Go or Stay? Getting Personal with Your Pilot Minimums

Making a decision to launch on any given day can be truly agonizing for airplane pilots depending on the weather and other circumstances.

Scott Dennstaedt, Ph.D

Tuesday, April 02, 2024 at 09:06 AM ET

Verified

It can be excruciating for a pilot to make the decision to press on to a destination when the weather encountered in flight is far worse than originally anticipated or hoped for. [iStock]

Key Takeaways:

Pilots often struggle with "get-there-itis" and making objective flight decisions regarding adverse weather, as current weather services provide complex data without explicitly quantifying personal risk.
The article advocates for pilots to establish and rigorously apply "personal weather minimums" – a set of conservative criteria for acceptable flight conditions that extend beyond FAA regulations.
A "three-bucket" method (Green for low, Yellow for moderate, Red for high risk) is recommended to evaluate forecast weather conditions against these personal minimums, providing a nuanced risk assessment for various elements like ceiling, visibility, and turbulence.
Proactively assessing detailed weather forecasts against these personal minimums, even manually with tools like Graphical Forecasts for Aviation (GFAs), helps pilots anticipate hazards, develop contingency plans, and make more confident and safer flight decisions.

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We’ve all been there. Unless you have recently earned your private pilot certificate, making a decision to launch on any given day can be truly agonizing depending on the weather and other circumstances.

Maybe you are planning a flight to visit your grandkid on their first birthday, or perhaps you are flying to EAA AirVenture for the very first time. Even more excruciating is the decision to press on to your destination when the weather encountered in flight is far worse than what you originally anticipated or had hoped for. A flight with some initial acceptable risks and challenges now becomes one with discomfort, and perhaps disappointment for you and your passengers if you must turn around or land short of your final destination. If you have some self-awareness, that little voice in the back of your mind wonders what the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) final report might say about your poor decision to press on.