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 Top Ten Tips for Managing Risk

These aren’t pilot secrets, but if your preflight planning tells you some of the risks you’re facing are too great, consider this advice to help mitigate them.

Nobody in their right mind takes off into a thunderstorm. But landing before you reach a fast-moving squall line, letting it blow over, and then continuing your journey is good risk management.
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Key Takeaways:

  • General aviation risk management addresses three primary areas: weather, aircraft suitability, and pilot capability.
  • Weather risks can be mitigated by obtaining thorough preflight briefings, demonstrating flexibility with timing, and making strategic adjustments to flight routes or altitudes.
  • Aircraft and pilot-related risks require ensuring adequate fuel and appropriate aircraft performance (e.g., speed, altitude), coupled with the pilot's continuous skill training, honest self-assessment of fitness, and flexible decision-making.
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Everyone talks about the weather, but no one ever does anything about it.” Stop me if you’ve heard that before.

The same could be said about managing the risk of general aviation. We—both FLYING and the industry as a whole—spend a lot of time preaching to pilots about the mechanics of understanding weather forecasts, determining if the aircraft is capable, and making honest evaluations of our own performance in considering how and when to conduct a flight. But once we identify the need to mitigate a risk, we sometimes have little space left over to describe the tools we can use.

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