Here here. Folks this is words of wisdom and experience and well I can tell you that in the airline I fly we get messages over ACARS and the radio about our dispatcher wanting us to fly another route. If you people think the SOF is pulling you chain and making your life miserable then maybe you should leave the industry. you are always gonna be somebody pawn in this industry and well quite frankly safety is key over flying into a level 5 thunderstorm or rain. And for the person who said SOF wouldnt let you fly into the rain maybe it was because of icing concerns. remember your airplane has to be certified into known icing conditions to fly into icing. And well when I was a instructor at UND students in 222 never check weather and didnt even know what known icing conditions where and this was at Stage 53!! ( i picked this student up for his Lesson 52 and then was to put him in for stage 53, stated to say it was not my instructing that made this student a complete idiot and well Snickers has heard about this wonderful pilot who was put up for his stage 53.) Rock on snickers teach these punks some flying cause they clearly are ignorant to the world outside of there minds.
so youre blaming the student for not knowing about weather and icing conditions?!!! blame the victim!! sounds like someone didnt TEACH him or VERIFY HIS LEARNING about the matter before putting him in a position to make decisions about weather and icing.
look, if UND is going to send out pilots who cannot make good aeronautical decisions, they shouldnt be sending out pilots.
when you get into the real world theres not always going to be someone looking over your shoulder saying "now timmy, that doesnt look like a good decision"...or to be less condescending, not everyone will have a flying job with an airline structure and ACARS and chain of command et al...
at my job, its MY ASS if i put the plane into the side of a mountain in the middle of the night in hard IMC with my panel lights barely working and a nav2 that is INOP....and im CERTAINLY not keen on rushing out to get myself killed, so I am very interested in making good decisions!!
when my company says "i need you in upstate new york tommorrow night" i would look like a damn fool if i had to ask basic things like "well, is the weather good enough to go? what route should i take?"
fortunately somewhere along the line i picked up on making good decisions for myself and not relying on an SOF to tell me what can or can't be done. i fear this reliance on the "safety net" clause is going to create pilots who cannot make good aeronautical decisions on their own, or do not realize the importance of being able to make that PILOT IN COMMAND type decision and have the convinction to back it up and justify themselves (through their training, education, and experience).
you need to get the training, learn the facts, then be able to make decisions ON YOUR OWN that arent going to get yourself or someone else killed. yes, risk management is a good thing, but to completely remove the decision making, only hurts the student in the long run. its a circular process; train the student well in the beginning, verify they have the knowledge, and then they will make the right decision when the time comes, without needing an SOF to make it for them. then by making the decision on their own, they gain EXPERIENCE.
im sure someone is going to turn around and say yeah yeah youre the king of hazardous attitudes.... whatever man. when im out in the middle of the night in a cessna that is 8 years older than i am, and no one looking out for you except yourself, then come talk to me about who wants to be safe and who wants to die alone in the middle of the mountains.