Should I Stay or Should I Go Now?

Sometimes I wonder if I'm too sensitive to be a pilot. Aside from instructors being able to make me cry and exams making me vomit, I wonder if my relationship with the weather is too intense. Too personal. That perhaps I give the weather gods too much power, raging Gloucester-style "Like flies to wanton boys are we pilots to the weather gods. They taunt us for their sport" every time it clouds over.

Luckily, the brilliant thing about flying is that it makes you examine your weaknesses and do something about them. The cockpit is no place for  inadequacies or histrionics. After a recent scare with cloud, and an unscheduled landing and overnight stay at Mittagong, followed by an amazing IFR flight to Canberra, I had already decided it is time for an instrument rating. FI have begun the implement of torture that is the IREX, but am as far away from an instrument rating at the moment as I am from being 65 kilos (at LEAST three months, but thankfully the IREX doesn't involve giving up cheese)...

Unluckily, these things take time, and money, and work.

So, when my Webmaster, Clay, came over from the States and had only one day on which we could fly, I exercised my right to plead with the weather gods.  I spent Monday in my office overlooking the Bankstown circuit, begging the gods to duplicate this very same day - sunny and crisp - tomorrow, for Clay's once-in-a-trip harbour scenic.

It's been a while since I have obsessively stalked the Bureau of Met. I have learned to let go of flights that are cancelled by weather, as I have learned to let go of flights that are cancelled by illness, a fault on the aircraft, or a plain gut feeling of not wanting to go. Or so I thought.

On Monday night, the weather looked iffy (the technical word being potentially overcast). With a 70% chance of rain, the worst of it looked to be in the morning. At five am, the TAF confirmed the iffiness, but the trend was towards improvement in the afternoon.

Clay and Kree (Before)

I phoned Clay (whom I'd never actually met) and passed on the news. He (and his wife Tracey) decided to arrive a bit later. It was still murky when they turned up at my place at 11am, so we sat round eating cake, waiting for the clouds to burn off. At twelve, we hopped in the car and headed out to the aerodrome.

The Automatic Weather Service claimed the clouds at Bankstown were scattered at two thousand six hundred feet, which is certainly enough to get into the harbour. The service at Sydney was less encouraging, but still possible. I called Sydney Terminal from the flying school and asked about my chances of getting into the harbour and was told "pretty good. Cloud's  a bit low, but it's possible"

I filed the plan and went out to check the aircraft. After a struggle (in which Clay nearly broke his wrist!) to get the oil cap off, a search for a fuel drain implement and a discussion about two loose screws on the spats, I gave my passengers a safety brief and strapped them in.

I started the engine, performed the checks, switched on the tower weather service and heard,

"Bankstown terminal information Juliet. Expect instrument approach....visibility six kms..."

I shook my head and shut down the engine.

As I apologised to Clay and Tracey, Clay (a pilot himself) said he understood, stating he wouldn't take off in this weather either.

Up until that point, I had had doubts, but assuaged them by  reminding myself that I know the route well, it's coastal, it's fairly low level, it's in controlled airspace....but, at that very moment, my belly said 'no. No. You will not take off in deteriorating weather. Not while you are a five hundred hour VFR pilot. No matter HOW much you want your friends to see the harbour'

Clay and Kree (After)

So, I dropped Clay and Tracey off at the train station (happy at least in the knowledge that they had climbed the bridge the night before, and seen the harbour from a great height already) pondering along the way on how we never know the results of our not going - whether we would have been alright, or whether I would have flown into conditions that may be dangerous, such as not being able to get back in to Bankstown.


As I neared the city, the sky was dark; the top of Centrepoint barely visible. I knew I had made the right decision. And with that, I stopped at the deli and bought half a kilo of French Brie. While I am alive to enjoy another day, the damn diet can wait...