Personal minimums.....?

USMCmech said:
Yeah, I'd rather just land with a tail wind than try to manuver at 400 AGL in the dark.
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OK, I'll agree that I'd rather just land with a tailwind than try to maneuver at 400 feet in the dark.

What about when you don't have the option of the tailwind landing, the runway that you'd LIKE to land on is closed, and the only way you're going to land is with a circling maneuver?

Would you cancel a revenue flight for that reason, even if it were perfectly legal and safe?

I suppose it depends on what type of flying you're doing. If you're not moving people or property for hire, you likely have the luxury of canceling flights because of a preference.

So, it depends I guess.
 
Personal minimums? If you want to be able to tell people you've got good judgment and not lie to them then you absolutely need personal miniums. Does that mean you should fly in actual IMC? Hell no, but there is no reason to go tempting fate and always going up when weather is at minimums. God forbid you're on climbout and lose an engine, if the weather is at minimums you're more likely to be a smoking hole than you are to get your student some valuable actual time should that happen. If you claim to always go at minimums then you're removing a HUGE part of ADM and are just an accident waiting to happen. Worse yet, you'll perpetuate that kind of thinking/flying because your students will fly as they have been taught. Tom Cruise had multiple takes and stuntmen to do his dirty work, most of us don't have that luxury. Good judgment must reign supreme in our business and part of that is knowing your limits. Yes you should be able to make an approach to minimums but you can't expect to make decisions based upon ego and live to see your water canon salute.

All that being said, 2000ft is laughable. Being overly cautious can be just as cancerous in training as hubris.
 
mtsu_av8er said:
One's personal minimums should be PTS standards. If you're not there, you should bust your butt to get there.
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Still have to disagree. If one is not comfortable flying an approach into an airport they've never been to before, then you shouldn't FORCE the approach. It's cowboyish in my opinion. Taking someone that's nervous about flying an approach and that person forcing themselves to do it b/c people think they're chicken is a recipe for disaster.

I also don't see where in the CFI-I PTS it says you have to fly to published mins, either. So, you could still be at PTS standards and not fly to DH/MDA.
 
kellwolf said:
If one is not comfortable flying an approach into an airport they've never been to before, then you shouldn't FORCE the approach. It's cowboyish in my opinion.
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Cowboyish to come, training to a certain level of proficiency to others.

Like I said, it depends on whether we're talking about weekend warriors or revenue pilots.

Weekend warriors, well, sub-par instruction is acceptable to many.

Flying for a living? Not at all.
 
mtsu_av8er said:
What about when you don't have the option of the tailwind landing, the runway that you'd LIKE to land on is closed, and the only way you're going to land is with a circling maneuver?
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That's why we get paid the big bucks.


Would you cancel a revenue flight for that reason, even if it were perfectly legal and safe?

I suppose it depends on what type of flying you're doing. If you're not moving people or property for hire, you likely have the luxury of canceling flights because of a preference.
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ORM rules the day. I don't HAVE to make a instructional or personal flight.

OTOH, when we agree to take money for flying, we agree to make the trip if it is at all safe to do so.

I once planed a diversion aroudn a line of Tstorms halfway across south TX. I personally would have waited it out, but my passengers needed to get home as early as possible, so I planed a longer flight that still safely got us there.
 
I'm not a cowboy or anything, but if the weather is down to cat 3 minima and I'm flying a cat 3 capable aircraft that's legal to fly cat 3 approach to the runway, we're going to shoot the approach.

However, if I'm renting a Cessna 172 and the weather is hard IMC to minimums in PHX, enroute and on arrival into PRC, I'm probably not going to take a pleasure flight in mountainous terrain in a single engine aircraft.
 
esa17 said:
Personal minimums? If you want to be able to tell people you've got good judgment and not lie to them then you absolutely need personal miniums. Does that mean you should fly in actual IMC? Hell no, but there is no reason to go tempting fate and always going up when weather is at minimums. God forbid you're on climbout and lose an engine, if the weather is at minimums you're more likely to be a smoking hole than you are to get your student some valuable actual time should that happen. If you claim to always go at minimums then you're removing a HUGE part of ADM and are just an accident waiting to happen. Worse yet, you'll perpetuate that kind of thinking/flying because your students will fly as they have been taught. Tom Cruise had multiple takes and stuntmen to do his dirty work, most of us don't have that luxury. Good judgment must reign supreme in our business and part of that is knowing your limits. Yes you should be able to make an approach to minimums but you can't expect to make decisions based upon ego and live to see your water canon salute.

All that being said, 2000ft is laughable. Being overly cautious can be just as cancerous in training as hubris.
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So you're going to make a decision based on if you're going to lose an engine when you take off?

As a CFII I'm going to make base it on published mins.

I dont want to go telling students "Well, we could go up but what if the engine blows up on climb out? Lets just stay on the ground and wait for the airlines to teach you that mess".
 
Doug Taylor said:
I'm not a cowboy or anything, but if the weather is down to cat 3 minima and I'm flying a cat 3 capable aircraft that's legal to fly cat 3 approach to the runway, we're going to shoot the approach.
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That's my point. If you can legally do it, and you've been trained to do it, there's no excuse not to do it.
 
I've canceled a flight as a cfii for ground fog below a marine layer. I really don't want to trust my life that all the pistons will keep running over a busy city that I won't be able to see until 50' from the ground. I've seen the mx hanger...

Had it been a revenue flight for say a freight company I would not have canceled. It's what I signed on for and at least part of the $ is because I assume the risk.

2000' does sound high. But maybe there's a reason for it.
 
mtsu_av8er said:
That's my point. If you can legally do it, and you've been trained to do it, there's no excuse not to do it.
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Yup.

"Axe? Yeah, we landed short in Brussels because the crosswind was 20 knots on a dry runway in Frankfurt and uhh, that's below my personal minimums!" :)
 
E_Dawg said:
Had it been a revenue flight for say a freight company I would not have canceled. It's what I signed on for and at least part of the $ is because I assume the risk.

2000' does sound high. But maybe there's a reason for it.
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But thats what you signed up for as an instructor too. The students are paying you.

The only reason for 2000' is the instructor is not confident flying IMC and has no buisness teaching instrument students.
 
ryanmickG said:
But thats what you signed up for as an instructor too. The students are paying you.

The only reason for 2000' is the instructor is not confident flying IMC and has no buisness teaching instrument students.
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I also got paid to teach judgment, and in my opinion it's just not the smartest thing to be pleasure flying over a city where you're one failure away from having a really, really bad day. I'll pass on the 10 bucks an hour for that, thanks.
 
kellwolf said:
Okay, that's just crazy right there. When I was getting my IR, I don't remember many approaches that WEREN'T to mins. Heck, I had one on my CFI-I that was damn near CAT II.

"Can I go visual now?"
"Not yet. You're doing good."
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I hear ya...It could have been the most magnificent VFR day, but when I was under the hood shooting and approach with my CFI it was either "look up", or "go missed" exactly at mins...

I'm a firm believer that if you are not 100% sure that you can fly any approach at your destination or alternate, than you have no business going IMC PERIOD!

What happens when you take off under your "personal mininums" only to find out that your destination and alternate have dropped under them?

The only time I think a person flying in IMC should use personal mininums is when he or she is deciding to go or not. You are either within your personal mininums which means you can handle ANYTHING thrown at you, or you cant. And that means if you think you might have any trouble tracking any airways, entering and doing any holds, or shooting an approach down to mininums, then for the safety of yourself, any person on the airplane and people on the ground, you better not go up flying.

Ya know i'm sort of really pissed off right now that this whole thing was brought up. Personal mininums my arse. There is nothing wrong with not feeling comfortable with doing something. Thats an enormous first step to take, and once you do take that step, you've won half the battle. So your not 100% confident you can shoot an ILS to mins. Big freaking deal. It's not an easy thing to do to begin with, and just because you have an instrument ratings, doesnt mean you will always be ready to do it.

ughh...

What i'm saying is, if you cant fly to practical test standards, then don't go. It's simple, and I doubt theres any other professional pilot, DE or compitent flight instructor that would advise you differently.

by the way...I know my spelling and grammar suck
 
Okay, so are we talking flying an airliner or in a piston single on an IFR training flight? 'Cause those are two different things.

I've got no problem flying the CRJ to CAT II mins. If I did, I wouldn't be in this job. Put me in a 172, and I ain't doing it. Sorry if that makes me a weak pilot or whatever, but no thanks. When I was a CFI and current, I was fine with it. When I was a NEW CFI that had never trained an instrument student before, I WASN'T okay with going all the way to mins. Once again, if that makes me a p*ssy, fine. Personally, I had more going on with monitoriing the student, making sure they were doing the right things, knowing where we were and handling the radios to actually fly the airplane. Oh yeah, and I had 15 hours of dual given under my belt. IMO, in that situation, personal mins are GOOD. As you get more comfortable in the teaching role and can handle more, you can decrease the personal mins until you're at published mins.
 
E_Dawg said:
I also got paid to teach judgment, and in my opinion it's just not the smartest thing to be pleasure flying over a city where you're one failure away from having a really, really bad day. I'll pass on the 10 bucks an hour for that, thanks.
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Who's talking about pleasure flying? Flight instruction is not supposed to be pleasure flying all the time. I'm not saying to jump in an airplane with a instrument student on day 1 and go fly hard IMC down to mins. That would be a waste of money to him. The judgment comes "are they ready to fly this" because you sure as hell should be.

Im not advocating being a "cowboy" and go do risky things that you are not leagal or you're not combfortable doing, but if you're not combfortable doing these things maybe you should get some more training in IMC. Maybe send the student with someone else.

(not talking about you)

I've seen this senerio one to many times...

IMC prevails

Instructor..."Umm..we need to cancel our flight today. The ceilings are reporting 800'OVC.

Student..."OK"

Me ..."WTF? Yall are working on approaches right? Its perfect outside!"

It gets old
 
kellwolf said:
Okay, so are we talking flying an airliner or in a piston single on an IFR training flight? 'Cause those are two different things.

I've got no problem flying the CRJ to CAT II mins. If I did, I wouldn't be in this job. Put me in a 172, and I ain't doing it. Sorry if that makes me a weak pilot or whatever, but no thanks. When I was a CFI and current, I was fine with it. When I was a NEW CFI that had never trained an instrument student before, I WASN'T okay with going all the way to mins. Once again, if that makes me a p*ssy, fine. Personally, I had more going on with monitoriing the student, making sure they were doing the right things, knowing where we were and handling the radios to actually fly the airplane. Oh yeah, and I had 15 hours of dual given under my belt. IMO, in that situation, personal mins are GOOD. As you get more comfortable in the teaching role and can handle more, you can decrease the personal mins until you're at published mins.
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I love ya Steve but why would you fly CATII to mins with 70 people behind you and not a 172 to 200' AGL on an ILS into FWS with you and your student? I dont understand that logic. Its IFR ABC's.
 
I can see an issue when you are not comfortable yet as an instructor, or you are not confident in the ability of your student. It takes concentration and skill to bring an airplane safely down to 200' AGL with the needles centered the whole way. How close to the ground do you trust your student? Teaching logic would say let them take it all the way or they will never gain the confidence they need to make that approach happen themselves. CYA logic says don't let them take it down to 200' in IMC because if they get disoriented there isn't much room to maneuver with an underpowered single. It's just like any other aspect of instructing though.. like those first few landings taught by the newly minted CFI and the inverse relationship between comfort level and pucker factor.

That being said, when you are getting PAID to possess instrument skills, you'd better step up to the plate. Alternates and holding patterns are there for a reason, if you get to the PUBLISHED minimums and still don't see anything, you have a plan B.
 
It's one thing for an instructor to not have flown much IFR in a while and decide to tack 100' or 200' onto the DH, or add a mile to the vis, or not go at night. 2000' is a joke. If your instrument flying is so bad that your are worried you might be hitting something 1800' above the DH, something is really wrong, and you shouldn't be instructing students.
 
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