Congratulations on making a sensible command decision.

Another Ogimet fan I guess. That site is the business, I love it

This close, use the TAFS. There's a forecast TAF at both airfields which will give you better situational awareness.

Three ways of classifying a trip when you have TAFS:

1. Fine at both ends - fly
2. Review in the morning, gear up plan B
3. Bin it now and accept plan B

I'm a low(ish) hour PPL, don't have IMC and night. Looking at both TAFs (and the exceptionally useful Ogimet shown above) this trip falls into point 3. 4600m will preclude you from making any airspace transits (1500m outside CAS, 5000m required inside CAS). The TAF isn't clear at EGNX but I wouldn't pin my hopes on the viz increasing to 5km in time for your flight. To be honest the only thing going for that forecast at EGNX is the fact that all things being equal the gusty wind forecast to clear whilst you're turning up should be straight down the runway.

As an aside - this looks to me like you have a doubt about the weather and are looking for someone to tell you it'll be fine. Top tip: don't do this.

BTW if you've made the decision not to fly - stick to it. Few weeks ago I was faced with a 2.5hr drive each way to a business meeting or a 30min flight (aircraft is based 20min drive away). Weather at this time the day before said no so made a conscious decision not to fly and binned the plog, flight plan, etc to save from temptation the next day.

The next day dawned and the weather was predictably crap - but a clearance that wasn't forecast came in the middle of my meeting which might have made it feasible. Oh well. I've never regretted not flying...

A very much overdone saying, but true nonetheless; "I'd sooner be down here wishing I was up there, than up there wishing I was down here."

A controversial view to come. Yes, you should put yourself under (some) pressure. To be clear, that is not carte blanche to say "I will go at any cost", the opposite in fact. The point is to make a considered decision based upon the information available (TAF, METAR, etc). Alternatively, as someone suggested, you will wait for that perfect day and never do anything.

If you wish to be a high time PPL (or greater), make a positive decision based upon the information available - the opinion of a Ppruner is an opinion, not information - and positive as in definite, not positive as in "must get airborne".

That decision can be validated by getting airborne if appropriate and turning back if necessary and will invariably add to your bank of experience.

By all means validate your decision with others of experience (including here) but simply remaining on the ground because the Pprunararty say you should is not a decision. Make the decision yourself.

If you want my opinion, I can let you have it but I would hope it would be irrelevant.

Edit: I notice I came to the thread a bit late. A good decision (I wouldn't have gone either - IR, instructor and 14000 hrs) but I hope it was based primarily on the information available rather than relying on Pprune posts.

When I was a low hour PPL I remember the most difficult thing was the go/nogo decision (often it still is). IMHO you must make the decision yourself, you should not really be asking us.

Having said that all that really matters is cloudbase, visibility and maybe wind, I'm sure where you trained had limits for those - start out within those limits and as you get more experience reduce them to suit what you are happy with.

Happy flying

Tobster....
Are you familiar with TAFs? I'm rather surprised that, with those TAFs anyone would be asking the question. It seems the met you obtained gave you some seriously misleading information.
If, for some reason, you haven't been tought about them I would suggest some bed time reading is in order!

First place to look is not the TAFs but the 215...............................

I always thought that as a low hours SEP PPL without IR(R) or IR, I would never plan a flight where I HAVE to be anywhere specific, by any specific time, and/or HAVE to come back to anywhere specific by any specific time on any given day.

If on the day, the weather looks good, the F214 & F215 look conducive for flight, then look at METARs and TAFs at or near departure and destination. If the journey is long enough to warrant it - also have a look at METARs and TAFs at places on route. I then also generally quantify my reasoning with any other weather sources that I can get my hands on, MetOffice, BBC, Wunderground...etc... To make a decision - if all else works - then and only then GO.

Your plan A should always be an alternative method of transportation, until such a time as you have a CPL ME IR and fly a big jet, where reliability will be as good as the airlines. With each stepping stone along the way, you'd be able to increase the likelihood of doing the flight but never be 98% sure.

Tay Cough - makes a good point about pushing your comfort zone, but this should ONLY ever be done when you don't have to be anywhere - GetThereItis is something you absolutely want to avoid at all costs.

If the weather is marginal, and the trend isn't going to block you out - you can always "give it a go" and worst case, just come back, if nothing else, its a good learning point!

When RETURN TO BASE is a good idea....
 

I had just renewed my instrument rating in Florida. Planning to attend a family reunion in Tennessee, I wanted to impress everybody by turning up at the local airstrip and giving rides to the grandchildren. I filed my flight plan the night before and got the weather.

Nobody at Albert Whitted St. Pete Tower would talk to me the next morning, they weren't out of bed yet. Unsure how to proceed, I heard another pilot on Unicom leaving Whitted, and he said I should contact Tampa Departure after liftoff. So I did, and happy under ATC control, began my journey North. IFR of course. But after a while it began to look like IFR in IMC, WHICH DID NOT AGREE AT ALL WITH THE FORECAST......!

ATC allowed me to change frequency to make enquiries of Flight Service (in those days, they had actual human beings giving the weather). Flight Service told me that there was a fast moving surprise from the Northwest that included embedded thunderstorms, tops to 35,000 feet between me and Tennessee.

I chickened out. Back at Albert Whitted, my rental car was parked, already paid for the day. Get there a bit late, drive up the interstate!

Informing ATC of my intention, he said "Yes, Ma'am, that's a very good idea. They have just issued a Sig Met for that area." So I returned the Cessna in one piece to the Albert Whitted Flying Club.

Never be afraid to change your plan. If you are PILOT In Charge, do not be influenced by other people and their expectations. You know what you and the aircraft can do....and should NOT do.

PS: A Sig Met is "a significant meterological event!" best avoided.

You probably made the right decision, but the question you posed was not really a safety question; it was a "minimums" question coupled with practicality. There is a big difference between safety and the other two. Whilst in no way condoning such behaviour I'll suggest that you can fly just on the illegal side of VFR quite safely. Not surprisingly, the further you depart from legality, the closer you become to being in a dangerous position. The legal minimums grant a reasonable amount of fat but flying illegally means you may have eroded the margins to such a point that you could be within seconds of a real problem. Inexperience means you may not appreciate how far you have strayed from VFR minimums once you start busting them. Speaking from experience I can tell you that is really unpleasant when the weather starts closing in around you. And then there is common sense and practicality aspect. You can often legally depart but later you find that the weather enroute prevents you from reaching your destination. Providing you have done your planning properly, an enroute diversion or a return to your point of departure may be your only choice; inconvenient but perfectly safe. We can see from your posts that you were in no way intending to bust the law or fly in weather below your minima, but please don't confuse safety with minimums, common sense and/or practicality. It is a shame the utility of a basic PPL is quite limiting this time of year in the U.K.

As for your decision, it can only be viewed with hindsight. What matters is that you made one based in the information available and were not tempted to give it a go when you thought you might not end up with the right outcome. For that you are to be commended.

PM

The weather later in the day was perfect! Fexibility, good planning and good judgement are key safety factors in planning any flight in a light aircraft in the UK.
However, what concerns me more is using PPrune as a forum to make this sort of decision. If your experience is such that you need flight planning advice, you need to find a well qualified and experienced mentor to help you.

Terry is absolutely correct !


If you have to ask on a forum , then don't go !

Some years ag. My father was staying with us for the weekend. He asked if we could go flying. I said, after checking the weather, it will be a bit rough but doable. It was, I think, 15kts gusting 25, not quite across the runway but forecast to lighter later in the day. So we went to the airfield and started unpacking the Rans from it's box. Another club member turned up and asked if it was OK for flying. I replied that it was good enough for me. He went, (Cessna Reims Rocket) was a bit lairy on take off and a few minutes later returned to do a scary landing. He parked up, tied down and came by us looking a bit green. He didn't speak. He got in his car and went away.

We put the Rans together, pre-flighted and then went to the Isle of Wight for lunch. In the afternoon we returned to base via tea at Old Sarum. It was a bit rough and gusty but no problem. My rule of thumb was if I could unpack the Rans and put it together without it blowing over it was within my wind range limits.

Your pucker factor may be different.

Tobster, you made the right choice.

I hate it when it's marginal (my personal marginal), I'm not experienced , 7 years since PPL gained and about 500 hours and still find myself procrastinating at times, I've learnt now, that if I can't decide one way or the other after gathering and digesting all the weather/Notam/timing info available to me and mulling it over a coffee, then I am not going.

14,000 hour airline captain and still fly lots of SEP, I would not go having had a look at that TAF.

Quite common for that background. It surprised me first, when I found that the probability a pilot is going into marginal weather conditions gets pretty low for high time professional airmen. It would be interesting to get some statistics where it peaks.

ChickenHouse, I don't think I would have flown with that TAF either. Drizzle, 300m visibility, overcast at 0ft.... Not sure many people would fly unless they had to (or were commercial / airline / private jet pilots of course) however, admittedly a little further West than Earls Colne, the weather was definitely flyable (well above my personal minima) by 9am.

is absolutely fine but:

Paints a very different picture... However, the forecasts and the actual are very often different, as I believe they were yesterday.

For what it's worth (I live about 4 miles from Leicester airport) I'd not have wanted to have been flying in around 8am yesterday. Overcast, low cloud, not nice.

One of the previous posters mentioned the EGNX TAF? I'd be wary of relying solely on that. When you've got marginal weather then you'll often find that conditions south of the Markfield VRP are completely different to those north of it :)
(I live in Leicester and learned at East Mids)

For flying to Leicester I'd be having a look at the TAFs from East Mids and Coventry, maybe even Wittering too (as well as the METFORMs etc.), building up a picture of the area and making a judgement from there.