WEATHER EVALUATION AND AVOIDANCE ....
Hi Folks – the last post before Christmas; wishing you all the best for the festive season and the New Year - TonyB
(Acknowledgement: Thomas P. Turner (Mastery Flight Training Inc)
“Weather evaluation and avoidance is deceptively simple — avoid the five hazards using time-honoured margins:
THUNDERSTORMS
Avoid storm cells by 20 miles; and avoid flight under thunderhead anvils.
ICE
Unless the aircraft is certificated for flight in icing conditions, avoid flight in clouds or visible moisture when the outside air temperature is between +5°C and -20°C in stratiform clouds, and between +5°C and -40°C in cumulus clouds. In airplanes certificated for flight in icing conditions, avoid all areas of supercooled large droplet conditions; immediately exit moderate or greater icing conditions; and avoid all potential icing conditions if any of the equipment required for “known ice” approval is inoperative.
TURBULENCE
Avoid areas of suspected severe or extreme turbulence including the high-turbulence areas of mountain waves.
REDUCED VISIBILITY
If flying under visual flight rules, even if instrument rated, follow the visibility and cloud clearance requirements of VFR flight. Do not fly under Instrument Flight Rules unless rated and current, and the airplane is properly equipped and operational. If operating IFR, adhere to all procedures and altitudes.
LOW-LEVEL WINDS
Employ wind shear technique and avoid areas of Low-Level Wind Shear reports. Do not accept take-off or landing in crosswind and gusty wind conditions which are beyond your proficiency and comfort zone as a result of recent experience. When you listen to ATIS or other aerodrome weather, don’t just use the wind information to pick a runway, also compute (or at least estimate) the crosswind component for the runway you’ll use to decide whether it’s acceptable to you.
Yes, the tenets of weather evaluation and hazard avoidance are simple. The devil, as they say, is in the details. We need to know how these conditions are reported, and how they form, move and grow to predict how they will affect us in the duration of our flight. That is a pathway to solve the” uneducated non-compliance” issue.
The real weather trick however is to be disciplined enough to follow this detection and avoidance even and especially when you feel pressured to complete a flight on a specific schedule, and in this way avoid “intentional non-compliance”. Personal minimums and all your weather education and evaluation efforts are worthless if you abandon them when they become inconvenient”.
FLY SAFE!