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The culture of a profitable, safety conscious company is refreshing.
Most airlines are, but I've seen examples of those that push their
pilots in varying levels of directness. For example, how about paying
only for completed flights? That's guaranteed to apply pressure,
however subtle, in unhealthy ways. It certainly does not encourage
decisions based solely on safety. Believe it or not, some airlines—primarily a few commuters—pay that way. Thankfully, I've never worked
for one. I'll bet, on a very few occasions, they fly in conditions that
other pilots would skip. The nice thing about flying PPG is that, when
the weather isn't perfect, we can pass. Fortunately, weather flying in a
modern jet airplane is surprisingly simple, especially at an airline
that encourages, with all policies, safe behavior.
Enroute weather flying is easiest—give a wide birth to storms—a task made easy
by keeping the magenta line (or white heading line) well away from the
echo edges. Mind the wind at your altitude and don't get downwind of taller cells. The downwind avoidance should sound familiar—kind of like
avoiding the wind shadow of big obstructions.
An aside, when we fly in an area with weather like that shown at
right, we have the flight attendants sit down. It's probably going to be
perfectly smooth, as it was on this flight, but there's a 1 in 100
chance that we'll get a jolt. The airplane only has to drop 5 feet
suddenly for an unbelted occupant to get whacked against the ceiling.
Dealing with storms in terminal areas is more of a pain but things
almost always change dramatically in 10 minutes. Watching nasty weather spend itself
from the comfort of a tarmac is a great way to
insure uneventfulness.
Fuel is rarely an issue. Every flight leaves with enough to make the
destination, fly to an alternate (in marginal weather), fly around for 45 minutes and then an additional 20 minutes or more just for the kids. Another good
reason to fly for a safety conscious outfit is the willingness to carry
that extra 20 minutes. It costs extra money to fly
that fuel around but it's well worth it. I'm thankful we do. I
fly a small airplane, too, and it has no radar. That's no fun when
clouds threaten and it means there are some trips that don't get made
and some that shave the margins closer than I'd like. The only way to
fly through weather in that case is to go below the clouds so you can
see rain shafts. Its utterly impossible to fly around thunderstorms at
night in an airplane without radar and I've never tried. Too much
aluminum has been scrapped in that endeavor. Intentionally flying
through anything remotely resembling a thunderstorm would earn the pilot
a Darwin Award. This is why, on long trips, I'd just as soon take the
airlines and leave the driving to them. |
1. The moving map display shows an electronic version
of what we see out the window.
This is the what pilots are probably looking at when
they seat the flight attendants. Even though you circumnavigate the
stuff, it can reach out and touch through clear air. Rare, but possible.
2. Most of us enjoy hand flying the departure and
arrival. George, the autopilot, is pressed into service for the enroute
phase. On average, the autopilot is flying whenever the airplane is
above 3000 feet AGL. |
