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If I had to pick between flying in a snow storm and shooting an approach to minimums in icing conditions or flying around thunderstorms, I would most the time pick flying in a snow storm.

The reason is because snow storms, for the most part, are predictable. If you fly into a snow storm in the CRJ200 or CRJ700, unless the visibility is zero or you are experiencing severe icing, you are most likely going to make it in. If you don’t, then you go to your alternate.

Thunderstorms though are a completely different monster. Flying into a thunderstorm can make you and your passengers miserable. It can also damage the airplane. Not something you want to have to explain to the chief pilot.

The 2005 Nall Report, within the pilot-related accidents for the category of general aviation, accidents, “Nearly 25 percent of fatal weather-related accidents were due to encounters with thunderstorms. All involved pilots were in contact with ATC, but still flew into severe conditions.”

I think that is too many. Don’t you?

It is easy in hindsight to judge those pilot’s decision-making, but then again, we weren’t there so we shouldn’t be too hasty to judge. But one thing I do know…if maybe those pilots had just a little more training, maybe they would still be alive today.

OK, so here is my big tip for pilots flying around near thunderstorms, “Don’t fly into a thunderstorm!” Easy enough, right? Well, maybe not that easy.

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Today I finish a four-day trip in COS after having flown many miles with lots of passengers and occasional weather problems. Now, if you are thinking that being an airline pilot is glamour, let me tell you it is not, but it is a fun job…most the time.  There are some mitigating circumstances though. A good crew is a must. Nice weather helps. Decent outstations that know how to turn an airplane makes your life easier. And a healthy airplane with an APU, well, that is as good as gold. 

Right now I am sitting in a hotel in Lincoln, Nebraska. In the last four days I have made stops in PDX, SMF, OAK, ABQ, DEN and LAX (many times). For the most part every thing went well. No major mechanical issues or passenger problems, but like I said, a good crew makes all the difference. Now I’m not claiming to have had the busiest schedule this week, there are a lot of pilots out there that have worked harder than me, I’m just saying that sometimes you get tired. Heat takes it’s toll. Not eating right can take it’s toll, too. You just have to be smart about it.

Anyway, I’m rambling. My point about this entry is that yesterday we flew five legs. LAX to OAK to LAX to ABQ to DEN to LNK. The last leg was the one we had to work on. Weather over the Midwest turned a 1 hour flight into a 1 hour 35 minute flight. We managed to avoid the worst of the weather but it took a huge diversion south of our route to get there. While we were doing the flight, the contrast between winter and summer flying struck me. With winter flying, most the work is done at the gate and then at the destination. You have to plan for de-icing and holdover times at your departure point and upon arrival, you start to worry about icing, snow on the ground, and the possibility of “going missed” or diverting to an alternate airport because you can’t get into your destination. Summer flying you worry mostly about what is in between your departure and destination. Navigating around thunderstorms and fuel management consume most of your time. But, in addition, if a thunderstorm pops-up at your destination, you now have to worry about how long will the thunderstorm stay there, do you have enough fuel to wait the storm out, and where are you going if you get short on fuel or the storm doesn’t leave. The difference is I think you pretty much know when a snow storm or winter weather is going to affect your destination and you can plan for it. Thunderstorms, well you can try and predict them but they can develop very quickly, thus limiting your options.

Yesterday, we just had to concentrate on what was inbetween. It turned out to be a relatively smooth ride, just long. If you ever want to see the route you flew, check out www.flightaware.com. The picture here is from our flight yesterday. What you don’t see is that whole southern diversion was because of weather.

To Your Flying Success…

Jeffrey

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Different airlines have different ways of scheduling.

SkyWest has a combination of locals, 2-day, 3-day, 4-day, and “stand-up” trips. Locals mean that you are home that night. A “stand-up” means that you do one leg late in the evening somewhere, go to the hotel, get maybe 3 to 5 hours sleep, maybe, then head back to the airport and do one leg back. The whole time you are on “duty” making money for very little work. I hate “stand-ups.” I don’t need a lot of sleep but “stand-ups” wear me out.

Anyway, I just finished a four-day trip last night. It wasn’t your typical four-day but it wasn’t the worst I’ve been on either.

Day 1: The first day was COS to LAX. An early show, but very straight forward. Ended up watching Tiger and Rocco battle it out at the US Open.

Day 2: We went from LAX to DFW and back. Thunderstorms popped up in DFW unexpectedly and caught us and a lot of other airplanes with not enough fuel so we diverted to SPS. I wrote about this last time.

Day 3:Another easy day but long. We flew from LAX to SAT to ORD. Beautiful day. We had a jumpseater from United. Very nice guy. Flies F-16. What a deal he has! He works for United but is active duty Air Force and keeps all his United privileges. He and his family were just coming back from a week in California. — A word about jumpseaters. I don’t mind having jumpseaters but I would rather not. I am all for giving a pilot a ride home or to work, and I would rather help them out than not help them out, but in the same breath, it’s a little bit of a hassle to accommodate someone in the jumpseat.

Day 4: ORD to ICT to ORD to COS. It started out nice but after arriving in ICT, thunderstorms started building. Personally I would rather experience snow than thunderstorms. On our trip back to COS, we had to go way north to get around some weather which turned a 2 hour trip into almost a 3 hour trip. I felt bad for the passengers. It was a long trip. Our routing caused problems for Denver Center I think because basically we had to jaywalk across the arrivals into Denver which was beginning to experience thunderstorms. So they kept us at mid-altitudes and slow, which just added to our trip.

Once we landed in COS, I was wiped out. And just after we landed we discovered that DEN was in a ground stop because of thunderstorms.

Just another day.

To Your Flying Success…

Jeffrey