In The Clouds

Isabel Goyer

Saturday, February 16, 2013 at 12:57 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

Clouds present significant and often fatal hazards for pilots, particularly VFR pilots, leading to accidents like loss of control or controlled flight into terrain, with IFR flight being demonstrably safer in cloudy conditions.
Current FAA cloud clearance regulations are largely ineffective and impractical for pilots to follow or enforce due to the amorphous nature of clouds and the impossibility of accurately gauging distances.
Pilot training inadequately prepares new pilots for safely managing cloud encounters, neglecting to teach critical decision-making, risk mitigation, and the effective use of modern cockpit technology to navigate challenging weather.

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** | |Illustrations by Chris Gall**|

In Joni Mitchell’s 1969 song “Both Sides, Now,” a haunting and sentimental little earwig, the singer laments that after looking at clouds “from both sides now,” she really doesn’t know them very well at all. The same could be said for many pilots. Even after thousands of hours in the air sorting out this kind of visible moisture and that, clouds remain enigmatic. And potentially deadly too, something Joni failed to mention.