The purpose of having personal limitations is to mitigate risk. Personal limitations are predicated on pilot experience level, familiarity with the airplane, knowledge of the area, the weather, and the nature of the mission. They cover much more than just weather considerations.

IMSAFE and PAVE

As a student pilot, you learned about the “Swiss cheese model” that results in accidents. When all the risks line up—the holes in the cheese—accidents happen. The FAA has provided pilots with checklist tools (IMSAFE and PAVE) to help identify and assess risk before each flight.

IMSAFE guides the pilot to check if they are affected by illness, medication, stress, alcohol, fatigue, and/or emotion and eating. PAVE prompts the pilot to consider: pilot currency/skills, airplane condition, en-Vironment (includes weather), and external pressures.

If anything pops up for you when you run through either checklist, identify the risks, and ask yourself if they can be safely mitigated.

Not feeling well? Fatigued? Emotionally distracted? Reschedule the flight.

Is the No. 1 VOR in the aircraft in need of a VOR check? Do you need it for the flight? If the answer is yes, could you take care of it?

How is the weather? Will it be a challenge? Could you reschedule for later in the day after the weather improves?

Proficiency and Currency

One of the first things an aviator learns is that there is a big difference between FAA-defined currency and pilot proficiency. Often it’s the lack of proficiency that gets pilots into trouble—sometimes when they have non-pilot passengers on board.

Although three takeoffs and landings within 90 days make you current according to FAA regulations, you may want to impose a personal limit, such as, “I will not fly with passengers or in marginal VFR unless I’ve flown within the preceding two weeks,” or “If it’s been more than 60 days, I will remain in the pattern for X number of touch and gos before I depart the area.”

• READ MORE: Researcher Expects Boom in Aviation Weather Forecasting

Personal weather limitations can be the most challenging for the newly-minted VFR-only pilot, and you may want to adjust them for passengers. For example, you might set yours as the following: “I can fly when the ceiling is at least 1,000 feet and visibility is at least three miles; but if I have a passenger, I will not fly unless the ceiling is at least 1,500 feet and visibility is at least four miles.”

Most pilots take great pride in their skills, and some go so far as to write down a commitment to maintaining proficiency and currency, noting, “I will make an effort to fly at least three times a month, for at least two hours.” This is followed by a plan to remedy the situation if they cannot keep the commitment, such as “If it has been more than 45 days since I have flown, I will take a qualified instructor with me.”

Many FBOs have a policy like this written into their rental agreements. For example, some require that if you have not flown one of their aircraft in the preceding 90 days, you must fly with an instructor.

SCENARIO 1: WHEN THE WEATHER IS BELOW YOUR PERSONAL WEATHER LIMITATIONS

THE WEATHER IS MARGINAL VFR and it is late afternoon. You’re a VFR pilot on day 86 of the 90-day currency cycle, so you rush out to the airport to get in three takeoffs and landings. In two days’ time you have promised to take your boss’s kid for a flight. You have a little more than an hour before sunset, and you are not night current. The winds are calm. As you turn on to downwind, you notice fog is starting to appear about three miles off the departure end of the runway. What are your options?

• You could rush to try to get those three takeoffs and landings in before the fog gets worse.
• You could make a full-stop landing and finish your currency flying tomorrow.

In the time it took you to read that last sentence, you probably identified the risks: a rushed and rusty pilot rushing the pattern leads to a rushed landing, and those elements can put you behind the airplane.

What would you do? You know from training and experience that three touch-and-gos usually take about a half an hour to complete. In theory, there’s time to get them all done. Do you feel confident in your ability to safely finish the currency flight, or would you feel better trying tomorrow? What is the worst that could happen? Is this flight worth the risk?

Higher Workload? Increase Limits

Flying in an unfamiliar airplane is like cooking in someone else’s kitchen—it can be disastrous if you don’t know where everything is or how it works. When you are flying a new-to-you airplane, raise your minimums. Even if you are instrument rated, you may want to keep the first flight in a new-to-you airplane in VFR conditions, especially when you are learning the panel or avionics suite. If the purpose of the flight is transition training to a faster or more complex aircraft, you may want to stay in VFR conditions so you don’t unnecessarily add to your workload and increase the learning curve.

Limits for Passenger Flights

You may not have any qualms about a few bumps or gusty crosswinds, but your passengers could have other ideas. Both can be terror- and vomit-inducing for the aviation challenged.

If you’re an instructor and you conduct an introductory or primary training flight, you probably have limitations set by the school or FBO (or their insurance company). You also have to ask yourself, “Would I want the learner to fly in this by him or herself?” It is up to instructors to model good risk management. There’s a time and place for challenging weather—but you want them to learn, not be intimidated.

Unfamiliar Terrain

If you are unfamiliar with the area you are flying in, raise the weather limitations—this is the enVironment part of PAVE. If you are a “flat-land” pilot and your normal VFR limitations are three miles visibility and a 1,000-foot ceiling, but you’re flying in mountainous regions, raise those limitations to five miles visibility and a 2,500-foot ceiling—especially if up until then you have only read about mountain flying.

If it is a new-to-you area, study the sectional chart ahead of time, in particular noting the VFR reporting points, visual landmarks, and pattern altitudes. You do not want to be heads down with the iPad or sectional while approaching the pattern to land. You should also seek out mountain-specific instruction from an experienced pilot before you go it alone over high-altitude and mountainous terrain for the first time.

SCENARIO 2: RENTING AN AIRCRAFT WHILE ON VACATION 

KEEP YOUR EXPECTATIONS in check if you want to rent an airplane while on vacation. It is not like renting a car where you show your driver’s license, give them a credit card, and off you go. Most FBOs will want to see your pilot and medical certificates, give you an open-book test, and then have you do a flight with one of their CFIs before they rent to you. The checkout can run the better part of two hours. Know this before you go into the situation so you don’t feel pressured to cut corners to “get it done.”

One of the challenging aspects of this situation is that you probably don’t know anything about the FBO’s maintenance. You can, however, ask to see the airplane’s logbooks. Pay attention to the details. If the FBO smells like a fish tank or an ashtray, the CFI you are supposed to fly with shows up in dirty jeans and a T-shirt, and the aircraft looks about as rough as it can be, ask yourself if you really want to fly there. Even if they claim to be the “only game in town,” ask yourself if it’s worth the risk.

Remember, it just takes two holes to line up in the Swiss cheese to give you a bad day.

Avoid ‘Get-It-Done-Itis’

“Get-it-done-itis”—the close cousin to the deadly “get-there-itis”—can trigger poor decision making. Just about every airport has a story about a VFR-only pilot in a VFR-only airplane who did a scud run in his personal aircraft to get to the airport for a walk-in flight review.

In one example: It was the end of the month and the pilot insisted that it had to be done today, because the aircraft was going in for annual and it had been 23 calendar months since his last flight review. The pilot flew in from his grass strip about five miles from the airport. His assessment of the weather was, “it looked pretty good,” but after some questioning from the CFI, he admitted he had made the flight at 500 feet agl to avoid the clouds. He estimated the inflight visibility to be about two miles. He told the CFI that normally he would not fly unless he had at least a 1,000-foot ceiling and three miles visibility, but he “really, really, really needed to get this done.”

The CFI asked the pilot about his personal weather limitations. Was he comfortable during the flight? Would he have brought a passenger with him? The answer was “no” to both questions—settling the matter—that in making the flight, he broke his own parameters.

SCENARIO 3: THUNDERSTORMS: HOW CLOSE DO YOU GO? 

ANOTHER TYPE OF WEATHER limitation strikes when thunderstorms boil up in the region in which you plan to fly. Most pilots have heard a common safety rule: Stay clear of any storm by at least 20 nm. If storms fall in a line, passing through that line then requires you to have a 40 nm gap between cells in order to make a safe transit.

This is probably one of the most readily “busted” weather limits out there, as pilots commonly fudge that distance by half. They get away with it—for a while.

And then, inevitably, they find there’s a good reason for the safety margin. That’s because cells often generate severe turbulence and toss out precipitation far from their primary visible cloud formations.

This is one personal limit you don’t want to bust.

This article was first published in the Q2 2022 edition of FLYING Magazine.

The post Personal Weather Minimums: Identify Yours appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Note: The FAA has temporarily unpublished the SFAR to make updates. The new ruling will be published on May 4.

The FAA has published on April 29, 2020, a SFAR (special federal aviation regulation) regarding the extension of certain pilot and technician recency of experience, testing, and medical certification requirements in response to the international crisis triggered by the COVID-19 outbreak. The agency addresses in detail the specific areas of mitigation involved, and the actions and financial burdens expected from compliance—or that would be precipitated if the FAA took no action.

Most relevant to active pilots and instructors are the sections covering recency of experience requirements, flight testing, flight reviews, and medical certification requirements. In part, these are outlined below, but please reference the text of the SFAR for detailed guidance, and for areas of special operations, including those for technicians and IAs, and remote-piloted aircraft operators.

Flight reviews due during the period from March to June 2020 have up to a three-month extension. According to the SFAR: “The three calendar month extension applies to pilots who were current to act as PIC of an aircraft in March 2020 and whose flight review was due in March 2020 through June 2020. To mitigate any safety risk, the pilot must have logged at least 10 hours of PIC time within the twelve calendar months preceding the month the flight review was due. This flight time must be obtained in an aircraft for which that pilot is rated.” Pilots must complete an online seminar for WINGS credits sometime after January 2020 to meet the requirements of the extension.

Instrument pilot currency or recency of experience has been extended. The FAA has granted an additional three months to the normal six-month cycle, under certain provisions. “The FAA is extending the six calendar month requirement of §61.57(c)(1) by an additional three calendar months. This will enable a pilot to continue exercising instrument privileges, provided the pilot has performed the required tasks within the nine calendar months preceding the month of the flight, instead of the preceding six calendar months. To be eligible for the relief, a pilot will need to have some recent experience in instrument flight. More specifically, the FAA is requiring that the pilot have logged, in the preceding six calendar months, three instrument approaches in actual weather conditions, or under simulated conditions using a view-limiting device. Eligible pilots may exercise the relief in this SFAR through June 30, 2020.”

Private pilots conducting charity flights and other essential operations are permitted under certain criteria. The SFAR gives guidance that pilots must meet recency of experience within the past 12 months in order to qualify. “This relief applies to some operations conducted by pilots exercising private pilot privileges, provided the pilot has at least 500 hours of total time as a pilot of which 400 hours is as PIC and 50 of the PIC hours were accrued in the last 12 calendar months. The kinds of operations permitted are those that are: incidental to business or employment, in support of family medical needs or to transport essential goods for personal use, necessary to fly an aircraft to a location in order to meet a requirement of this chapter, or a flight to transport essential goods and/or medical supplies to support public health needs.”

Valid period for medical certificates has been extended. Because the medical exam is by necessity in-person and not an emergency or urgent examination, the FAA has lengthened the period during which a pilot can renew their certificate to the end of June 2020—if the pilot’s expiration month was as early as March 2020. In addition, pilots must still adhere—wisely—to the restriction from flying with a known, disqualifying medical issue. “The FAA notes that the provisions of this SFAR do not extend to the requirements of §61.53 regarding prohibition on operations during medical deficiency. These prohibitions remain critical for all pilots to observe, especially given the policy of emergency accommodation announced here and the health threat of COVID-19. Accordingly, the FAA emphasizes that under §61.53, no person who holds a medical certificate issued under 14 CFR part 67 may act as a required pilot flight crewmember while that person: (1) knows or has reason to know of any medical condition that would make the person unable to meet the requirements for the medical certificate necessary for the pilot operation; or (2) is taking medication or receiving other treatment for a medical condition that results in the person being unable to meet the requirements for the medical certificate necessary for the pilot operation.”

Pilot knowledge test expiration dates have been extended. Depending on the certification level, the results of a knowledge exam are generally valid for presentation at a practical test for a period of 24 calendar months—60 months in the case of the multiengine ATP. The FAA figures that roughly 60,000 pilots took knowledge exams whose valid period may be expiring during the period between March and May 2020. “To ensure these individuals are not penalized by having to take another knowledge test, the FAA is extending the validity of knowledge tests by a duration of three calendar months. Therefore, this SFAR will allow an individual who has a knowledge test expiring between March 2020 and June 2020 to present the expired knowledge test to show eligibility under §61.39(a)(1) to take a practical test for a certificate or rating issued under part 61 for an additional three calendar months.”

For more details, please view the full SFAR content here.

The post FAA Publishes SFAR Extending Pilot, Technician Requirements appeared first on FLYING Magazine.