The Launch Decision Begins at the Weather Briefing

Flying has published guidance for student pilots on reading the hourly surface observations and the terminal forecasts that cover their departure and destination airports, and on filling the gaps between reporting stations by reasoning from the stations that do report. The point is that a pilot flying alone has nobody in the right seat to catch a misread cloud base or an overlooked wind shift, so the decision to launch or stay on the ramp has to come from the pilot's own reading of the raw data. Owners who fly their own airplanes, or who sign off on a crew's decision to depart, will recognize the discipline: the forecast is a document to be interpreted, not a verdict to be accepted.

With reporting from Flying.