And somewhat unfair to raise it in this context.
And I am driving a BE76 this weekend.
But I remain confused. What exactly are you losing sleep over?
Or something else.
I think despatch rate is a totally different matter that should not be related to the question.
It must affect it… who (except people who have psychological issues with flying anyway) worries before an airline flight?
I would say the wx, relative to aircraft capability, and the known unknowns in wx forecasting, must be the main factor.
I think the main determining factor is your level of proficiency and currency. If you fly as much as, say, Jason does, or are professional flight crew, than flying probably becomes more like driving. I doubt anyone here loses sleep over a drive! Of course, while there are some pros (or people who fly almost as much) on here, the majority of us are recreational pilots who don’t go to fly (almost) every day. Certainly my level of the aforementioned ‘butterflies’ correlates directly to my time away from flying.
You dont worry before an airline flight because you have confidence that the procedures and assessments enable the flight to be made on time, or, that if weather causes a delay its for good reason. I sat in indonesia recently for three hours because of the delay caused by highly active tcbs over the airport. It was the right decision that the aircraft didnt depart. So whatever your ultimate capability you are ultimately constrained by the weather.
Obviously the aircraft will determine the conditions with which you can safely cope, but ultimately you worry because you think you might place yourself in conditions with which you cant cope. You can do that in any aircraft. In fact the pressures of running to a schedule make it far more likely you will.
Commercial crew i think dont worry because they have very precise procedures within which they operate, are extremelly current and have seen most conditions so they are very clear where their comfort zone lies.
When the weather looks iffy the day before you worry you might depart into conditions which will prove more challenging that you are comfortable with. You worry for friends who are passengers and might let them down. Whereas actually if you are confident in your assessment of your and the aircrafts limitations you will know you will make the right decision so you should only be left worrying abouf how you get there by some other means if that is the final decision.
I agree if you are accustom to flying say a twin you might worry about completing the same flight in a single sometimes but would argue that is because you are applying your twin go/no go criteria to a single and that may put you on the edge of your comfort zone in the single. However its not the aircrafts fault its yours for not reassessing that you are less comfortable in one aircraft compared with another and therefore you need to change you flight criteria.
JasonC wrote:
And somewhat unfair to raise it in this context.
Absolutely not cricket – I think most of us enjoy reading about Jason’s adventures and learn from them, I see little point in making him feel less welcome here.
Weather, if course, is the main thing that can make me nervous.
Weather, if course, is the main thing that can make me nervous.
I see it being a concern. And no matter what you fly some weather will bother you. But I am more interested in why you lose sleep.
So you get to the plane the next day and the weather isn’t great. So what? You don’t go. If you get airborne and it deteriorates then that is also fine you just handle it and, if you have to, land.
To be clear, I understand concern about these points but not losing sleep. That seems an overreaction and indeed counter-productive to performance should your fears eventuate.
If in fact it isn’t weather, but your ability to handle weather decision making, that is a different matter that could be overcome by study, training and practice.
most of us enjoy reading about Jason’s adventures and learn from them
It would be great to hear of Jason’s adventures in detail, so we can all learn from them, for sure.
Have you bought the jet now, Jason?
Weather is a problem when it is marginal, especially when it is at the destination or en-route. But if one is unsure, it is easy to cancel the flight.
I am also concerned about emergencies. Yes, we train them all the time but still most of us haven’t been in one. I always think about “can I really land safely straight ahead if I have an engine failure at 300ft above the ground on take off?”, “what about those trees just in front of the runway?”, “if there is a fire, will I be able to identify what kind of fire it is and act accordingly?”, “will I be able to act fast enough?”, “what are the chances that a maintenance guy did something wrong and I get a problem in the air?”, “what if the wing of my plane breaks during a loop?” (that one is pretty crazy but still enters my mind).
There was a commend on one of the threads saying that flying comes with its risks and you have to accept them. We all know about the risks (we are being thought more about what can go wrong than what we have to do) and that makes me (and probably some others as well) uneasy. On the other side it makes us cautious, well prepared and ready to act when disaster strikes. Stress has become a bad word in society but actually this small amount of stress is what keeps us alert and ready to take whatever comes in our way, so I try to see it from the positive side and enjoy the flight while ready to take action if something goes wrong.
JasonC wrote:
To be clear, I understand concern about these points but not losing sleep. That seems an overreaction and indeed counter-productive to performance should your fears eventuate.
Then of course, we all don’t decide not to sleep but rather describe what our body/mind is doing to us.
If in fact it isn’t weather, but your ability to handle weather decision making, that is a different matter that could be overcome by study, training and practice.
In your line of argument, I think that’s it. The worry is not so much “will the weather be bad and will I have to cancel a flight? oh, bugger!” – the worry is about the decision making indeed. There is a degree of uncertainty in this. Of course, “if there is a doubt, there is no doubt” and “better be down here, wishing to be up there than being up there, wishing to me down here” etc, so we all know it’s better to err on the conservative side. But if you take that too literally, you are going to be flying only in perfect fair weather conditions. If you want to approach a realistic “what can be done safely” attitude towards it, there is GOING to be some trial and error within this margin of uncertainty and that I can see keeping people awake at night.
