Stay Safe and in the Air during All Weather Conditions

By Matt Farrell

Maybe I should have been a Boy Scout because their motto, “Be Prepared,” is one I can get behind. Years ago, an instructor gave me advice that has stayed with me: Anything you can take care of on the ground is one less thing to contend with in the air.

That idea carries even more weight when flying IFR. Instru­ment conditions magnify small problems. What is an inconve­nience in VMC becomes a workload problem when you are in the clouds, managing radios, monitoring weather, briefing an approach, and keeping the airplane upright. The more variables you eliminate before takeoff, the more bandwidth you have when something does not go as planned.

As a result, I think of IFR preflight planning as being more than weather, fuel, and routing. A good preflight answers a more important question: What are my options if this flight starts to unravel?

1. Have the approach back into your departure airport ready.

If you launch into a low ceiling and something goes wrong shortly after liftoff, returning will probably require an in­strument approach. That is not the time to swipe through your iPad while dealing with an electrical problem, a rough-running engine, or failed avionics.

Before departure, look at the approach you would most like­ly use to come back. Review the frequencies, minimums and missed approach procedure, and if there is terrain nearby, know the safest course away from the terrain. That minute on the ground may save several very busy minutes in the airplane.

2. Set personal minimums — and revisit them.

Personal minimums should be more than a vague idea of what feels comfortable. They provide a margin between what is legal and what is wise for a given pilot, air­craft, and flight.

They also should not be fixed forever. Instrument flying is a perishable skill. If you have been flying regularly in actual IMC and keeping your scan sharp, your minimums may differ from what they were earlier in the season when you were struggling to stay current.

Deciding before a trip creates pressure to lower the standard. It is easy to convince yourself a 400-foot ceiling is acceptable when you are trying to get home. Set your limits on a day when no schedule or passenger is influencing the answer.

3. Look at the whole weather picture.

In a piston airplane, especially one without the speed, altitude capability or deicing equipment of larger aircraft, you need to know not just what the weather is doing at your destination but how widespread it is. If your des­tination is marginal and your alternate sits 40 miles away in the same system, you may not have much of an alternate at all.

Use the “Ceilings” layer in ForeFlight or other EFB app to keep an eye on local and widespread conditions. I routinely look at ceiling layers and broader trends to see whether a low ceiling is local or part of something much larger. The objective is not to find one airport that satisfies the legal requirement. It is to know where the good weather is.

4. Treat fuel as options.

Regulations set minimum fuel requirements, but those numbers are the starting point, not the finish line. What matters is how much fuel you have when the difficult decisions begin.

Picture arriving at your destination, flying an approach to minimums and going missed. Now consider what happens if the second approach fails also. How much fuel is left, how far is the alternate, and is the weather there still good?

I think about fuel not only as what I need to complete the flight, but as how much decision-making time it buys me at the end of it. Remember the mantra, “Never run out of fuel before you run out of options.”

5. Preserve an out in every phase.

Every preflight should include some thought about how you will handle an aborted takeoff, a re­turn, worsening weather, a missed approach, or a diversion. Get boxed in by weather, terrain, fuel, or airspace and you can quickly run out of good choices.

The same is true on an approach. We tend to brief as though everything will go to plan. I once went missed because a hot-air balloon was effectively stuck on the final approach course into Lincoln, Neb. The air was dead calm, the balloon was not going anywhere quickly, and there was an overcast layer above him. A straightforward arrival became a missed approach followed by an ILS to minimums.

Nothing in the planning process could have predicted that, and that is the point. You cannot prepare for every event, but you can prepare to have another option when the first one disappears.

6. Go ugly, early.

One of the most useful sayings I have heard about off-airport landings is, “Sometimes you should go ugly, early.” Once you know you have a problem, do not contin­ue toward a more complicated situation hoping a better-looking option might appear later.

Once on a departure out of Fort Myers, Fla., I was climb­ing through about 3,500 feet when my primary flight display X’d out. I transitioned to the backup instruments, my training kicked in, and I was fully capable of continuing. But ahead of me was a wall of weather, and behind me were a few clouds and a thin layer. The question was not whether I could continue. It was, “Why would I want to?”

Pilots sometimes confuse capability with good judgment. Be­ing able to handle a difficult situation does not mean you should create one. Every mile toward worse weather or further into a flight with a compromised system may be one mile farther from an easier solution.

7. Check your batteries (airplane and portable)!

Aircraft batteries are usually judged by whether they will crank the engine, but in many airplanes, the battery is a critical reserve after an alternator or generator failure. What remains available depends on the aircraft: Some avionics carry their own backup batteries, while landing gear, flaps, communi­cations, and navigation may rely entirely on the main bus.

The question to consider is, “How many pilots do you know who are fully IFR capable in AP mode only?” That means know­ing the electrical architecture of the airplane you fly. If the engine has started cranking more slowly than normal, that should get your attention. It may be a battery at the end of its life or another issue. Serious IFR is not where I want to discover how much re­serve capacity I have. The Flying Salesman YouTube channel has a good deep dive covering capacitance checks, open-circuit voltage, and testing for parasitic drain. Watch the thorough video, “IFR Preflight: Beyond the Basics – What You Should Know Before the Weather Briefing.”

I speak from experience when I say this: An alternator fail­ure is not something you acknowledge and dismiss. You will be thinking about what to shut off and how long the battery will last while flying the airplane. It will consume precious band­width in the cockpit when you need it most.

The same goes for portable equipment. Tablets, phones, ADS-B receivers, and backup batteries should all be charged before departure. A nearly dead tablet is a nuisance when you can plug it into ship’s power. It is a very different problem when you are conserving electricity after a charging-system failure and depending on that tablet for charts and weather. Redundancy only helps when the backup works. The same goes for database changes and VOR checks: Sort them out on the ground.

The Common Thread

Good instrument flying is less about equipment or regula­tion than about mindset. The weather will not always cooperate. Equipment will fail. Approaches will not always end in landings. Fuel keeps burning while you decide what to do next. The best defense is to preserve options before you need them and not to wait until things turn critical before taking the easy one. Some of the best IFR decisions you will ever make are the ones that keep an emergency from developing.

Which brings me back to my instructor’s advice: Anything you can take care of on the ground is one less thing you have to con­tend with in the air. For an instrument pilot, that is about as good of a definition of being prepared as I know. Fly safe!

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