During my primary training, one of my mentors was fairly adamant about the threat of weather. If I had the skills, wisdom and experience, and the airplane was in good condition with sufficient fuel, he would point out, the only other big thing that could be a safety-of-flight problem was weather. The primary concerns he expressed included thunderstorms and their turbulence, low ceilings that engendered scud running and fog that blanketed the airport.
As I gained more experience, including an instrument rating, my weather understanding never really progressed beyond those big three hazards, plus airframe icing as I logged more IMC. It was more a matter of convincing myself I didn’t need that additional knowledge—I’d already made up my mind that I wasn’t going to fly in those conditions—than an outright refusal to learn more. On one of my first forays into IMC as the pilot in command, I learned a hard lesson on cold fronts.
