UNITED STATES
As I mentioned earlier, good decision-making is a critical part of your safety system too. Let’s say you are making a flight from point A to point B and after completing your selfbriefing (see AC 91-92 Pilot’s Guide to a Preflight Briefing), and you are unsure about the weather. That is an easy one; a best practice is to call an experienced pilot friend and talk about the weather. But what if the weather on that same trip after you have completed your self-briefing and the weather looks good to you? Do you still do that best practice and call an experienced pilot friend to see what they think about the weather? Before you answer that, consider how an airline pilot going on a routine flight with good weather still talks to the aircraft crew and to dispatch about the weather, and then briefs the passengers so everyone knows about the weather. Going back to our question, do you call your experienced pilot friend to discuss the weather after completing your self-brief? Absolutely. They may see something coming your way on a beautiful day that you didn’t consider. When you only self-brief, you have a greater chance of missing something that could ruin your day. It‘s B 16 | agairupdate.com
best to always have all of the information you need for the flight. 14 CFR 91.103 requires it. In summary, every flight requires a go/no-go decision. Spend some time thinking about how you make that decision. Share your decision-making process with your instructor and have them determine its effectiveness. And while making your decision, always keep grandpa’s advice in mind: “you’ll get there quicker if you don’t stop by the hospital on the way.” Adopted from the Arkansas Agricultural Aviation Association Newsletter. Heather Metzler Aviation Safety FAA Safety Team Program Manager (Operations) Little Rock FSDO AFG-600-FSDO-11 1701 Bond Street, Little Rock, AR 72202 Office: 501-918-4400; Cell: 501-749-2959 Heather.metzler@faa.gov
