The hardest go/no-go calls are the ones where everything is mostly fine. The weather is marginal, the canyon looks open, or the strip reports are a few days old but probably fine.

What finally made you decide not to go?

The A-Hole passenger tried to bully me into going. "I flew with so and so, and HE would fly in this....."

Time for the big FU.

Fortunately, I've reached the age where I don't need much of an excuse to stay on the ground. I really don't have any remaining bucket list items on my aviation "to-do" list, so repeating a flight I've probably already done in less than enjoyable conditions just doesn't float my boat anymore. I don't require ideal weather, but I'm retired so waiting a day or 2 for comfortable flying conditions isn't a big deal.

Last month it was time for my annual. The weather was marginal at reporting points between my home drome and the private grass field (no METARs) my mechanic operates on. Dense fog dripping to the ground at the half-way point made me turn back twice. Fortunately, weather at my home base staid steady at 1200' ceilings. On my 3rd attempt, I made it all the way to my destination, but wasn't sure I'd be able to land. The strip is short, and uphill to the north, so all landings are to the north and departures are to the south. I had 10 knots of south wind at pattern altitude, but tall trees all around the strip block the wind on the ground. I decided to feel my way in, giving myself permission to abort if I couldn't stabilize the descent through the turbulent layer just above the trees. Fortunately, the descent was steady albeit a bit fast over the ground. I was able to get the plane down with 1/2 of the 1800' strip unused. My annual proceeded as expected and the weather for my flight home was delightful. In the past, I've delayed my annual, or I've flown my plane in and parked it a couple of days in advance to avoid predicted IFR conditions on the day my annual was to start.

turn-back time


Flying from the Seattle area to Maryland in my Maule last summer involved lots of weather detours and several shortened flying days because of persistent afternoon thunderstorms along my route. The same issue plagued me on my return trip. I had to detour from Aberdeen, SD to Salt Lake city because my planed route across the Rockies via Mullen Pass was blocked by thunderstorms, and had been for days. Having extra time available and resources to pay for extra miles can be a life saver! My planned route is in black. The route I actually flew from Aberdeen is in red. This image was put together after I got home, so it doesn't reflect how crappy the weather was where I planned to cross the Rockies.

I once took off in not so high ceilings from western Colorado headed for Idaho, got about 50 miles and had a small pass that I couldn't get through, turned around and went back, as I was closing the hangar door the ceiling dropped to well below the ridge tops and heavy rain ensued. Two hours later it looked quite good, I made it past the little pass and had some wonderful smooth flying at 500 agl just under the clouds. As I got up near the northwest corner of Colorado it was not looking so good, I was down to 200' agl just under the clouds, looking to the east as my way out over to Craig. Finally I decided it was time to call it quits and turned around toward Craig where there had been a clean route, but as I turned around to actually fly that way it was gone. I flew around looking for a spot to land and found a gas line service road and set it down. After about 2 hours of convincing myself that it had lifted and was looking better, I took off. Only to find it was worse in every direction, power way back, 150' agl looking for a the road I had previously landed on, I was flying around at about 80 with 10 degrees of flaps in. After rejecting a few "roads" with standing water, I found the place I had landed earlier.

I was instrument rated, but not current or proficient, and it was likely icing conditions, I was only 13 miles from Rock Springs, but didn't feel comfortable plugging in direct to the IAF.

I cracked a beer and crawled in the back to take a nap. The next morning was solid fog until mid morning.

When in doubt now, I remember that day.

About 30 years ago, my future wife and I spent a pleasant day fishing at Cabin Creek in Idaho. There are still a couple of the cabins are there, now occupied by the USFS, but back then they were just boarded up.

Dark clouds started building to the West after noon, so we headed back to the airstrip. The weather beat us, though, and the storm really opened up on us the minute we got back to the plane. The storm kept us pinned down until near dark. When it finally stopped raining and started to clear, there was maybe ½ hour of twilight left for us to fly back to our camp at Johnson Creek.

We loaded up and I actually got as far as starting the engine before I looked out the windscreen and realized I needed to turn on all of the lights in order to see inside and outside to back taxi on the little strip. That, together with rain dogs still lingering in the canyon, was the dealbreaker. I shut down and we took what little we had and walked down to one of the cabins. Fortunately, we had warm coats and rain gear, as well as a few snacks left over from lunch and some cooking gear. Unfortunately, our tent and sleeping bags were back at JCR.

While we were waiting out the storm, we met up with a young guy and girl with backpacks who had missed their pickup flight back to Cascade that morning. They had a dog with them and had been out for a week on what sounded like a wonderful cross-country route. They were not a couple, although the guy pretty obviously wished they were. She was having none of it, though. It must have been a long week.

A little jimmying on the boards covering the cabin’s window opened it up so that the guy could slip inside and open the door. The cabin was in sorry shape and was probably Hanta Virus Central. I don’t think we tried to light a fire in the fireplace, as the chimney was likely full of debris. We pooled our food and warmed it on a camp stove in our big non-stick Teflon frying pan.

After spending a cold and mostly sleepless night on the cabin’s dusty plank floor, we took off the next morning and made it back to Johnson Creek. The backpackers had wanted us to take them, but I had the rear seat out of the 182 and wasn’t comfortable taking 4 adults, a big dog and two backpacks. I took their names and information and told them to hang out in the parking area nearer to the approach end of the strip rather than up the trees where they had waited previously. Once back at Johnson Creek, I used the pay phone to call the air taxi and let them know the backpackers were still there. I have no idea what happened to them, but can still see them as we taxied away for departure--the girl, the lovelorn lad, and his dog, who had licked our frying pan clean the night before.