But it's funny I was going to make a YouTube video about going to play the golf course.
I think it's going to be a YouTube video that ends up being about how the weather can change.
I'm Jason Miller, a full-time professional flight instructor.
On the Finer Points channel, you can join me as I bring you tips and tricks that I've
learned from 20 years on the flight line.
You're joining me here at Palm Springs airport we're about to depart for LA.
You can see that I'm not alone this morning.
I've got two friends on board.
Good morning, my name is Laura Adden, I'm from Oak Park Illinois and we're out here
on vacation, this is my very first flight on a private plane, so it's exciting.
I'm Brady Navera and I'm also from Oak Park and it's also my first time – Awesome, are
you guys excited?
– We're very excited.
– Are you nervous?
– A little nervous.
– That's all normal.
Taking my friends to LA was not the only reason I was going there.
I was also going to hook up with my friend this guy, The Ren Baron.
Now I mention all this because this video is about some tough aeronautical decision
making and I want you to be a part of that process, but I want you to know that these
were real external pressures, like I really wanted to get my friends to LA and I really
wanted to hook up with Ren Baron who was waiting for me and expecting us all to arrive.
So I knew I had some nervous passengers.
I did a thorough weather briefing the night before.
Here's what that looked like.
It showed that Santa Monica, our real destination, was probably going to have an overcast layer
just temporarily for the time that we arrived but there was high pressure dominating southern
California and our backup plan Van Nuys was forecast to be clear all morning and was clear
as we were departing here from Palm Springs.
There's those little bumps I was talking about.
Just until we get around the corner there we might feel some of those.
You guys doing okay?
– Yeah. – All right, good deal.
[Radio calls]
So something I have to back up and tell you is that the radio panel in this airplane was
pretty thin and when I rented the aircraft two different people at Mach 5 Aviation asked
me if I was going to go IFR and I had no intention of going IFR, this was a flight to the desert.
This trip to LA was unplanned, so I told them no, I told two different people no, I didn't
exactly ask why I shouldn't go IFR, I didn't know if it was there was no static check or
if the radios were known to be inaccurate.
I had no idea why, but I had no intention of going IFR so you should know that I said
no twice to that question.
The weather report that I just got from Van Nuys said that the fog had rolled in.
We’re gonna get a little closer and listen to the actual radio instead of what my iPad
says and we'll start to think of some options.
Van Nuys is right around the corner up there, like you can kind of see there's a corner,
the mountain kind of comes down into the fog and you can turn right and that's where Van
Nuys is.
I think once we get around that mountain we'll be able to pick up the actual weather broadcast,
hopefully it'll be the new one and we'll know.
SoCal for 7690J are you showing Van Nuys currently IFR?
Let me check. Stand by.
Van Nuys is showing four miles, broken ceiling 400.
Yeah okay, roger that, we'll take it a little bit further.
We're going to be unable to fly in there IFR this morning, so I'm just maybe going to wait
for the next report and we'll make a decision.
Van Nuys was the backup plan, so if Van Nuys is down and Santa Monica's down then we're
just gonna end up going back.
And i'll just live with my disappointment.
It's funny when they rented me the plane they're like, are you gonna go IFR?
And I was like no, I have no reason, it's the desert, to the mountains we're not gonna go IFR.
And here we are.
Now I know the marine layer very well in California.
I mean it's typical that it will roll in off the ocean at the night-time and then as the
sun comes up it'll burn off and sort of roll back.
But this day was a little bit different.
Every now and again we get this high-pressure weather where the airport will start out clear
in the morning but because the high-pressure air descending toward the earth kind of gets
heated up, and as the sun comes up and the temperatures change the air around the airport
will actually turn into fog, kind of out of nowhere.
It's not like it rolls in per se, it just sort of forms.
And it's a little bit backwards because it won't form until the sun comes up, and that's
what we were dealing with here.
It’s the end of March, it's as the seasons are changing and even though the forecast
was to be clear all morning and Van Nuys was clear at the time I departed, when I arrived
it was most certainly IFR and that is not something that I expected
or to be quite honest prepared for.
I really apologize guys, if this ends up being a big air tour.
No worries, we have enough fuel to get back, right?
– Oh yeah, plenty. – OK, that's all that matters.
I’m just heartbroken if I don’t get to go play this golf course, ah what a bummer.
Brady, we've got all day, so if we have to we'll drive, okay.
I want you to know too that I looked very closely at the weather last night and this
is all unforecast weather.
– Yeah, no worries, I mean it's the ocean, it's the coast, it's got to be unpredictable.
Well actually the ocean is what makes it predictable, it's just every now and again there's a curveball.
It’s funny, I was going to make a YouTube video about going to play the golf course.
I think it's going to be a YouTube video that ends up being about how the weather could
change like last minute I mean I even recorded the briefing last night.
SoCal Cherokee 7690J level four thousand five hundred.
– 7690J SoCal Approach altimeter 2996 advise when you have information Charlie for Van Nuys
– OK we'll advise Charlie and 2996, 7690J.
Cherokee 90J did you say you have Charlie for Santa Monica?
– Not yet, we're not receiving Charlie yet.
– Roger, and what are your intentions?
– Well I was going to continue a bit further to see what the next report says.
It's coming up on the top of the hour, but it's likely
we'll have to turn around and head back to Palm Springs.
– Just let me know what you need to do.
– Roger that.
N90J the weather just came up, Van Nuys wind 110 at 4, visibility 3 with haze,
ceiling 600 overcast.
Alright, I guess that solves it for 90J, we're gonna have to head back.
– N90J roger, and you're gonna climb to 55?
– That's affirmative, we'll climb to 55.
I'm sorry guys, what a bummer.
– No worries, it looks pretty thick.
– Yeah it is, I can't tell you how disappointed I am about this.
Brutal.
Just brutal.
I don't know if I can properly convey what a disappointment this was, what those pressures
actually felt like, how tempting it was to possibly just shoot through that marine layer
on a GPS approach, even though I said I wouldn't.
Ren Baron was waiting for me, he was gonna take me golfing at the Bel Air Country Club.
I really wanted to get my friends there, it was a tough call to turn around and fly all
the way back to Palm Springs, but because of the unforecast weather,
that's exactly what I did.
So I just wanted to kind of bring you along with that decision-making, sometimes, you
know, it's better to turn around fly away, and live to fly another day, rather than do
something in the moment that you think you can do but you're not entirely sure.
In retrospect, I probably should have investigated the IFR possibility a little bit more with
that airplane, but the bottom line is I didn't.
And there I was above an undercast trying to figure out whether or not to fly through
a simple 500-foot marine layer, but even that you, just have to draw a line and say, you
know what, we can drive here, I can hook up with Ren another day.
So anyway, I hope you guys found that helpful, to sort of walk through a real-world tough
call that I had to make, but there it is.
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