Another first: Weather cancellation

Boo hoo! :(

Well, the TAFs this morning were calling for broken clouds at 1500', but I was still optimistic that we'd be able to go up for today's lesson -- steep turns, stall recovery practice, and emergency procedures.

As the morning went on, however, the METARs were showing cloud layers that were becoming lower and more dense, and so around 11:30 Chuck called to call it off.

My gut had been telling me the optimism was foolish, but my heart still sank. Rescheduling it is obviously the right thing to do, but it's not like that relieves the disappointment.

But this blog is about learning to fly, and learning when not to fly has to be part of that. Or perhaps the harder lesson is learning to get over not flying when you've been looking forward to it for so long!

So, let's talk about VFR rules while we're here. 14 CFR Part 91.155 has a table describing the requirements for visual flight in various types of airspace and at different altitudes (other VFR requirements are described in neighboring sections/paragraphs). I'm going to assign myself the homework of looking at the sectional when I get home and seeing what kind of airspace JGG is in (no hints, please!) and the surrounding areas where we fly; I believe Chuck called Felker (nearby Army air base) a Class D airspace when we talked about not flying through it on our way back from PVG (if you do fly through it you're required to make contact). The other hint I have from memory is that Husband has talked about staying 500' below the clouds in the past, so I'm just going to use that as my rule for now.

Visibility is good today; 10 sm. But those doggone clouds below 1500' are troublesome since we'd need to be at least 500' below them, and that doesn't give a lot of wiggle room in which to practice stall recovery.

The other consideration, of course, is the altitude requirement for operating over inhabited areas. CFR 14 Part 91.119 gives minimum altitudes for different conditions and situations. For us, it would be 1000' (congested areas). There are lots of wooded areas, farmland and rivers around here, so we could really go down to 500' once we get out to the practice area, but between here and there it's all neighborhoods, schools and shopping areas.

So, if the clouds had stayed at 1500', it would have been on the marginal side of ok. But since the latest METAR said 1100', that's just not really reasonable. I mean, come on -- we're going to practice stalls because I haven't done that yet and wouldn't really expect to recover within 100' at this point!

Common sense wins a begrudged victory.