Question - carrying passengers

[FlyingStone]

Statistics are useless - even if I calculate that I have a 1:1.000.000 chance that I'll have an engine failure tomorrow, nobody can't say with absolute certainty that I will have it or that I won't have it. The best ones are "flying is safer than driving" - there are too many factors, most of which aren't accounted for when people make "reliable statistics". It's like lottery - you have one in couple of million chances that you get the main award, but still - you could go betting every day for the rest of your life without earning a dime and some lucky bastard will win billions the first time he buys a ticket.

I too support The Killing Zone, very good book with many accident/incident reports combined with detailed analysis of each one. But basically, you only have to learn one simple word: NO. If weather isn't good, if aircraft has some inoperative item that you consider must-have, if you're tired/late, or if your gut says something isn't right - say NO and stay on the ground or away from specific threat. The moment you don't say no when you think you should, you've passed through hole in the first layer of swiss cheese sandwich.

[archbishop]

The gist of recent posts is that there is a danger for complacency and over-confidence to set in and that's where pilots become dangerous. At present, I still fly as if the examiner is sitting in the right hand seat, and I wouldn't hesitate to say "no" and cancel a flight where the conditions were less than desirable. I have made this call already on 2 or 3 occasions since I passed, and made the decision to turn back due to worsening conditions on a couple of solo nav's during training. I took up flying for pure enjoyment and see no fun in flying around dodging cloud and/or showers in poor vis. or fighting against strong blustery wind on finals - I'd much rather save my money and fly when the conditions are better, at least until I am more experienced. Where there's any doubt, I don't fly.

Incidentally, I've just ordered the Killing Zone from Amazon - sounds like an interesting read...

[charliejulietwhiskey]

Totally agree with everything you say, I'm very much in the same boat and have a similar train of thought.

[PompeyPaul]

Interesting

This was something I was thinking about today. I have now logged 150 hours and my tolerance / borders are way wider today than they were when I first qualified.

The thing is that make things tough. I don't really know what is dangerous to me anymore. When I qualified the legal minima are clear, as are the local school's requirements i.e. no cross wind faster than 10kt.

Today I regularly fly outside of the bounds, but still above legal minima and it's tough to feel out where my limits now actually are

Today I was flying circuits in 15G25 but straight down the runway. As a student it was way outside of my bounds, but today it was challenging but fine.

That is what I'm really starting to struggle with right now, where are my minima? How do I find them?

They are well above legal minima, there's no way I'd take pax if I were anywhere NEAR the 90 day 3 takeoff/landing rules.

I will now use my IMCr to climb through cloud and fly VFR on top (in UK airspace) but don't feel confident enough to perform an IMC approach.

I guess what I'm babbling about is I can see what I am well in the danger zone because I'm so unclear as to where my limits are as opposed to when I first qualified.

[FlyingStone]

Originally Posted by PompeyPaul

That is what I'm really starting to struggle with right now, where are my minima? How do I find them?

There are many ways to discover/set your minima. One is by simply saying for example that you won't go flying in less than 8 km visibility or divert if the destination is reporting less than 8 km visibility - and stick to that no matter what. Then, as time goes by when you have couple of VFR approaches with 8 km visibility (you can go flying intentionally when the weather is at the limit, to see how your limit looks like, but be prepared to divert if the wx goes below) under your belt and you will get used to it, you can lower your minima to 6 km and again - just stick to it. Same can go for crosswind, cloud ceiling, DA/MDA, visibility for IFR approach, currency, etc.

The other way is to scare yourself, which is most of us have done one time or the other. It usually looks like that - you depart in severe CAVOK only to find out an hour later that reported visibility is 8 km and decreasing. And by the time you get some distance to the airport it drops to 5 km, but you say to yourself that it's still VFR and that you can see enough far ahead to stay clear of obstacles and traffic. Then as you reach few miles out, it drops to 3 km, but you're still legal (at least in most Europe), you just ask for SVFR, because it will be night soon and you have that important family dinner tonight and you have to go home - plus the weather is still above legal minima so has to be safe, right? Then at some point, without even realising it, you find yourself crawling, possibly without ground contact in 2km or even less visibility and suddenly you see some part of ground you didn't expect... And then you get scared and see that VFR at SVFR minima is no picnic and if you don't run out of luck at that moment, you end up safely on the ground with a very valuable experience of scaring yourself (to death) and it'll be probably quite some time before you even think of trying that again. It's just one possible scenario of what could happen.

It all comes down to personality, if you are very strict with yourself no matter what, the first method is very good, although you will always keep wondering what the situation outside the envelope looks like. With the second method - again, if you're lucky - you see the outside part of the envelope and you know that it's best to stay inside your personal limits - knowing how close to incident/accident/death you were the last time you pushed those limits beyond your ability/currency/experience.

[Fuji Abound]

The only way to really discover your limits is to fly with someone who is comfortable with limits a good way beyond your own in conditions that may challenge you but not them. You do the flight and see how it goes. Simples really.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

I would suggest (from experience) that you only challenge one limit at a time. Going for a flight involving both more challenging weather than usual and more challenging navigation than usual got interesting for me once - one or the other, not both, would have been more sensible.