Originally Posted by
Langball
On the subject of pilots being put under pressure to fly, here in Ireland we had a recent controversy when a senior Government Minister pressurised an Air Corps pilot to fly when fog was forecast. And to compound the matter his representative phoned up the pilot again to 'rub it in' when the fog didn't materialise.
Varadkar defends Coveney?s call to pilot over cancelled flight
The Minister's excuse was "I'm a 'hands on' type of guy". You couldn't make it up.
I've had that happen to me a few times. I couldn't take off because of unforecast early morning fog. I was castigated for not informing the passenger the flight would be cancelled, the night before.
I've also been called a "jobsworth" to my face when insisting I stuck to the regulations when using a private landing site (no ops after dark, the passenger wanted to come back well after last light).
And I've been called a "chicken" by the owner of a listed building when I decided not to land in his confined area of a garden because it was downwind in 25-30 kts of wind. Flying into wind to land to get in there would have involved very low flight over his house roof and would probably have lifted tiles or worse.
You do need broad shoulders for this job.