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So in one of the first times I remember I cancelled a long cross country for a reason other than icing, thunderstorms, high surface/winds aloft or low ceilings.   I needed to attend a dealer meeting in Las Vegas, had a little weather in the central part of the trip but not that significant, with clear skies in the area of concern.  I was really looking forward to the flight but started watching turbulence reports and forecasts the day before.  
 

The first thing that caught my eye the day prior was a sigmet for turbulence over the Rockies with a few severe turbulence reports.  By 5 PM Monday (my scheduled departure was early Tuesday morning) it was pretty evident Tuesday would present me the same turbulence.  I was going to file 28,000’, but the turbulence was forecast right up to 40k’.   I went on line, found seats open on a flight out of MSP ( a mere 50 minute flight to STP vs a 6 hour drive),  bought them and went spam can over the rocks. We definitely saw moderate turbulence and my Sun Country flight did a pretty serious avoidance route besides.  
 My self imposed policy is to never regret a decision to not fly after the fact, as the decision wasn’t made in hind sight.  Still ...... wondering how some of you others would have handled this?

Tom

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N994PT
 

Here’s a couple screen shots taken, while sitting in the MSP Congo line yesterday morning, of the turbulence forecasts and pireps for altitudes near my intended flight.  

04898B1B-CA14-49FA-A94A-B48E8BE34408.png

6A8F3FD1-C1E9-44DF-B137-7DBA70BA62C7.png

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I cancelled a flight due to icing and multiple freezing levels forecast this last weekend that, in retrospect, probably would have been fine. We ended up driving for 6 hours and I made a comment to my wife that we probably would have been just fine flying. Her reply was, “I like that you’re conservative. You only have to be wrong once for something bad to happen and I’d rather be tired than dead.”

You made the right choice.

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Not that I have any right to chime in, but that saying about old pilots and bold pilots does seem applicable...  I like your rule to not second-guess safety-impacting decisions post-fact.  Armchair quarterback and all that stuff.  Privileged to be learning from the likes of y'all I am.

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I was just watching a video on youtube of a guy in a carbon cub being thrown around like crazy on Monday near the mountains in California. I know it's not the same, but didn't look like it was going to be pleasant for anyone, even on a slightly heavier bird.

And I know it's cliché, but I firmly believe the old adage "better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air, than being in the air wishing you were on the ground" ALWAYS applies. 

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I have watched you and your flights over the years, and I would never doubt you making the decisions you make. We all manage risk when flying, and you know better than anyone your tolerance level. I doubt your decision-making is based on whims but instead on experience, research, and solid information.

My vote is for correct decision.

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"No go" is always a good choice! It's much nicer to regret not flying when the conditions prove to be better than anticipated. Regretting that you flew into bad conditions is absolutely no fun . . . . assuming that you have an opportunity to regret it at all . . . .

Some things just cannot be helped. If you felt "moderate turbulence" in the aluminum tube, it would have been much greater in your much lighter plane.

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3 hours ago, Yooper Rocketman said:

So in one of the first times I remember I cancelled a long cross country for a reason other than icing, thunderstorms, high surface/winds aloft or low ceilings.   I needed to attend a dealer meeting in Las Vegas, had a little weather in the central part of the trip but not that significant, with clear skies in the area of concern.  I was really looking forward to the flight but started watching turbulence reports and forecasts the day before.  
 

The first thing that caught my eye the day prior was a sigmet for turbulence over the Rockies with a few severe turbulence reports.  By 5 PM Monday (my scheduled departure was early Tuesday morning) it was pretty evident Tuesday would present me the same turbulence.  I was going to file 28,000’, but the turbulence was forecast right up to 40k’.   I went on line, found seats open on a flight out of MSP ( a mere 50 minute flight to STP vs a 6 hour drive),  bought them and went spam can over the rocks. We definitely saw moderate turbulence and my Sun Country flight did a pretty serious avoidance route besides.  
 My self imposed policy is to never regret a decision to not fly after the fact, as the decision wasn’t made in hind sight.  Still ...... wondering how some of you others would have handled this?

Tom

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N994PT
 

Here’s a couple screen shots taken, while sitting in the MSP Congo line yesterday morning, of the turbulence forecasts and pireps for altitudes near my intended flight.  

04898B1B-CA14-49FA-A94A-B48E8BE34408.png

6A8F3FD1-C1E9-44DF-B137-7DBA70BA62C7.png

Well done.  I've cancelled flights for all sorts of alternative reasons.  Including.

Too slick ice on runway with strong cross winds.

Too tall snow berms on home airport making taxing impossible.

Icing-tstorms.

Pilot has the flu (me).

Airplane has the flu (I mean something mechanical).

And other reasons.

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Tom, I’m still a green pilot so my ADM is probably still a little immature but looking at those, there is no way I’d have taken off into that.  My question for the more experienced is this.  How far north would you stay if taking off from UP before heading south to try and bypass it?  It looks to me like you’d have had to fly 270 all the way to Idaho before turning to 180 and down south. That pretty much negates the benefit of flying your personal plane right?

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39 minutes ago, Nick Pilotte said:

Tom, I’m still a green pilot so my ADM is probably still a little immature but looking at those, there is no way I’d have taken off into that.  My question for the more experienced is this.  How far north would you stay if taking off from UP before heading south to try and bypass it?  It looks to me like you’d have had to fly 270 all the way to Idaho before turning to 180 and down south. That pretty much negates the benefit of flying your personal plane right?

You are correct.  The Sun Country crew flew to western Dakota’s before heading south.  And still hit some rough crap.  
 

Tom

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I always like it when my reasons for not going materialize, it helps make me feel good about my no-go decision. But many times it hasn't and while I may feel a bit disappointed, I always remind myself that I'd rather be on the ground wishing that I was flying, than flying wishing I was on the ground.

Always feel good about deciding not to go!

Steve

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9 minutes ago, ohdub said:

I always like it when my reasons for not going materialize, it helps make me feel good about my no-go decision. But many times it hasn't and while I may feel a bit disappointed, I always remind myself that I'd rather be on the ground wishing that I was flying, than flying wishing I was on the ground.

Always feel good about deciding not to go!

Steve

I know what you mean.

I often continue to watch the weather station reports even after I cancel since I want to continue to build my experience based on how the day unfolds following the details I had earlier leading to my decision.

There has been more than one occasion I have cancelled, thus making me drive and then to enjoy a drive on a lovely sunny day because storms ended up somewhere else - still if I cancelled - for likelihood of bad weather that's quite enough and trust the decision. Likelihood of bad stuff being too bad to proceed does not mean guarantee that the bad thing will unfold - just likelihood bad enough that we don't want to take the risk.

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6 hours ago, Yooper Rocketman said:

So in one of the first times I remember I cancelled a long cross country for a reason other than icing, thunderstorms, high surface/winds aloft or low ceilings.   I needed to attend a dealer meeting in Las Vegas, had a little weather in the central part of the trip but not that significant, with clear skies in the area of concern.  I was really looking forward to the flight but started watching turbulence reports and forecasts the day before.  
 

The first thing that caught my eye the day prior was a sigmet for turbulence over the Rockies with a few severe turbulence reports.  By 5 PM Monday (my scheduled departure was early Tuesday morning) it was pretty evident Tuesday would present me the same turbulence.  I was going to file 28,000’, but the turbulence was forecast right up to 40k’.   I went on line, found seats open on a flight out of MSP ( a mere 50 minute flight to STP vs a 6 hour drive),  bought them and went spam can over the rocks. We definitely saw moderate turbulence and my Sun Country flight did a pretty serious avoidance route besides.  
 My self imposed policy is to never regret a decision to not fly after the fact, as the decision wasn’t made in hind sight.  Still ...... wondering how some of you others would have handled this?

Tom

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N994PT
 

Here’s a couple screen shots taken, while sitting in the MSP Congo line yesterday morning, of the turbulence forecasts and pireps for altitudes near my intended flight.  

By cancelling, the worst thing that happened is that you didn't get to color in Nevada in your places-visited map.

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9 hours ago, Yooper Rocketman said:

My self imposed policy is to never regret a decision to not fly after the fact, as the decision wasn’t made in hind sight.  Still ...... wondering how some of you others would have handled this?

Here is my way to do it: even when not flying I am testing my weather understanding and how wise my go/no-go calls: 2 days before every weekend, I decided go/no-go for a fictious weekend trip and then I re-check later against TAF/METAR airports or weather maps on my flying days/times, the goal is to make the right call each time (not to actually fly, regret or second-guess), this works pretty well for terminal weather like visibility, rain, winds, ceiling...as these tends to be more easy to predict (or learn from) and manage while flying

Now the big mystery en-route weather, you really have no clue untill you fly it, so not much to second guess anyway: you see many ugly things that were not in the forecast and sometime you find nothing when forecast was ugly 

I think you made the right choice not to fly: a big patch of en-route weather like icing, thunderstorms and turbulences is hard to predict or manage (or learn from) on a long cross-country and the cost of getting it wrong is just huge !!

The question is: was it doable on short distance segments? I think you gave NO as answer as you have flown it :lol: also, the Mooney will hate slow flying in bumpy airmass and may drink lot of gals/nm doing that :(

Edited by Ibra
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I plan most of my flying trips around the weather as much as possible. When I see a window of VFR weather conditions, I plan my departure accordingly. If I caught due to weather, I’ll just stay somewhere longer. Ended up spending an extra four days in the Plymouth / Cape Cod / Boston area on one trip. Didn’t have any problems finding fun things to do. 
 

For those trips where I have to be somewhere on a specific date and there is no flexibility, I get a really nice rental car. Would’ve needed one anyway once I got there.

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Been flying 18 years. Never cancelled a trip for tb. A few times i wish i had. Now, for the last two years  I fly for a living so I generally go but when I just flew because I like to I had a rule. If a flight was gonna cause me stress I didnt go. My perspective was, I do this for fun and stress is no fun. I've never regretted not going.

Oh, I cancelled first time ever for tb last week:)

Edited by Pete M
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That Sunday flying back from a balloon meet over the Sierras ,I heard two737 s go arround do to wind shear into Reno.We were lucky,we found smooth air at 15 k with out to much discomfort ,but were primed to 180 if things got impossible.There was multiple mountain wave (but no roter)as we approached the Sierra creast  over Minden with smooth 2000 ft /min uncommanded rate of climb.

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10 hours ago, BKlott said:

I plan most of my flying trips around the weather as much as possible. When I see a window of VFR weather conditions, I plan my departure accordingly. If I caught due to weather, I’ll just stay somewhere longer. Ended up spending an extra four days in the Plymouth / Cape Cod / Boston area on one trip. Didn’t have any problems finding fun things to do. 
 

For those trips where I have to be somewhere on a specific date and there is no flexibility, I get a really nice rental car. Would’ve needed one anyway once I got there.

My last trip home from Florida was delayed two days. First one for a significant part of Georgia below minimums (no options should an emergency arise to land) and the second day due to a pretty long line of thunderstorms.  I flew over some level 1 & 2 rain showers the third day but my landing options were realistic that day. 
 

I always plan for an out before launching should problems arise during the trip. 
 

Rental car?  Not a very  realistic option on trips well over 1,000 nautical miles. 
 

Tom

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19 hours ago, Hank said:

If you felt "moderate turbulence" in the aluminum tube, it would have been much greater in your much lighter plane.

My intuition goes the opposite, due to low wing loading a Mooney could take -/+30kts -/+1G gusts from turbulence or wind-sheer without loss of control (or at least can recover in good weather) or being torn apart, say you are flying at 100kts, the aircraft will surely stay inside G-V envelope but not sure about pilot/pax head & teeth though

A similar loss/gain on speed and acceleration will surely bring a B747/A380 down on approach or can torn it apart in cruise (highest tested on heavy category is +/-0.9G vertical load and +/-25kts gusts in 2 seconds)

Just comparing the two, not that I am planning to fly in those rotors around Wyoming in a 60kts wind day (well maybe if the PIC flying is a Yellowstone Rodeo champion :lol:)

Edited by Ibra
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