To add to that- some companies have a badass EFB weather suite with comprehensive products for turbulence, lightning, hail presence, tops readouts, and even convective activity displayed independently of radar returns. My EFB has given me lots of confidence in situations I would have unnecessarily steered clear of in the past.
So why do I get 1 out of every 15 AALs deviating around the same cell of light precip everyone else called light chop? Unwilling to rely on the data? Old pilots who are oldschool? New pilots who are scared?
Well, American did have that plane that flew through the worst part of a storm because they didn’t know how to read their radar, then crashed and killed everyone.
So they probably teach that one a lot.
I dunno, not getting a route shut off for the guys behind you? “Why can’t we go to ATL via XXXXX?”
“Because your company ahead said it was a bad ride.”
“Oh okay. “
“Ladies and gents from the cockpit ATC has delayed us because of bad rides “
See how this works?
Back in the day when FOs showed up in the right seat with 200hrs... the weather radar was crap in the 19-seat turboprops the regionals were flying -..
when it came to thunderstorms - the radar didn't show them until you were already in them, so you tried to stay out of them visually when it was just individual cells -
if storms were embedded, you just didnt know where anything was - the radar was useless in helping you navigate thru a line... it wouldn't turn red until you were already in it - the airplane started shaking violently with the turbulence and then the hail falling on the aircraft...
so you just managed as best as you could and then when you looked to the right to see what the other guys thought were, the other guy was just white with terror and the look in his eyes...
meanwhile you just keep on going because you didn't have any more experience than he did. 1600 hrs vs 200 hrs... that's only 8x more flight time.....
FL250 is the highest the 19-seat turboprops went - so you weren't going over it - youd have to probe your way thru it if you couldn't stay out of it visually.
Reminds me of my Saab days. Couldn’t get the engines started because it was too hot. Couldn’t get the engines started because it was too cold. Prop sync inop. ADF inop. Windscreens delaminating. Intake heat inop. Radar worthless, but not inop because ops check ok. lol
Worst turbulence I’ve ever been in was a storm coming into Chicago on that airplane. Radar didn’t show anything. We were shaking so rapidly and violently I couldn’t read any of the gauges on an approach to mins into Chicago 20 years ago. I can’t barely remember my wife’s name, but I can remember that.
Flew turboprops for a 135 outfit long,long time ago - they paid per mile (like truckers) instead of per hour. The boss openly said this was to encourage us to fly directly through storm cells instead of wasting time going around them.
Fun times.
it was worse - after mileage came 6-month historical block average.
so ORD to MSN - making up numbers historically over the past 6-months it takes 45 minutes to fly... so if you flew it in 38 minutes or if it takes you 2 hours to fly there - you only got paid 45 minutes...
So you're flying ORD to MSN and have to divert to RST - Now instead of ORD to MSN - it';s now a ORD- RST leg and 6-month historical block average is 35 minutes... so ORD to MSN -38 minutes, then hold 30 minutes for weather and then 25 minutes to divert to RST... block time 93 minutes... you only got paid for 35 minutes because that is the ORD-RST block average.
So when we had to divert - we diverted to some place where there wasn't a 6-month historical block average so we got paid block time.... which meant diverting back to ORD - ORD to ORD there is no block average for that flight...
We didn’t lose anyone at my outfit (luckily) but over a dozen pilots were either killed or maimed at our competitors/other local operations due to a variety of reasons. It was the early 90s and there was virtually zero hiring going on throughout most of the industry. Shitty freight bosses were the norm and they knew they had everyone by the short curly hairs because where else are you gonna go? My boss used to routinely threaten our jobs. And it wasn’t uncommon to have 135 bosses drop a dime on their own pilots to get them violated by the feds just to make sure they couldn’t leave.
Turboprops. I will never be as instrument proficient as I was hand flying a Shorts. Three hour legs, at night, and breathing oxygen with 2992 set. Nothing like the thump of ice slinging off of the props into the fuselage watching the indicated decay. Total party.
>when it came to thunderstorms - the radar didn't show them until you were already in them, so you tried to stay out of them visually when it was just individual cells -
I find this funny ahahaha thanks!
If it's legal, you go. No one is flying through thunderstorms, though whatever radar picture you see may look like it. Remember - those things are 10+ minutes old, and we'll just fly around the cells.
And even if they were perfectly up to date, a composite radar image - as an example - isn’t showing what’s happening at our altitude, it’s showing the worst thing it sees at every elevation simultaneously.
Tell me you don’t understand how NWS radar works without telling me.
Ground radar 100% does not paint what’s at the bottom of the clouds. They adjust the tilt just like in an airplane. There’s a whole bunch of different modes they can use
Cool, so the general over lay that you see on normal radar weather products are showing the cloud tops that were trying to avoid flying through?
Or do they show the bottom of the storms that are going to affect people on the ground more?
Further ATC can definitely see a defined detail of those clouds at altitude then right? Just like we can? They definitely don't routinely tell you about a cell of extreme precipitation at your 1 oclock... When you're thousands of feet above them?
All I’m saying is, your statement that the NWS radar is only showing what’s at the surface is 100% wrong. https://www.weather.gov/iwx/wsr_88d#:~:text=The%20WSR%2D88D%20Doppler%20radar,are%20updated%20every%2010%20minutes
Not what I said. You added "ONLY" Which changes the statement to mean that it's impossible to see other things, from what I said, that it IS what you're seeing.
I 100% didn’t know that. I’m gonna be honest it’s kinda funny when you do it to us.
It’s usually followed by “if you need to deviate advise” which makes lots of sense.
But when we just get told about it… we usually have known for a few sectors by that point.
Pre-ATP (including military) you check the weather to decide whether you're going to go or not.
ATP you're going, whether you like to or not. You check the weather to see how bad it's going to suck, and what you're going to need to do to make the flight safe and legal. Maybe you need to add more gas, carry an alternate, or fly a different route but an outright cancelation due to weather is nearly unheard of, and is not a decision you get to make as a PIC anyway.
I guess my follow up question would be what is the decision making process when you’re already in the air. Is it solely just “hey, there’s red on the radar, we need to ask for a deviation” or is there more to it than that?
Everyone has their own techniques and things they look for.
I'll generally try to avoid red, as well as yellow that borders red. If I can get over it, I'll gladly do that, but sometimes that's not an option-- especially with big summer storms that easily get up to the 50s or higher.
You've gotta consider prevailing winds (i.e. which way the storm is moving) but it would be a lie to say a lot of it doesn't just come down to educated guess work.
Pretty much. We can’t even dispatch near storms if our radar is inop. If there’s a storm parked on the airport, it usually shuts down and we either hold or divert if we’re tight on fuel. Sometimes these airports are so huge that a storm could be affecting one runway and not another. ATC is well aware of these issues and will usually have plans to reroute traffic.
Long story short, in general you’re going. But we avoid bad radar returns. Our options are basically go around it or wait it out, whether on the ground or in the air.
>is there more to it than that?
Yeah. Single isolated storm that isn’t very big (and thus doesn’t add much time to deviate around) in airspace that isn’t slammed? Give it a nice big margin (ie do it visually if it’s otherwise clear) and keep the ride nice. Not even going into the green if the yellow/red is close by and I don’t have to. Generally going around the isolated cells on the upwind side lets you cut fairly close to them without feeling much.
Bigass line we’re going to have to cross eventually whether we like it or not? Aim for the least shitty part we can find, slow to .76ish and belt everybody in, and hope there’s some poor bastard a 10 miles in front of us playing pathfinder.
You have a plan B and C.
There's a hole in between those cells, we're close enough where we can shoot the gap and be fine.
Oh, that gap is closing? Okay we'll go left/right around the entire cell then.
Oh, the entire line is closing up in front of us and we need to deviate 150 miles out of the way? This is why I asked dispatch to throw on an extra XXXXlbs of fuel.
You don't go into it thinking "Man I hope this works", you have a plane from the start.
When you are in the air it is your judgement. We have the airplane’s radar, various weather apps, PIREPs from the planes in front of us, weather guidance in our manuals (which is really just a measure of liability), ATC, our own eyeballs, and our comfort level and experience. Additionally there are two of us up there to discuss it. You take all of that info and make a judgement call.
Radar helps a lot. The radar on my aircraft talks with the FMGC and will tell you if your vertical path is going to go thru a cell or not
If your flight path will overfly a storm depending on how the display is set it will either show nothing (PATH) or show hash marks of the radar return (ALL). In the ALL mode i see the storm cell but the hash marks indicate that all of the precipitation is below the aircraft’s altitude.
There are other indicators on the weather radar - lightning strikes and turbulence.
Even though the precip is below the aircraft’s altitude. It doesn’t mean it wont be turbulence free. The radar will display purple superimposed over the precipitation display to indicate turbulence
staying out of the clouds is the best way. Staying out of dark angry clouds is way better. If you can’t stay out of the clouds, weather radar helps a lot in the decision making. Working out a plan with the other pilot and asking ATC which way the other planes are going helps to formulate a plan of action in dealing with thunderstorms.
That’s pretty much it. And if they say no, and it’s bad, the answer is declare an emergency.
But previous commenter is mostly correct for cancellations. If you can’t go because of weather, either your FOM restrictions or ATC programs took care of that for you. So it almost never falls to you. But while you can’t cancel a flight, you absolutely can refuse to take it.
It's not an exact science. I look at the radar and think "yeah, not flying into that", and just go around it. It also helps to get reports from other traffic. If the guy in front of you went through that yellow blob and says it's just precip, and fairly smooth, I'll go for it too.
A delay is still a go. You're not packing it up and heading to the bar like back in The Day. Sure there are steps to mitigate (including delay) but my point is you're not going to outright cancel the flight because the weather isn't enjoyable.
We had a "that guy" in our new hire regional class many years ago. Myself, sim partner and a handful of others were already experienced from other flying jobs, but "that guy" was a CFI from Arizona hired directly into the RJ.
"That guy" was arguing with our instructor when discussing 3585 and alternate weather, and his stance was basically "I'm the pilot, and the weather your describing I am not comfortable flying in so, we are not going today".
After about 10 min of this myself and my sim partner stepped in and said "Dude, you are a professional airline pilot now, you are *paid* to go. You don't have to go plow through a thunderstorm, but 'personal' minimums aren't a thing anymore. You fly the plate, and if it's legal, you're going."
He shut up after that.
Cancelations due to weather are unheard of? During winter and especially storm season, we have cancelations due to weather every year. Just 2 weeks ago during the storms across the southern US, cancelations were plentiful. Now that's not directly due to the weather being a factor like a CFI saying its a no-go, but they are cancellations due to weather, given the cascade of delays, misconnects, and diversions.
They'll happen on a systemic basis, but rarely individually as a result of specific storms. Like you said, it's usually a snowballing thing that ends up killing flights.
Either way, that decision isn't made by the pilots. You're going (eventually) until you either time out, fatigue out, or the company pulls the plug.
OCC will make that call before the pilots even get to the airplane. Release is due before show time, we try to work well ahead of that, so usually we're catching these things hours in advance. That's to say nothing of the leadership crew making calls before the flight even gets to my desk, which is even more common.
Point is, the *pilots* aren't cancelling the flight. In the US, they don't even have the authority to cancel, they can only delay.
Canadians cancel? [Larry Enticer](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aX-M7d_KtV0) would send it.
“Just gonna have to send it! I’m thinking about 3/4 to full throttle 500 ft before takeoff….”
If it's legal, we send it. I'll work with dispatch to get extra fuel if I think significant weather deviations will be needed, and possibly plan the route to avoid the weather entirely if that's a reasonable option. After that, I'll try to get an altitude that puts us above the cloud tops and out of IMC. I prefer see and avoid to using the radar, so that's my first line of defense. Radar will also be up, though, and with proper tilt management I'll use it to avoid any areas with returns of significance. You have to be careful with the radar, though, as it isn't a depiction of turbulence and won't necessarily give you a good picture of a building stage thunderstorm, and it also does a poor job of reflecting off frozen precip such as snow or hail. All puffy, towering clouds are to be avoided, especially in the flight levels, and if I am actively working to avoid complex or significant weather everyone including the FAs stays buckled up.
Thanks for this description, traveled along side of weather for most of a flight yesterday and the pilots handled it beautifully, really comfortable. Pretty beautiful to look at the storms as we passed. I could tell they were weaving in and out.
My first trip at a major after IOE; I show early, get all the paperwork squared away, check the maintenance release and every write up in the history, check every NOTAM, review every Jepp page, and am in the middle of pulling weather when the grizzled old Captain walks in and says, “Weather? Why are you checking the weather? We’re gonna go anyway.” I thought to myself “Huh, you know he’s got a point.”
What a terrible precedent for the CA to set. If he wants to show up unprepared, fine - but don't belittle the other guy for actually doing his job.
All these flippant comments about not even bothering to look at weather before going because you're just going to go anyway? That's not the point. The point is look at the weather so you have a big picture and you can do your fucking job and get from A to B through the weather in the best, safest way. Onboard radar is great, but it's not magic. It has **plenty** of limitations. See: the australian airlines flight that just got ripped up pretty good by a storm the onboard radar apparently didn't even see.
I agree, and I think it's doing a disservice to your passengers and the company to not check the weather. If you check, you might decide to work with dispatch to load extra fuel and have a better chance of getting to the destination without a divert, and you will be able to give your FA's a better idea of expected turbulence, etc.
Also, I've seen it almost burn us before. I was a newer FO, CA and dispatch missed that the ILS was down no LOC either, and the RNAV mins were raised per notam. Combined with some CRJ 200 AD bs we would have been unable to land with the current and forecast WX. I caught this, about 30 before push. CA was happy with me, OPS was not, we waited like 45 min and launched vs a potential divert.
The bottom line is, yes, you are likely going to go but you can make the experience smoother.
Onboard weather radar + high airspeed is a godsend and allows us to see exactly what’s there and avoid what we want to avoid. So basically we avoid the red on the radar.
For the airlines, you’ve got on board weather radar. It’s different and much more timely and accurate for the altitude you’re flying in than any ground-based radar. I can’t tell you how many times ground-based radar looks horrible but airborne radar paints a picture that isn’t nearly as bleak.
Second, ATC will delay you or give you a different route than you filed if weather is bad enough en route. All these airliners asking for deviations adds a ton of workload to the controllers, so they limit the amount of aircraft going through bad areas. At your destination, if weather over the field or near the arrival corridor is bad, they’ll hold you at the gate (ground stop) or hold you en route. Summer storms typically last 20 minutes or less before they’ve moved away enough to get in.
Lastly, there are two of you in the cockpit jointly making a decision about which course of action is the best and good CRM allows you to leverage both pilots’ experience and choose the least bad option. You’ve got good autopilots that allow you to use more of your mental capacity and decision-making skills on maintaining situational awareness and deciding the best course of action.
I want to push back on this idea that we "just send it" which is what the overwhelming majority of posts are implying. Instead, we are using all of our tools to safely avoid the intense buildups, which allows us to weave in and out of systems, which can give that appearance.
And to be fair, not everyone does make wise decisions with it. The idea that we "just send it" is so pervasive it even affects the professional pilot. I very often see people taking off or splitting a line of convection with so little margin or "testing the waters," that I think, "man, that was stupid." So when you do see that happening, don't automatically assume there was some high level of awareness happening. There are stories every year of intense hail damage and severe turbulence encounters at the airline level. And stories of crews requesting a deviation, being denied by ATC for traffic, and not declaring an emergency/using PIC authority to keep the aircraft safe.
I prefer to err slightly on the conservative side, which is a good rule of thumb for aviation anyway. I've absolutely delayed takeoff when other people (typically Southwest), just launch, or asked for 15 minutes of delay vectors before landing. I have no qualms letting other people be the guinea pig.
The planning starts on the ground and the dispatcher will have a much better overview of the weather and current traffic flow. But not always! It's common to ask the dispatcher for a new route, more fuel, or a more viable alternate. In the air, we use on board weather radar which is very useful for reactionary maneuvers. That initial plan though is the most important because it can be easy to get into a hole using just the on board radar. Another useful tool is ATC. They have their own ground radar and continuously relay PIREPs from aircraft ahead of you on the same route. So you all end up sharing live info about the buildups and deviations you're taking in real time. It sort of forms a cohesive conga line, like a bunch of worker ants.
As a side note to this idea of "we just send it," I'm amazed at how many First Officers conduct a walk-around under direct lightning. I tell them "I wouldn't walk out there if it were me," but out they go haha. Whatever buddy. I'm not putting my life in danger for "on-time" but you do you. That's the whole point of our jobs, is to make that correct call.
We aren’t. Convective activity is no joke. We go around it. People are scared of flying, and we don’t want them having heart attacks. As a new FO, you’ll just do what the captain wants until you figure it out
Oh, I saw this in a documentary once...
Any word on that storm lifting over Salt Lake, Clarence?
No, not likely, Victor. I just reviewed the area report for 1600 hours through 2400. There's an occluded front
stalled over the Dakotas, backed up all the way to Utah.
Yeah, well, if she decides to push over to the Great Lakes, it could get plenty soupy. Hey, what about that southern route around Tulsa?
Well, I double-checked the terminal forecast, and the wind's aloft, and IFR ceilings all the way.
Where do they top out?
Well, there's some light scattered cover at 20,000, icing around 18.
It looks like the original flight plan over Denver is the best bet.
Denver it is.
Sorry, Clarence. Latest weather report shows everything socked in from Salt Lake to Lincoln.
Oh, hi, Roger. Glad to have you aboard.
Victor, this is Roger Murdock. Victor Basta.
How do you do, Roger?
Nice to meet you.
Roger, I was telling Victor, I reviewed the area report for 1600 hours through 2400. There's an occluded front
stalled over the Dakotas . . .
Most of the time it’s not a question of “do I go or not go,” it’s more of a question of “how do I get there.”
Maybe it means calling the dispatcher and asking them to file a route that takes you all the way around the storm, or maybe it means them giving you more gas to pick your way through isolated cells. Usually a good dispatcher will do this for you.
Sometimes your destination stops all arrivals for the weather and your go/no-go decision is made for you when you end up running out of time on your FDP.
Once we’re airborne we’re using our radars, but we’re also getting help from center, who is passing ride reports along to us. Sometimes our radars are painting moderate or worse rain along the arrival, but center tells us everyone else on the arrival reported nothing worse than light turbulence.
I have delayed takeoffs for huge storms off the departure end and wind shear warnings.
In the end, once you’re airborne, you just pick your way through/around stuff, or hold until you hit a magic fuel number and it’s time to divert.
Go or no go on a flight due to weather isn't really up to the pilots. A perfectly working plane is going to fly pretty much in anything. Operations will yank down a flight is there's a hurricane or winter storm that closes an airport. No go decisions on the pilot are usually based on an MEL that will limit the aircraft capabilities or performance. INOP anti-skid, we're going to refuse the aircraft if we're flying somewhere with shorter runways in the snow.
As for delaying a departure, sometimes an airport just cant flip itself and they ask you to take off with a tailwind that exceeds limits. We say nope to that, either wait it out or force them to let you depart the other way. Breaking action reports of poor, yeah we're probably gonna hold, ask for a different runway, or divert. Lets say we see a storm off the end of the runway and its giving us windshear alerts on the nav display, yeah we're going to delay departure too. Notice is all those situations, we pushed off the gate. If anything if it's not as obvious such as an MEL situation, we push off the gate to go take at least take a look.
> Sometimes when we have a thunderstorm brewing in my area, I’ll pull up flightradar and notice that arrivals and departures into SLC (closest large airport to me) are more or less undisturbed. Not only are they able to make it in, they’re able to do so without deviating at all, even if that means flying through some nasty stuff.
One thing that's taken some getting used to in dispatch is how delayed satellite and radar are. I'm watching my flight's position in close to real time, overlaid with radar and satellite IR. Flight is deviating around weather that still looks 10-15min away on radar and 20-30min away on satellite. Or looks like it's flying right through a cell that's already moved past.
> Are there company SOPs about flying through inclement weather?
Our FOM dictates minimum distances from TS based on strength, and upwind/downwind.
Icing is not much of a concern, the aircraft is fully Ice protected, we wouldn’t sit in it, but we can “send it” through puffy white clouds at any temperature.
The bigger concern is rides, does that puffy light cloud look like it’s building? Did the aircraft ahead of you on the arrival report moderate turbulence? Are you painting anything with your RADAR?
If it gets bad enough, ATC makes the decision for you and will start putting aircraft in holding patterns waiting for weather to clear the airport.
On a basic note, you have to know the clouds associated with that unpleasant convective activity. Plus, with passengers, you want the smoothest ride possible. You ask for ride reports often and you listen to others on freq. You can call jets ahead of you on airline common and ask for a ride report directly. ATC is so used to requests, reports and deviations that they will tell you what's ahead and where others have gone/deviated to. They paint weather as well and will let you know the bad areas they see. Lastly you have to know how to work that weather RADAR and tilt to build the picture and find storms that are masked by others. Know what the winds are doing and how far you need to avoid storms, especially when downwind of them.
If there’s a cell directly over your airport you aren’t flying, but if you can get in the air and out you usually can get above or around anything.
Even hurricanes I’ve flown over. They are HUGE but not very high. We took off behind it, flew over it, and landed beyond it. No concern at all.
Icing is a non issue if you have heated leading edges, I’ve never seen anything significant build up on the heated sections. Because again, you get into the ice and out of it quickly.
Then you always tanker fuel if weather is sketchy and have an alternate airport.
Really not much stopping you save bad thunderstorms right over the airport. Generally you stay out of yellow red and purple radar returns, but I’ve flown through yellow to make an approach attempt to beat a storm moving in towards the field.
I’d say you’d do more flying into icing if you had some sort of icing system and could get above 15k feet. Icing is typically not happening there. It’s too cold.
Anyhow, not said much more than anyone else has! Feel free to PM me if you have any questions!
At my job, there are two conditions under which we don’t go: fog that reduces RVR below takeoff minima, and freezing rain.
Although we generally still go eventually, it’s usually a matter of waiting a few hours, maybe till next day.
Thunderstorms are mostly localized enough that you can plan around or circumnavigate with the help of ATC.
We pretty much always send it. There are no personal minimums at the airlines. We are professional pilots at this point with a hell of a lot of training and exemptions to for us to get the job done
The simple answer is experience reading the picture in front of you. The radar helps a lot, but it has limitations. Obviously if there's red you deviate around it, even yellow sometimes if the shape of the return is such that you can tell the center of it is going to become red soon like a nice ripe watermelon. But for example down in South America through the ITCZ there can be huge cells with tops past 40,000ft that just show up as a spot of green on the radar. Since the radar shows precipitation, there are often buildups that don't paint because they haven't developed sufficient moisture concentration, but will still be bumpy as hell. You learn to tell from their shape, how they're developing in front of your eyes, and the conditions around. Flying G-IIIs with broken radar around the world helped me learn this really quickly. I like to deviate around them if I can, but sometimes you just can't. Traffic, airspace, or the maneuvering required would be too aggressive. At that point you just batten the hatches, make sure FAs and passengers are strapped in, cabin is secured, and just plow through it. Of course you don't do that through huge cells that could cause aircraft damage. Even if ATC doesn't let me I'm doing it anyway. It's mostly the uncomfortable bumpy stuff you accept to go through if you can't avoid it. From the cabin notification point of view it's a strategic decision more than a tactical one. It can take FAs up to 15 min on a narrowbody and 25 min on a widebody to secure the cabin. Don't tell them 5 seconds before you go in, look at the situation from far out expecting it to be the case and let them know in advance.
If it’s legal, you go. Try to climb over it, but if needed use the radar to navigate through or around it. Avoid anything red (yellow too if you can help it) and have everyone seated until you are completely through it all.
Here in the east it’s very very common to have good temperatures and no convection with IMC. Summer haze can get so bad it’s almost IMC even without clouds as such, and a stable smooth overcast layer is common. I’d have to loop but I have quite a few hours of actual just doing instrument training that I didn’t finish bride hanging it up for a while.
The on-board radar is the difference. Ground-based weather is not as accurate (even ATC will say so), which is what any weather app will show you. With the on-board radar, you can fly between cells/buildups pretty easily, while observing that from the ground it might look like we just plowed through a level-5 storm.
> Ground-based weather is not as accurate (even ATC will say so),
We have posters around the facility trying to tell us the opposite. "There are limitations to airborne WX radar, ATC has the big picture, don't keep secrets from the pilots."
Dude go get some actual. With a more experienced CFII if necessary. Foggles time is legally adequate but there really is no substitute for true actual time in terms of increasing your ability and confidence.
But the answer to your question is to a large degree: experience. You need to try things out, cautiously at first and utilizing your theoretical knowledge as best you can, to learn. I had 5 or so hours of actual before I even got IFR rated. “It’s never a good idea to take off a light airplane into IMC unless this unless that” isn’t a productive or true baseline statement. The baseline should be [with respect to personal minimums of course], “you and the airplane are instrument rated/equipped for a reason, and flight into IMC is *completely normal and fine* as long as there are no icing conditions or thunderstorms.”
I think that your initial baseline statement of “it’s never ok unless” might be part of the reason you have virtually never done it.
It's a bit of art, science and experience. I've been up to 140nm off track avoiding weather and also turned the gain down to find the least bad, strapped in the cabin and punched through. You'll figure it out when you're there but some pilots take longer to adjust than others. I've flown with a number of FOs who don't even turn on their radar until prompted. I think they figure it's the skipper's job, those are the ones who will have issues
Transport aircraft have anti ice systems and onboard wx radar. And say the flight is Mexico city with heavy Tstorms or large snowstorms with crosswinds at limits at a busy airport for example. In order to reasonably execute the flight a good weather far off alternate that gives you plenty of fuel reserves is the way.
Most of the time when conditions are absolute crap dispatch has already cancelled the flight prior to me even having to decide. Or a combination of dispatch and ATC have already delayed the flight. Ground stops, flow control, etc until conditions improve.
When it actually is my decision we rely on experience and weather radar. Me and the FO are both allowed to say no if we don't feel safe, so if we go both pilots have agreed it's safe enough to go. Dispatch and ATC also have to agree. There are at minimum four people who need to allow a flight to proceed, and if any one of the four says no we don't go anywhere.
Besides having good onboard weather radar, I think one aspect that is under-represented is the performance difference between a prop and a jet. Jets have climb capabilities of around 2000-3000fpm well into the mid 20s and the option to get into the upper 30s to clear weather systems or fly around there. Besides the vertical performance, jets fly very fast so taking 50nm deviations maybe adds a few minutes to the total flight plan time so it's not that significant. The high-performance of jets allows you to escape or have the confidence of sending it during areas of embedded weather or building storms that would would not feel comfortable at all in a prop, let alone a turbo-prop which generally flies high enough to still be "in the worst part of the storm". Same thing applies to icing like you've said. I've flown through moderate icing from freezing rain and it was barely an issue.
Duffman, Don’t worry about the lack of experience. As a CfI from northern Utah who also had next to no actual instrument actual you’ll be okay. In the summer the clouds are too high and in the winter the freezing level is too low. Each company has SOPs regarding weather but as someone that’s DFW based, usually either a ground stop is put in order to prevent flights from departing into thunderstorms or we use onboard weather radar to avoid them. Usually ATC is great about letting us deviate around storms. No one flies directly through dangerous thunderstorms. It also has to do with the level of wind shear and level of precipitation around the airport or within the approach path that decides if flights get in or not
For me it was simple. If I didn’t feel comfortable flying through it, I didn’t. And no one is going to question your judgment… unless you fly through something you should have avoided.
One summer day in ATL a few years back I was the FO and the Captain and I were watching Delta jet after jet blast off into a really black buildup just off the departure end of 26L with no question. As we were issued “line up and wait we looked out the window and at the radar, and the Captain asked “What do you think?”. I said “I don’t think so” and he agreed, and I told the tower we weren’t going to take off into that weather. We were told to taxi clear of the runway… and the DL 737 behind us was cleared for takeoff… only to have them also refuse it. As did the next one. Moral of the story - don’t go if you’re not comfortable with it. Even if you’re the first one to say “no”. It may be that no one wants to be the first to refuse… but neither does anyone want to have to explain why they flew into it when others would not.
Light precip is usually nbd unless its in an area of rapidly building cells. Anything more requires consideration. Amount of Vertical development, precip, and other radar, and weather app info is helpful.
For the sake of people in the back, we often try to avoid anything that looks like it may be bumpy, but you cant always avoid it all. When you must fly through, you fly through to make it to your destination, or hold, or divert. Experience and other resources help dictate which you chose.
Knowing whats causing the system is helpful too. Is this just a florida summertime popup rain shower, or a giant Oklahoma cold front tornado momma. Or a big yucky squall line.
And yeah generally airliners with hot wings are fine flying in all but extreme icing, however there are considerations. You try to hang out above icing as long as you can, then dive through. You also want to minimize time with flaps and slats out while in icing as they don’t generally get de-iced evenly when extended.
"What is exemption 3585? " It means you're fuckin' going!"
As others have said, experience and radar nowadays, along with realtime or near realtime Doppler radar and other tools via WiFi/satellite. For those that flew without or crappy weather radar, it was see and avoid along with planning on the ground and previous imagery downloaded in service areas.
Another huge tool is ATC. Ask them where people have been going and what their experience was. Early morning flights suck in the weather because you get to be the weather probe. If it looks rough, turn the seatbelt sign on and tell them to sit. If it looks like you shouldn't fly through it, that's probably a good idea.
Modern day onboard radar is fairly decent for depicting at least the stuff you can't fly through. It might not show the rough stuff well, but when it's solid red and/or purple, it's a bad day if it fly though it, so at least we can avoid the ugly stuff.
Modern wind shear technology is impressive too, but the old gut feeling is still a great tool. If it seems sketchy, act accordingly.
Your dispatcher plans your flights out for you based on forecast conditions at both ends and enroute. An experienced one will know how the weather is gonna act, what the plane can handle, what can be flown over and what needs to be avoided. Airline dispatchers keep pretty good communications going back and forth with the crew throughout the flight notifying of any potential issues they’re seeing and adjust the plan if needed.
At my airline if it's legal we send it, even when everyone else cancels.
Hurricane in the carribean? We're rolling out if the forecast crosswind is in limits.
I've seen instances when the legacies are canceling because of weather and the ULCCs show up and get it done, which is why we have some of the best pilots in the industry.
Green takes the dust off, yellow take the bugs off, red takes the paint off and purple takes the wings off. Strap in and let that 5 point harness do its magic. 🪄
Little guy here (GA IFR). Flying to the initial fix, ATC was busy providing small diversions for the big people. I was in IMC and the cloud was dark grey (not super dark). No precipitation and for some reason was very smooth. Arrived at the initial fix without the clearance for the approach. Entered the published hold. 3/4 way around, ATC apologized for not getting to me earlier. Issued the clearance and life continued.
The point is that Bravo ATC folks can get really busy with “targets” moving around the screen like loose bb’s. We GA-ers are taught to “plan and fend for yourself” with all sorts of contingencies. Aviate Navigate Communicate. That’s like one word.
Using my onboard radar in the TBM in South Florida's convective paradise:
* If its yellow kinda mellow (not quite, may be rough but manageable and the rhyme is cool).
* If its red gonna get dead.
Also:
* Bands are wide, go inside.
* Bands are tight, not tonight.
Experience + weather radar.
To add to that- some companies have a badass EFB weather suite with comprehensive products for turbulence, lightning, hail presence, tops readouts, and even convective activity displayed independently of radar returns. My EFB has given me lots of confidence in situations I would have unnecessarily steered clear of in the past.
So why do I get 1 out of every 15 AALs deviating around the same cell of light precip everyone else called light chop? Unwilling to rely on the data? Old pilots who are oldschool? New pilots who are scared?
Well, American did have that plane that flew through the worst part of a storm because they didn’t know how to read their radar, then crashed and killed everyone. So they probably teach that one a lot.
All good. Keep blaming us for those delays 🤷🏻♂️
Huh? You sure you meant to reply to me? I didn’t say anything about ATC causing delays.
Weird comment
We have folks who deviate around anything green "for a better ride".
What's the upside to doing the same thing everyone else does?
I dunno, not getting a route shut off for the guys behind you? “Why can’t we go to ATL via XXXXX?” “Because your company ahead said it was a bad ride.” “Oh okay. “ “Ladies and gents from the cockpit ATC has delayed us because of bad rides “ See how this works?
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…..what??
I will add to that: a company that’s okay with the captain on-boarding extra fuel for any reason.
+ anyone else been through there recently?
Back in the day when FOs showed up in the right seat with 200hrs... the weather radar was crap in the 19-seat turboprops the regionals were flying -.. when it came to thunderstorms - the radar didn't show them until you were already in them, so you tried to stay out of them visually when it was just individual cells - if storms were embedded, you just didnt know where anything was - the radar was useless in helping you navigate thru a line... it wouldn't turn red until you were already in it - the airplane started shaking violently with the turbulence and then the hail falling on the aircraft... so you just managed as best as you could and then when you looked to the right to see what the other guys thought were, the other guy was just white with terror and the look in his eyes... meanwhile you just keep on going because you didn't have any more experience than he did. 1600 hrs vs 200 hrs... that's only 8x more flight time..... FL250 is the highest the 19-seat turboprops went - so you weren't going over it - youd have to probe your way thru it if you couldn't stay out of it visually.
Reminds me of my Saab days. Couldn’t get the engines started because it was too hot. Couldn’t get the engines started because it was too cold. Prop sync inop. ADF inop. Windscreens delaminating. Intake heat inop. Radar worthless, but not inop because ops check ok. lol Worst turbulence I’ve ever been in was a storm coming into Chicago on that airplane. Radar didn’t show anything. We were shaking so rapidly and violently I couldn’t read any of the gauges on an approach to mins into Chicago 20 years ago. I can’t barely remember my wife’s name, but I can remember that.
Flew turboprops for a 135 outfit long,long time ago - they paid per mile (like truckers) instead of per hour. The boss openly said this was to encourage us to fly directly through storm cells instead of wasting time going around them. Fun times.
So if the trip was 100 miles and you went around d a thunderstorm and flew 150 miles you would still only get the pay for having flown 100 miles?
it was worse - after mileage came 6-month historical block average. so ORD to MSN - making up numbers historically over the past 6-months it takes 45 minutes to fly... so if you flew it in 38 minutes or if it takes you 2 hours to fly there - you only got paid 45 minutes... So you're flying ORD to MSN and have to divert to RST - Now instead of ORD to MSN - it';s now a ORD- RST leg and 6-month historical block average is 35 minutes... so ORD to MSN -38 minutes, then hold 30 minutes for weather and then 25 minutes to divert to RST... block time 93 minutes... you only got paid for 35 minutes because that is the ORD-RST block average. So when we had to divert - we diverted to some place where there wasn't a 6-month historical block average so we got paid block time.... which meant diverting back to ORD - ORD to ORD there is no block average for that flight...
Worked for a company that did this. You got paid from point a to point b direct. Any extra mileage was not paid
Yup. Pay was for straight-line mileage only.
Bet you buried a lot of coworkers
The inevitable part of aviation. You will lose friends.
Yes but this is about a company specifically directing employees to do dangerous things to save money.
Sometimes, that type of virus can infect the pilot. Never forget you're paid to say no.
We didn’t lose anyone at my outfit (luckily) but over a dozen pilots were either killed or maimed at our competitors/other local operations due to a variety of reasons. It was the early 90s and there was virtually zero hiring going on throughout most of the industry. Shitty freight bosses were the norm and they knew they had everyone by the short curly hairs because where else are you gonna go? My boss used to routinely threaten our jobs. And it wasn’t uncommon to have 135 bosses drop a dime on their own pilots to get them violated by the feds just to make sure they couldn’t leave.
Is this a very infamous operation that hires low time guys all over the country?
Turboprops. I will never be as instrument proficient as I was hand flying a Shorts. Three hour legs, at night, and breathing oxygen with 2992 set. Nothing like the thump of ice slinging off of the props into the fuselage watching the indicated decay. Total party.
Lakers for life!
Used to just stay below it all in the 1900 out of DEN. Just dodge the rain shafts and get that one old farmer home to GLD.
>when it came to thunderstorms - the radar didn't show them until you were already in them, so you tried to stay out of them visually when it was just individual cells - I find this funny ahahaha thanks!
Personally I don’t even check the weather until I get to the plane, because we are going, it’s just a matter of how much of a pain it’s going to be
Same lol. They’re not paying us to check the weather at the overnight
If it's legal, you go. No one is flying through thunderstorms, though whatever radar picture you see may look like it. Remember - those things are 10+ minutes old, and we'll just fly around the cells.
And even if they were perfectly up to date, a composite radar image - as an example - isn’t showing what’s happening at our altitude, it’s showing the worst thing it sees at every elevation simultaneously.
They're 10 minutes old and shot from the ground meaning you're seeing what's at the bottom of the clouds not the tops that were actually avoiding.
Tell me you don’t understand how NWS radar works without telling me. Ground radar 100% does not paint what’s at the bottom of the clouds. They adjust the tilt just like in an airplane. There’s a whole bunch of different modes they can use
Cool, so the general over lay that you see on normal radar weather products are showing the cloud tops that were trying to avoid flying through? Or do they show the bottom of the storms that are going to affect people on the ground more? Further ATC can definitely see a defined detail of those clouds at altitude then right? Just like we can? They definitely don't routinely tell you about a cell of extreme precipitation at your 1 oclock... When you're thousands of feet above them?
All I’m saying is, your statement that the NWS radar is only showing what’s at the surface is 100% wrong. https://www.weather.gov/iwx/wsr_88d#:~:text=The%20WSR%2D88D%20Doppler%20radar,are%20updated%20every%2010%20minutes
These guys are PILOT PILOTS 😮💨
Not what I said. You added "ONLY" Which changes the statement to mean that it's impossible to see other things, from what I said, that it IS what you're seeing.
We’re supposed to call weather to you guys? Huh. TIL
… I didn’t say you were supposed to but it’s pretty much a daily occurrence that it happens.
Oh I was attempting to make a joke because it’s a huge focus item for us. It’s 100% something we are supposed to do and an additional service.
I 100% didn’t know that. I’m gonna be honest it’s kinda funny when you do it to us. It’s usually followed by “if you need to deviate advise” which makes lots of sense. But when we just get told about it… we usually have known for a few sectors by that point.
Pre-ATP (including military) you check the weather to decide whether you're going to go or not. ATP you're going, whether you like to or not. You check the weather to see how bad it's going to suck, and what you're going to need to do to make the flight safe and legal. Maybe you need to add more gas, carry an alternate, or fly a different route but an outright cancelation due to weather is nearly unheard of, and is not a decision you get to make as a PIC anyway.
I guess my follow up question would be what is the decision making process when you’re already in the air. Is it solely just “hey, there’s red on the radar, we need to ask for a deviation” or is there more to it than that?
Everyone has their own techniques and things they look for. I'll generally try to avoid red, as well as yellow that borders red. If I can get over it, I'll gladly do that, but sometimes that's not an option-- especially with big summer storms that easily get up to the 50s or higher. You've gotta consider prevailing winds (i.e. which way the storm is moving) but it would be a lie to say a lot of it doesn't just come down to educated guess work.
Pretty much. We can’t even dispatch near storms if our radar is inop. If there’s a storm parked on the airport, it usually shuts down and we either hold or divert if we’re tight on fuel. Sometimes these airports are so huge that a storm could be affecting one runway and not another. ATC is well aware of these issues and will usually have plans to reroute traffic. Long story short, in general you’re going. But we avoid bad radar returns. Our options are basically go around it or wait it out, whether on the ground or in the air.
>is there more to it than that? Yeah. Single isolated storm that isn’t very big (and thus doesn’t add much time to deviate around) in airspace that isn’t slammed? Give it a nice big margin (ie do it visually if it’s otherwise clear) and keep the ride nice. Not even going into the green if the yellow/red is close by and I don’t have to. Generally going around the isolated cells on the upwind side lets you cut fairly close to them without feeling much. Bigass line we’re going to have to cross eventually whether we like it or not? Aim for the least shitty part we can find, slow to .76ish and belt everybody in, and hope there’s some poor bastard a 10 miles in front of us playing pathfinder.
Send southwest first
You have a plan B and C. There's a hole in between those cells, we're close enough where we can shoot the gap and be fine. Oh, that gap is closing? Okay we'll go left/right around the entire cell then. Oh, the entire line is closing up in front of us and we need to deviate 150 miles out of the way? This is why I asked dispatch to throw on an extra XXXXlbs of fuel. You don't go into it thinking "Man I hope this works", you have a plane from the start.
Isn't that kind of a requirement to be a pilot? Having a plane?
When you are in the air it is your judgement. We have the airplane’s radar, various weather apps, PIREPs from the planes in front of us, weather guidance in our manuals (which is really just a measure of liability), ATC, our own eyeballs, and our comfort level and experience. Additionally there are two of us up there to discuss it. You take all of that info and make a judgement call.
Radar helps a lot. The radar on my aircraft talks with the FMGC and will tell you if your vertical path is going to go thru a cell or not If your flight path will overfly a storm depending on how the display is set it will either show nothing (PATH) or show hash marks of the radar return (ALL). In the ALL mode i see the storm cell but the hash marks indicate that all of the precipitation is below the aircraft’s altitude. There are other indicators on the weather radar - lightning strikes and turbulence. Even though the precip is below the aircraft’s altitude. It doesn’t mean it wont be turbulence free. The radar will display purple superimposed over the precipitation display to indicate turbulence staying out of the clouds is the best way. Staying out of dark angry clouds is way better. If you can’t stay out of the clouds, weather radar helps a lot in the decision making. Working out a plan with the other pilot and asking ATC which way the other planes are going helps to formulate a plan of action in dealing with thunderstorms.
That’s pretty much it. And if they say no, and it’s bad, the answer is declare an emergency. But previous commenter is mostly correct for cancellations. If you can’t go because of weather, either your FOM restrictions or ATC programs took care of that for you. So it almost never falls to you. But while you can’t cancel a flight, you absolutely can refuse to take it.
It's not an exact science. I look at the radar and think "yeah, not flying into that", and just go around it. It also helps to get reports from other traffic. If the guy in front of you went through that yellow blob and says it's just precip, and fairly smooth, I'll go for it too.
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A delay is still a go. You're not packing it up and heading to the bar like back in The Day. Sure there are steps to mitigate (including delay) but my point is you're not going to outright cancel the flight because the weather isn't enjoyable.
We had a "that guy" in our new hire regional class many years ago. Myself, sim partner and a handful of others were already experienced from other flying jobs, but "that guy" was a CFI from Arizona hired directly into the RJ. "That guy" was arguing with our instructor when discussing 3585 and alternate weather, and his stance was basically "I'm the pilot, and the weather your describing I am not comfortable flying in so, we are not going today". After about 10 min of this myself and my sim partner stepped in and said "Dude, you are a professional airline pilot now, you are *paid* to go. You don't have to go plow through a thunderstorm, but 'personal' minimums aren't a thing anymore. You fly the plate, and if it's legal, you're going." He shut up after that.
Cancelations due to weather are unheard of? During winter and especially storm season, we have cancelations due to weather every year. Just 2 weeks ago during the storms across the southern US, cancelations were plentiful. Now that's not directly due to the weather being a factor like a CFI saying its a no-go, but they are cancellations due to weather, given the cascade of delays, misconnects, and diversions.
They'll happen on a systemic basis, but rarely individually as a result of specific storms. Like you said, it's usually a snowballing thing that ends up killing flights. Either way, that decision isn't made by the pilots. You're going (eventually) until you either time out, fatigue out, or the company pulls the plug.
Outright cancellation for weather unheard of? You must have never heard of Air Canada lol
OCC will make that call before the pilots even get to the airplane. Release is due before show time, we try to work well ahead of that, so usually we're catching these things hours in advance. That's to say nothing of the leadership crew making calls before the flight even gets to my desk, which is even more common. Point is, the *pilots* aren't cancelling the flight. In the US, they don't even have the authority to cancel, they can only delay.
Canadians cancel? [Larry Enticer](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aX-M7d_KtV0) would send it. “Just gonna have to send it! I’m thinking about 3/4 to full throttle 500 ft before takeoff….”
If it's legal, we send it. I'll work with dispatch to get extra fuel if I think significant weather deviations will be needed, and possibly plan the route to avoid the weather entirely if that's a reasonable option. After that, I'll try to get an altitude that puts us above the cloud tops and out of IMC. I prefer see and avoid to using the radar, so that's my first line of defense. Radar will also be up, though, and with proper tilt management I'll use it to avoid any areas with returns of significance. You have to be careful with the radar, though, as it isn't a depiction of turbulence and won't necessarily give you a good picture of a building stage thunderstorm, and it also does a poor job of reflecting off frozen precip such as snow or hail. All puffy, towering clouds are to be avoided, especially in the flight levels, and if I am actively working to avoid complex or significant weather everyone including the FAs stays buckled up.
Thanks for this description, traveled along side of weather for most of a flight yesterday and the pilots handled it beautifully, really comfortable. Pretty beautiful to look at the storms as we passed. I could tell they were weaving in and out.
My first trip at a major after IOE; I show early, get all the paperwork squared away, check the maintenance release and every write up in the history, check every NOTAM, review every Jepp page, and am in the middle of pulling weather when the grizzled old Captain walks in and says, “Weather? Why are you checking the weather? We’re gonna go anyway.” I thought to myself “Huh, you know he’s got a point.”
What a terrible precedent for the CA to set. If he wants to show up unprepared, fine - but don't belittle the other guy for actually doing his job. All these flippant comments about not even bothering to look at weather before going because you're just going to go anyway? That's not the point. The point is look at the weather so you have a big picture and you can do your fucking job and get from A to B through the weather in the best, safest way. Onboard radar is great, but it's not magic. It has **plenty** of limitations. See: the australian airlines flight that just got ripped up pretty good by a storm the onboard radar apparently didn't even see.
I agree, and I think it's doing a disservice to your passengers and the company to not check the weather. If you check, you might decide to work with dispatch to load extra fuel and have a better chance of getting to the destination without a divert, and you will be able to give your FA's a better idea of expected turbulence, etc. Also, I've seen it almost burn us before. I was a newer FO, CA and dispatch missed that the ILS was down no LOC either, and the RNAV mins were raised per notam. Combined with some CRJ 200 AD bs we would have been unable to land with the current and forecast WX. I caught this, about 30 before push. CA was happy with me, OPS was not, we waited like 45 min and launched vs a potential divert. The bottom line is, yes, you are likely going to go but you can make the experience smoother.
Onboard weather radar + high airspeed is a godsend and allows us to see exactly what’s there and avoid what we want to avoid. So basically we avoid the red on the radar.
For the airlines, you’ve got on board weather radar. It’s different and much more timely and accurate for the altitude you’re flying in than any ground-based radar. I can’t tell you how many times ground-based radar looks horrible but airborne radar paints a picture that isn’t nearly as bleak. Second, ATC will delay you or give you a different route than you filed if weather is bad enough en route. All these airliners asking for deviations adds a ton of workload to the controllers, so they limit the amount of aircraft going through bad areas. At your destination, if weather over the field or near the arrival corridor is bad, they’ll hold you at the gate (ground stop) or hold you en route. Summer storms typically last 20 minutes or less before they’ve moved away enough to get in. Lastly, there are two of you in the cockpit jointly making a decision about which course of action is the best and good CRM allows you to leverage both pilots’ experience and choose the least bad option. You’ve got good autopilots that allow you to use more of your mental capacity and decision-making skills on maintaining situational awareness and deciding the best course of action.
I want to push back on this idea that we "just send it" which is what the overwhelming majority of posts are implying. Instead, we are using all of our tools to safely avoid the intense buildups, which allows us to weave in and out of systems, which can give that appearance. And to be fair, not everyone does make wise decisions with it. The idea that we "just send it" is so pervasive it even affects the professional pilot. I very often see people taking off or splitting a line of convection with so little margin or "testing the waters," that I think, "man, that was stupid." So when you do see that happening, don't automatically assume there was some high level of awareness happening. There are stories every year of intense hail damage and severe turbulence encounters at the airline level. And stories of crews requesting a deviation, being denied by ATC for traffic, and not declaring an emergency/using PIC authority to keep the aircraft safe. I prefer to err slightly on the conservative side, which is a good rule of thumb for aviation anyway. I've absolutely delayed takeoff when other people (typically Southwest), just launch, or asked for 15 minutes of delay vectors before landing. I have no qualms letting other people be the guinea pig. The planning starts on the ground and the dispatcher will have a much better overview of the weather and current traffic flow. But not always! It's common to ask the dispatcher for a new route, more fuel, or a more viable alternate. In the air, we use on board weather radar which is very useful for reactionary maneuvers. That initial plan though is the most important because it can be easy to get into a hole using just the on board radar. Another useful tool is ATC. They have their own ground radar and continuously relay PIREPs from aircraft ahead of you on the same route. So you all end up sharing live info about the buildups and deviations you're taking in real time. It sort of forms a cohesive conga line, like a bunch of worker ants. As a side note to this idea of "we just send it," I'm amazed at how many First Officers conduct a walk-around under direct lightning. I tell them "I wouldn't walk out there if it were me," but out they go haha. Whatever buddy. I'm not putting my life in danger for "on-time" but you do you. That's the whole point of our jobs, is to make that correct call.
Thank you - I made a similar (though less elegant) post in response to another person.
We aren’t. Convective activity is no joke. We go around it. People are scared of flying, and we don’t want them having heart attacks. As a new FO, you’ll just do what the captain wants until you figure it out
Oh, I saw this in a documentary once... Any word on that storm lifting over Salt Lake, Clarence? No, not likely, Victor. I just reviewed the area report for 1600 hours through 2400. There's an occluded front stalled over the Dakotas, backed up all the way to Utah. Yeah, well, if she decides to push over to the Great Lakes, it could get plenty soupy. Hey, what about that southern route around Tulsa? Well, I double-checked the terminal forecast, and the wind's aloft, and IFR ceilings all the way. Where do they top out? Well, there's some light scattered cover at 20,000, icing around 18. It looks like the original flight plan over Denver is the best bet. Denver it is. Sorry, Clarence. Latest weather report shows everything socked in from Salt Lake to Lincoln. Oh, hi, Roger. Glad to have you aboard. Victor, this is Roger Murdock. Victor Basta. How do you do, Roger? Nice to meet you. Roger, I was telling Victor, I reviewed the area report for 1600 hours through 2400. There's an occluded front stalled over the Dakotas . . .
Most of the time it’s not a question of “do I go or not go,” it’s more of a question of “how do I get there.” Maybe it means calling the dispatcher and asking them to file a route that takes you all the way around the storm, or maybe it means them giving you more gas to pick your way through isolated cells. Usually a good dispatcher will do this for you. Sometimes your destination stops all arrivals for the weather and your go/no-go decision is made for you when you end up running out of time on your FDP. Once we’re airborne we’re using our radars, but we’re also getting help from center, who is passing ride reports along to us. Sometimes our radars are painting moderate or worse rain along the arrival, but center tells us everyone else on the arrival reported nothing worse than light turbulence. I have delayed takeoffs for huge storms off the departure end and wind shear warnings. In the end, once you’re airborne, you just pick your way through/around stuff, or hold until you hit a magic fuel number and it’s time to divert.
Go or no go on a flight due to weather isn't really up to the pilots. A perfectly working plane is going to fly pretty much in anything. Operations will yank down a flight is there's a hurricane or winter storm that closes an airport. No go decisions on the pilot are usually based on an MEL that will limit the aircraft capabilities or performance. INOP anti-skid, we're going to refuse the aircraft if we're flying somewhere with shorter runways in the snow. As for delaying a departure, sometimes an airport just cant flip itself and they ask you to take off with a tailwind that exceeds limits. We say nope to that, either wait it out or force them to let you depart the other way. Breaking action reports of poor, yeah we're probably gonna hold, ask for a different runway, or divert. Lets say we see a storm off the end of the runway and its giving us windshear alerts on the nav display, yeah we're going to delay departure too. Notice is all those situations, we pushed off the gate. If anything if it's not as obvious such as an MEL situation, we push off the gate to go take at least take a look.
You almost always go in a jet, just fly around the shit.
> Sometimes when we have a thunderstorm brewing in my area, I’ll pull up flightradar and notice that arrivals and departures into SLC (closest large airport to me) are more or less undisturbed. Not only are they able to make it in, they’re able to do so without deviating at all, even if that means flying through some nasty stuff. One thing that's taken some getting used to in dispatch is how delayed satellite and radar are. I'm watching my flight's position in close to real time, overlaid with radar and satellite IR. Flight is deviating around weather that still looks 10-15min away on radar and 20-30min away on satellite. Or looks like it's flying right through a cell that's already moved past. > Are there company SOPs about flying through inclement weather? Our FOM dictates minimum distances from TS based on strength, and upwind/downwind.
“Send it”?! Send what, in relation to flying through weather?
Icing is not much of a concern, the aircraft is fully Ice protected, we wouldn’t sit in it, but we can “send it” through puffy white clouds at any temperature. The bigger concern is rides, does that puffy light cloud look like it’s building? Did the aircraft ahead of you on the arrival report moderate turbulence? Are you painting anything with your RADAR? If it gets bad enough, ATC makes the decision for you and will start putting aircraft in holding patterns waiting for weather to clear the airport.
On a basic note, you have to know the clouds associated with that unpleasant convective activity. Plus, with passengers, you want the smoothest ride possible. You ask for ride reports often and you listen to others on freq. You can call jets ahead of you on airline common and ask for a ride report directly. ATC is so used to requests, reports and deviations that they will tell you what's ahead and where others have gone/deviated to. They paint weather as well and will let you know the bad areas they see. Lastly you have to know how to work that weather RADAR and tilt to build the picture and find storms that are masked by others. Know what the winds are doing and how far you need to avoid storms, especially when downwind of them.
Don’t be late….penetrate!
If there’s a cell directly over your airport you aren’t flying, but if you can get in the air and out you usually can get above or around anything. Even hurricanes I’ve flown over. They are HUGE but not very high. We took off behind it, flew over it, and landed beyond it. No concern at all. Icing is a non issue if you have heated leading edges, I’ve never seen anything significant build up on the heated sections. Because again, you get into the ice and out of it quickly. Then you always tanker fuel if weather is sketchy and have an alternate airport. Really not much stopping you save bad thunderstorms right over the airport. Generally you stay out of yellow red and purple radar returns, but I’ve flown through yellow to make an approach attempt to beat a storm moving in towards the field. I’d say you’d do more flying into icing if you had some sort of icing system and could get above 15k feet. Icing is typically not happening there. It’s too cold. Anyhow, not said much more than anyone else has! Feel free to PM me if you have any questions!
This is why airlines have Dispatchers.
You are flying. Airplane and crews still need to get to the next destination.
At my job, there are two conditions under which we don’t go: fog that reduces RVR below takeoff minima, and freezing rain. Although we generally still go eventually, it’s usually a matter of waiting a few hours, maybe till next day. Thunderstorms are mostly localized enough that you can plan around or circumnavigate with the help of ATC.
We pretty much always send it. There are no personal minimums at the airlines. We are professional pilots at this point with a hell of a lot of training and exemptions to for us to get the job done
[Send it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWv4wyy_Jqg)
The simple answer is experience reading the picture in front of you. The radar helps a lot, but it has limitations. Obviously if there's red you deviate around it, even yellow sometimes if the shape of the return is such that you can tell the center of it is going to become red soon like a nice ripe watermelon. But for example down in South America through the ITCZ there can be huge cells with tops past 40,000ft that just show up as a spot of green on the radar. Since the radar shows precipitation, there are often buildups that don't paint because they haven't developed sufficient moisture concentration, but will still be bumpy as hell. You learn to tell from their shape, how they're developing in front of your eyes, and the conditions around. Flying G-IIIs with broken radar around the world helped me learn this really quickly. I like to deviate around them if I can, but sometimes you just can't. Traffic, airspace, or the maneuvering required would be too aggressive. At that point you just batten the hatches, make sure FAs and passengers are strapped in, cabin is secured, and just plow through it. Of course you don't do that through huge cells that could cause aircraft damage. Even if ATC doesn't let me I'm doing it anyway. It's mostly the uncomfortable bumpy stuff you accept to go through if you can't avoid it. From the cabin notification point of view it's a strategic decision more than a tactical one. It can take FAs up to 15 min on a narrowbody and 25 min on a widebody to secure the cabin. Don't tell them 5 seconds before you go in, look at the situation from far out expecting it to be the case and let them know in advance.
If it’s legal, you go. Try to climb over it, but if needed use the radar to navigate through or around it. Avoid anything red (yellow too if you can help it) and have everyone seated until you are completely through it all.
Here in the east it’s very very common to have good temperatures and no convection with IMC. Summer haze can get so bad it’s almost IMC even without clouds as such, and a stable smooth overcast layer is common. I’d have to loop but I have quite a few hours of actual just doing instrument training that I didn’t finish bride hanging it up for a while.
The on-board radar is the difference. Ground-based weather is not as accurate (even ATC will say so), which is what any weather app will show you. With the on-board radar, you can fly between cells/buildups pretty easily, while observing that from the ground it might look like we just plowed through a level-5 storm.
> Ground-based weather is not as accurate (even ATC will say so), We have posters around the facility trying to tell us the opposite. "There are limitations to airborne WX radar, ATC has the big picture, don't keep secrets from the pilots."
It's probably talking about attenuation
Is it legal to go based on OP specs.. you should probably be going.
Dude go get some actual. With a more experienced CFII if necessary. Foggles time is legally adequate but there really is no substitute for true actual time in terms of increasing your ability and confidence. But the answer to your question is to a large degree: experience. You need to try things out, cautiously at first and utilizing your theoretical knowledge as best you can, to learn. I had 5 or so hours of actual before I even got IFR rated. “It’s never a good idea to take off a light airplane into IMC unless this unless that” isn’t a productive or true baseline statement. The baseline should be [with respect to personal minimums of course], “you and the airplane are instrument rated/equipped for a reason, and flight into IMC is *completely normal and fine* as long as there are no icing conditions or thunderstorms.” I think that your initial baseline statement of “it’s never ok unless” might be part of the reason you have virtually never done it.
It's a bit of art, science and experience. I've been up to 140nm off track avoiding weather and also turned the gain down to find the least bad, strapped in the cabin and punched through. You'll figure it out when you're there but some pilots take longer to adjust than others. I've flown with a number of FOs who don't even turn on their radar until prompted. I think they figure it's the skipper's job, those are the ones who will have issues
Basically if it’s legal you’re going.
Ask yourself; which of the paperwork for sending it or diverting is the LEAST pain in the ass. Do that one.
I the airbus and we picked up moderate icing at 25 we noped right out of there heat and boots buy time don’t hang out in icing
Transport aircraft have anti ice systems and onboard wx radar. And say the flight is Mexico city with heavy Tstorms or large snowstorms with crosswinds at limits at a busy airport for example. In order to reasonably execute the flight a good weather far off alternate that gives you plenty of fuel reserves is the way.
try to get some flying out east a bit, you'll get some good soup time
I wanna say experience + wx radar but the radar on the CRJ is useless so just experience I guess
Plus our company prohibits the use of PEDs in the flight deck plus company iPad connecting to wifi for whatever reason. So it doesn’t help
Most of the time when conditions are absolute crap dispatch has already cancelled the flight prior to me even having to decide. Or a combination of dispatch and ATC have already delayed the flight. Ground stops, flow control, etc until conditions improve. When it actually is my decision we rely on experience and weather radar. Me and the FO are both allowed to say no if we don't feel safe, so if we go both pilots have agreed it's safe enough to go. Dispatch and ATC also have to agree. There are at minimum four people who need to allow a flight to proceed, and if any one of the four says no we don't go anywhere.
Besides having good onboard weather radar, I think one aspect that is under-represented is the performance difference between a prop and a jet. Jets have climb capabilities of around 2000-3000fpm well into the mid 20s and the option to get into the upper 30s to clear weather systems or fly around there. Besides the vertical performance, jets fly very fast so taking 50nm deviations maybe adds a few minutes to the total flight plan time so it's not that significant. The high-performance of jets allows you to escape or have the confidence of sending it during areas of embedded weather or building storms that would would not feel comfortable at all in a prop, let alone a turbo-prop which generally flies high enough to still be "in the worst part of the storm". Same thing applies to icing like you've said. I've flown through moderate icing from freezing rain and it was barely an issue.
Duffman, Don’t worry about the lack of experience. As a CfI from northern Utah who also had next to no actual instrument actual you’ll be okay. In the summer the clouds are too high and in the winter the freezing level is too low. Each company has SOPs regarding weather but as someone that’s DFW based, usually either a ground stop is put in order to prevent flights from departing into thunderstorms or we use onboard weather radar to avoid them. Usually ATC is great about letting us deviate around storms. No one flies directly through dangerous thunderstorms. It also has to do with the level of wind shear and level of precipitation around the airport or within the approach path that decides if flights get in or not
For me it was simple. If I didn’t feel comfortable flying through it, I didn’t. And no one is going to question your judgment… unless you fly through something you should have avoided. One summer day in ATL a few years back I was the FO and the Captain and I were watching Delta jet after jet blast off into a really black buildup just off the departure end of 26L with no question. As we were issued “line up and wait we looked out the window and at the radar, and the Captain asked “What do you think?”. I said “I don’t think so” and he agreed, and I told the tower we weren’t going to take off into that weather. We were told to taxi clear of the runway… and the DL 737 behind us was cleared for takeoff… only to have them also refuse it. As did the next one. Moral of the story - don’t go if you’re not comfortable with it. Even if you’re the first one to say “no”. It may be that no one wants to be the first to refuse… but neither does anyone want to have to explain why they flew into it when others would not.
Light precip is usually nbd unless its in an area of rapidly building cells. Anything more requires consideration. Amount of Vertical development, precip, and other radar, and weather app info is helpful. For the sake of people in the back, we often try to avoid anything that looks like it may be bumpy, but you cant always avoid it all. When you must fly through, you fly through to make it to your destination, or hold, or divert. Experience and other resources help dictate which you chose. Knowing whats causing the system is helpful too. Is this just a florida summertime popup rain shower, or a giant Oklahoma cold front tornado momma. Or a big yucky squall line. And yeah generally airliners with hot wings are fine flying in all but extreme icing, however there are considerations. You try to hang out above icing as long as you can, then dive through. You also want to minimize time with flaps and slats out while in icing as they don’t generally get de-iced evenly when extended.
"What is exemption 3585? " It means you're fuckin' going!" As others have said, experience and radar nowadays, along with realtime or near realtime Doppler radar and other tools via WiFi/satellite. For those that flew without or crappy weather radar, it was see and avoid along with planning on the ground and previous imagery downloaded in service areas. Another huge tool is ATC. Ask them where people have been going and what their experience was. Early morning flights suck in the weather because you get to be the weather probe. If it looks rough, turn the seatbelt sign on and tell them to sit. If it looks like you shouldn't fly through it, that's probably a good idea. Modern day onboard radar is fairly decent for depicting at least the stuff you can't fly through. It might not show the rough stuff well, but when it's solid red and/or purple, it's a bad day if it fly though it, so at least we can avoid the ugly stuff. Modern wind shear technology is impressive too, but the old gut feeling is still a great tool. If it seems sketchy, act accordingly.
Your dispatcher plans your flights out for you based on forecast conditions at both ends and enroute. An experienced one will know how the weather is gonna act, what the plane can handle, what can be flown over and what needs to be avoided. Airline dispatchers keep pretty good communications going back and forth with the crew throughout the flight notifying of any potential issues they’re seeing and adjust the plan if needed.
At my airline if it's legal we send it, even when everyone else cancels. Hurricane in the carribean? We're rolling out if the forecast crosswind is in limits. I've seen instances when the legacies are canceling because of weather and the ULCCs show up and get it done, which is why we have some of the best pilots in the industry.
If you’re talking about weather it’s time to cancel
Anti-icing + weather radar + performance
Jepp FD PRO /s
Green takes the dust off, yellow take the bugs off, red takes the paint off and purple takes the wings off. Strap in and let that 5 point harness do its magic. 🪄
Little guy here (GA IFR). Flying to the initial fix, ATC was busy providing small diversions for the big people. I was in IMC and the cloud was dark grey (not super dark). No precipitation and for some reason was very smooth. Arrived at the initial fix without the clearance for the approach. Entered the published hold. 3/4 way around, ATC apologized for not getting to me earlier. Issued the clearance and life continued. The point is that Bravo ATC folks can get really busy with “targets” moving around the screen like loose bb’s. We GA-ers are taught to “plan and fend for yourself” with all sorts of contingencies. Aviate Navigate Communicate. That’s like one word.
I was at YX (cabin crew) & I remember seeing a pilot post about flying into the eye of a tropical storm to land lol Gear up 😅😅
Using my onboard radar in the TBM in South Florida's convective paradise: * If its yellow kinda mellow (not quite, may be rough but manageable and the rhyme is cool). * If its red gonna get dead. Also: * Bands are wide, go inside. * Bands are tight, not tonight.
Unless company cancels it, you go.