CFI-to-CFI Newsletter - Volume 11 Issue 3 - 34

CHIEF'S CORNER
RECENTLY MY STUDENT AND I WERE HEADED OUT TO A
NEARBY AIRPORT TO PRACTICE SLOW FLYING DOWN THEIR
LONG RUNWAY AS WE NEEDED TO WORK ON BETTERING
HER JUDGMENT ON WHEN TO ROUND OUT AND BEGIN THE
TRANSITION FROM DESCENT TO LEVEL FLIGHT AND THEN ON
TO LANDING. I happen to live near the airport in question

and my student lives near the airport we were departing
from. As is our custom, we met at the hangar, sanitized and
preflighted the airplane, and then we discussed our flight
profile to include the weather. We had a run of pleasant,
cooler weather (not as humid) and relatively light winds-
which was very helpful as we were working on her takeoffs
and landings-a nice respite from the stronger crosswinds
in the previous weeks.
In our discussion we talked about the weather, what was
going on, where things were improving, and where things
were staying the same,
and we matched up the
THE SIGMETS FOR IFR AND MOUNTAIN
reported and forecast
OBSCURATION BARELY COVERED THE
weather with what we
DESTINATION AIRPORT AND THE METARS
could observe ourselves.
WERE SHOWING SOLID VFR CONDITIONS. THE
Our practice airport is
NEAREST AIRPORT WITH ANY ASSOCIATED
about 25 miles west of
CLOUDS WAS 20 MILES FARTHER SOUTH OF
the departure airport and
THE DESTINATION.
it was reporting clear
skies. But on my drive
in, I noticed that there was a thin layer of broken clouds
and some haze between the two airports and they were

slightly above the ridgelines of the mountains that lay
between the two airports. Nothing in the online weather
briefing indicated those conditions-the SIGMETs for IFR
and mountain obscuration barely covered the destination
airport and the METARs were showing solid VFR
conditions. The nearest airport with any associated clouds
was 20 miles farther south of the destination.
We discussed the option to stay at our home airport and
remain in the pattern or to launch and go to our original
destination. My student decided that we could take a look
and if it didn't look good, we'd come back. I concurred.
We departed and headed west. As we left pattern altitude
and began climbing, we could see a layer of haze and some
scattered clouds that were moving south of our departure
airport. The layer appeared to begin right about 2,500 feet
msl. That didn't leave enough room to stay below it and
cross the ridges, so we continued to climb, and my student
remarked that it was a little uncomfortable with the haze. I
pointed out that if we could maintain cloud clearance and
visibility remained at or above five miles we could continue.
We continued to climb and maneuver around the clouds.
Soon we were above the haze and scattered to broken layer
at 3,500 feet msl and continued up to our desired cruising
altitude. At altitude we could see a clearly defined edge to
the cloud layer. We talked about flying above clouds and
the potential risks and pitfalls of doing so and how far away
from clouds you have to be. We also discussed what the
limitations are on student pilots flying with visual reference
CFI-to-CFI Newsletter - Volume 11 Issue 3

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