Rain, Visibility, and Pilot Weather Stuff

It was raining yesterday. The clouds were fairly low, having dropped significantly in the hour before I got to the hangar. Conditions were still VFR, but marginal, so we did not fly. I am going to try again on Friday morning. With the holiday next week, I am not sure what will happen. I need to keep my marginal skills honed (humor).

I am still surprised by the amount of weather information that I am learning. As discussed before, the PIC (pilot in charge) is responsible for everything. So you can't just watch the TV guy and call it good. For one thing, the goal of the TV guys is to make sure that people don't get surprised by bad weather...so they skew things to the Oh My God!! end of the spectrum. NOAA must provide weather information to the FAA for pilots with the goal being short-term accuracy. They don't care about anything past the next couple of day--but they really want an objective look at that time period. As a pilot it's my job to figure out what they are predicting, look at the data myself, and make a go/no-go call (without whining about the forecast being wrong).

Several Web sources are available for the information, and they are very cool. They are designed for pilot use and have a bunch of information. Also, there is the FAA's Flight Service Station system. In the past, Boise, for example, had a group of FSS guys who pilots could call. They were familiar with local conditions and many were in aviation themselves. You could file flight plans and open and close them. They would also give you a weather briefing, using their data sources and local knowledge. This system has been closed and the whole thing outsourced to Lockheed Martin back east someplace. Now, a phone bank person reads the report that you could look up yourself online. No local input. Most pilots are dead set against the new system. And there have been reports of long waits to close flight plans.. so long that some folks just hang up and leave them open (not a good thing because if you don't close your flight plan within a short time after your ETA they are supposed to start looking for you). Also, the briefers have no specific knowledge of aviation. They just read the text. As a taxpayer, I can see the cost savings. As a pilot, it would be nice to have my own personal briefing. Logically, this looks like the death dance of a system that was great pre-Web, but makes little sense now. The Web sites are great for short-term forecasting.

Anyway, caution is the key. I am not keen on flying cross county in marginal weather. We have too many nice days here. But being able to look at the detailed short-term predictions is pretty cool.

On another note. Cessnas don't have windshield wipes. The rain just blows off and they arent' needed. I need to ask why the big planes have them. Might be just Cessna hype. :) This pilot thing continues to be very cool. I have several chunks of material that I need to just sit and memorize, though. I have a list in my head, but need to actually sit down and do it. I can still recite the list of 40 common prepositions that Sister Willana taught me in the 8th grade. I should be able to handle this.

On a third note, Dick Rutan of Voyager fame had to land his plane on a road yesterday with engine failure http://www.vvdailypress.com/news/rutan_4142___article.html/victorville_dick.html . And what does he fly? One model down from the one I am training in (C150 vs. C172). What a guy...Angelina Jolie flies a very cool turbo prop, Morgan Freeman his own exec jet, and Rutan.. a C150.

On a fourth note. The mythbusters are indeed doing the airplane on a treadmill. See the preview below. This is too complicated to go into here. Talk to me if you want details.

http://dsc.discovery.com/video/?playerId=203711706&categoryId=210013704&lineupId=229524134&titleId=1344511100