Hi there Mazzy, excellent question! I think haze can be one of the insidious Met phenomena, especially for low hrs pilots. You get days when it's like flying inside the proverbial milk-bottle!
I didn't strike too many hazy days during my training (just lucky!?) but about 4mths post-PPL in that first Autumn I did - it just wasn't on my list of things to be concerned about, and as long as it was above 5k I would go off and fly... one day though, in ~6k vis and with family aboard, I found my nav was up the spout and it was a struggle to get back... managed OK, used VORs etc - and then when as I approached the field from the north, the sun made the whole thing
much worse!
That experience made me very afraid of low vis and so for the next 6mths I was reluctant to fly with vis anywhere less than say 8k! This was fixed when a mate (thanks Alex!) flew with me to Blackpool from Wycombe on a ~6k vis day, and I got my confidence back...
Like many others before me, I realised that there is
much more to learn once you have the license!! One of the best solutions I'd recommend for post-PPL learning
Irv Lee's excellent Seminars - he covers lots of practical stuff, including a Met refresher. I think it's really good to do this within say 6~12mths of getting your license so you will have had experiences / challenges which you can raise in Q&A in the seminar. Irv also writes on Met phenomena in one of the mags, and I think he did do a column on Mist and Haze at some stage (reprints?)...
Just to finish up, last Sunday was a typical poor vis / haze day - high pressure, light winds, and a major inversion layer holding down all the crud and particulate matter. I have my IMC rating now so this doesn't phase me (much!) these days and so I decided to get up and have a look... climbing out of Benson to the north-west we had about 7k flight visibility, but on turning back into sun towards the base, it was about 2k! Found the base again OK with GPS and was able to fly a visual circuit just fine once not directly into sun....
Hope this helps!
Andy
