From: amazon@sgi.com (Stormwind)
Subject: Re: Any tips for a pilot-to-be?
Organization: X Industries, Heavy Weapons R&D
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 15:15:32 GMT

(Hoi Chong) writes:
>First of all the incident has nothing to do with my instructor.  The forcast
>called for no cloud at that level, and I double-checked with the forcaster 
>if it was all right to do VFR x-country solo.  The forcaster endorsed the idea
>enthusistically.  My instructor don't have bionic eyes, he cannot see 
>50 miles, can he?  Can any of you?  He signed me off for x-country solo.

hmmm.  the problem i see here is that
the forecaster really isn't any authority
on whether you should fly on a particular
day.  all the forecaster does is forecast
weather, and frequently the forecaster 
doesn't even know for sure what the weather
is outside his own building, since many
of them don't even have windows.  ultimately,
the decision to go/no-go rests with the 
pilot; for students, the instructor is 
the first person to consult as to your 
abilities, and then consult yourself.  if
you're not comfortable, perhaps you shouldn't
fly that day.  i use this rule of thumb a lot.

the second problem i see is that the
forecaster only *forecasts*.  he is not
a hard-and-fast authority on what is 
going to happen in the next few hours.
two examples: on halloween, i called for
a briefing, and was told it was supposed to
be about 80 degrees, and clear.  when i got
to the airport it was still 60 degrees, with
nice big dark gray clouds drifting overhead.
about 70% of the sky was covered, and the 
clouds were low enough to be touching the 
ridges that are to the east and west.  i
immediately cancelled; clearly the forecaster
was wrong, and i was not comfortable playing
in such conditions.  the clouds never did clear
that day.

second example: i flew up to an airport in 
the foothills of the sierra nevada mountains
a couple of weekends ago.  the briefer had 
not mentioned even a peep about the possibilities
of frost to me.  yet, when i got back to the
airplane, it was covered in frost.  rather 
than deal with what the forecaster had 
forecast, i dealt instead with what i was 
actually confronting...an airplane covered in
frost...and opted to stay put until the next
morning had melted it all off again.

>Now if you said that he did not bring me up to experience cloud before 
>x-country solo, that is another thing.  Does every instructor bring his
>or her student up to experience cloud before signing off for x-country solo?
>Let me know because I have not heard it before.

some do, some don't.  my first encounter with
clouds was within a month of soloing.  while
it wasn't exactly what i would call "dangerous"
(someone with more machismo than i might well
have gone for it and made it), it was a situation
in which i developed a very healthy respect for
clouds and trying to fly close to them.  

>Now Mr Ginsberg accused me of (1) inability to determine distance from
>cloud.  As Mr Stormwind said, 

(at which point i can't help but point out
the futility of trying to pin down one's
background with only a post for reference...
i am, in actuality, female)

>cloud is not a solid object, difficult
>to tell when it begins, when it ends.  If it is hard for Mr Stormwind
>(an authority Mr Ginsberg admitted listening to), 

hee hee hee!  i would hardly classify myself
as any kind of "authority" at this point,
especially since i've owned my own license
for a mere seven months.  i'm a fledgling yet,
although a cautious one, and i take care to 
keep a very healthy distance away from clouds.
when one stays away from clouds, one can often
have trouble determining how close 500 feet
really is to a cloud.

>As for 
>(2) over-reliance on forcast, well, I don't have bionic eyes, maybe 
>someone else has. 

it's really more a matter of taking what
was forecast into consideration with what
you actually see at that moment in time.
did you see the cloud before you flew into
it?  what kind of cloud was it, a large puffy
one or the low, flat stratus-type?

>Now since my instructor is not to blame, and I made a couple of mistakes
>as a student but did the best I could to recover, I wonder who Mr Ginsberg
>is going to blame to get his last word in. 

again, it's not neccesarily that people
are trying to get the last word in, it's
more that people are pointing out things
that perhaps you hadn't considered.  when
taken in the correct vein, i've found the
net to be a valuable provider of many different
points of view.  perhaps not all of them
are valid, but to take a more zen-like view,
we profit as well from identifying *why*
some points of view aren't valid.

			stormwind

			hell's amazon