On a good day you can see from one side of the country to the other. I know that is impossible in the S'auf 'cos there are so many of you - but up here that is the way it is.
The only time that the 180 will not work is if you are trying to get away from 'the haar' then where you have just been, might suddenly close up - otherwise it is almost unheard of. The weather here might be pretty mixed and Shetland might have 100kt fog - but the rest of the country it takes time to change - much longer than will occur if you do a 180 within the time it takes to cover the high ground. Yes the holes and clouds will have moved but they are still there.
In the earlier reply I mentioned 'getting an idea' of ehat was happening. If cloud is starting to stack up on the windward slopes it will build and rapidly become a solid layer - so you would have to go further and further upwind to get clear of it.
But this is not hard, the high ground usually forces the cloud cover up to ridge height and in many places that is 2000' - that is how Fresson and his chaps made something approaching 99% regularity, flying VFR through this country. They are undoubtedly much braver than most (all?) of us - but that is a dispatch rate (more importantly arrival rate!) that is hard to match with today's equipment.
Last edited by gasax; 25th Sep 2012 at 12:36.