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No, No, I Won’t Go!

Gemini Sparkle

Key Takeaways:

  • The article highlights the difficulty of making a "go/no-go" decision in marginal weather, particularly when conditions are not overtly dangerous but carry significant risk.
  • It emphasizes the pressure general aviation pilots often feel to complete flights, advocating for prioritizing safety by being willing to delay or cancel.
  • The author stresses that risk assessment is an ongoing process, requiring continuous monitoring of weather and flight conditions even after departure.
  • Ultimately, the piece reinforces the safety principle that it's always better to be on the ground wishing you were flying than in the air wishing you were on the ground.
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I didn’t sleep very well. I kept going over the DUAT weather briefing in my mind trying to make it read better than I knew it did. I was scheduled to fly the short flight over to Exxel Avionics at Hartford (Connecticut)-Brainard Airport (KHFD) to have the biennial IFR certification performed on my Cardinal.

In January, the aircraftlogs.com logbook program had automatically sent me an e-mail alert warning that the requirement for the biennial recertification of my two transponders and the altimeter system had gone from green to yellow. I had programmed the software to first alert me with the change to yellow a month before the month the certification was actually due. Again, as programmed, on the first of February I got a second e-mail from aircraftlogs.com, this time warning me with a red alert that the certification was due before the end of the current month. As religious as I am about the items that have to be periodically completed in order to keep both me and the airplane current, it’s easy for things to slip by. Having aircraftlogs.com keeping me legal and up to date has been a real help.

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