours ago, steingar said:

Scott, that is true.  The main thing I was to avoid with altitude is heat.  Short flights are hot ones in the warmer months.  Then again, on a short flight with a Mooney you don't sweat long.  Once the days get a bit longer I think I'm going to restart my own IFR training.  

Also, I thought I'd add my own voice to those giving thanks fur your participation here.  Nice to have informed opinions, unlike my own spew.

Thanks!  Oh, yes, the heat.  In my early days as a flight instructor I can remember day after day at 2,000 ft and below enduring the heat of those warm summer days getting bounced around in thermal turbulence for hours at a time.  Not fun.    

[Ibra]

Sometimes even when flying short trips you still need to get full view of weather dynamics instead of relying on actual data and timing: on short one-way trips timing is important but it does runs out of juice when flying one long trip in small leh segment? or when flying out-return of short legs? 

Breaking one big trip into 2 or 3 segments does reduce your risk to weather uncertainty (short-term variability wrong forcast) but expose you to big picture weather trends (stuck in middle with 3 days of low clouds, should have gone in one go on that one ), but overall even with logistics hassle it is a safer strategy to deal with cold frontal weather en-route (icing, convective) but may not be good for for warm frontal weather near terminal (low clouds, low visibility), you need fuel endurance for the latter and short flights for the former 

[Bob - S50]

18 hours ago, Scott Dennstaedt said:

Thanks!  Oh, yes, the heat.  In my early days as a flight instructor I can remember day after day at 2,000 ft and below enduring the heat of those warm summer days getting bounced around in thermal turbulence for hours at a time.  Not fun.    

And I remember my flying days as a T37 instructor in the summer in Del Rio, TX.  Land at the end of the mission, open the canopy and feel that nice cool 102 degree air coming in.

[PT20J]

On 2/12/2020 at 5:36 AM, Scott Dennstaedt said:

Recent studies have shown that pilots tend to focus on the wx at the departure and destination airports and less on the en route phase largely because they fail to spend enough time on the big wx picture.  

I flew floatplanes Part 135 for a couple of seasons in SE Alaska where the weather is famously terrible. One of the most challenging flights was often the 12 minute flight between Ketchikan and Metlakatla. One of the older, wiser and not-so-bold pilots taught me that if it’s barely VFR at each end, somewhere in the middle it’s probably worse. Not a bad way to think about any flight, I think.

Skip

[Scott Dennstaedt, PhD]

2 hours ago, PT20J said:

"...if it’s barely VFR at each end, somewhere in the middle it’s probably worse."

Now that's some priceless advice.

[Ibra]

On 2/15/2020 at 4:32 PM, PT20J said:

One of the older, wiser and not-so-bold pilots taught me that if it’s barely VFR at each end, somewhere in the middle it’s probably worse

Thanks for that advice, surely that one was flyable VFR on a long way detour than direct? or would have worked on slightly different timing?

It barely make sense that weather in the middle can be worse than corners until you think about thunderstorm cells and how you can fly VMC around them (or in between for the braves), even with unlimited VMC/radar, TS localised weather tend to be rapid moving for our aircraft speeds to keep a safe distance ! 

Takes 15min for TS cell to pop-up out of thin air and reach it climax, at 100kts cruise speed (has to be slow as you will be in turbulence and winds), one would barely keep that 20nm safe distance (I am assuming you saw it on VMC minima and flew the opposite way), although, I was told tactical local weather avoidance does works but only by those flying at 500kts  anyone fitting weather radar to fly in middle of sparse cells in a Mooney would also need fitting an afterburner, the maths don't add up at 160kts