Flying in snow showers

[fxyz]

One afternoon I went to the practice area and when I was ready to head back, it looked like there's a very dark area on my way home covered by snow showers. I knew that snow won't cause any icing so I kept going. Half a minute into it visibility dropped to somewhere like 3 miles (I could barely see the edges of the piece of farmland I was overflying). I was shocked and turned back to the practice area and landed at a small airport nearby - practiced precautionary for real

I had to call my school and waited for a couple of hours before the weather passed When I got back everyone came to me to asked about what happened and they had to cancel two flights because I was late. There's another student (licensed though) there at the time but he flew back with no problem and said he used gps on his phone to navigate. I kinda felt stupid because I could've used my phone too....

I checked radar at the time and the area was mostly light green with some dark green in the centre. Did I think too much, was it flyable and how do you make a decision? Thanks.

[fish4life]

You made the right decision, especially being new and not experienced. Call me a wimp but I won't even consider flying a 152/172 type of airplane through snow showers and I'm an ATPL holder. Without knowing the temp at the time those snow showers could very quickly build a layer of ice that would make flying that 172 very uncomfortable. On a side note if you are at the point of needing to use your phones GPS it sounds like a good recipe to push it into IFR conditions get disoriented and end up in a much worse situation than you started in.

You did something that a lot of pilots on the wrong end of accident reports probably should have done, you were uncomfortable with a situation swallowed your pride and turned around.

[GyvAir]

+1 ^ Definitely the right decision. If you were already out of your comfort zone, the last thing you needed was to now have your head down, swiping away at the screen on your phone while figuring out how to make it tell you relevant information, all in already marginal VFR conditions. If you couldn't comfortably navigate visually around the showers to your home base, waiting it out was the thing to do. I hope nobody there was trying to tell you otherwise. Especially the phone thing.

Spelling edit

[PilotDAR]

Yes, you made the right decision. Don't let the school tell you otherwise. With more experience, in time, you might fell a little more comfort in flying in light snow, but that only comes with experience and confidence. The fact that another pilot "would have flown through" does not make you wrong for not flying through. You were the pilot for that flight, the plane flies where and when (or not) as you want it to.

It's many times easier telling the school that you're safely on the ground, waiting it out, rather than upside down in the trees somewhere. If the school staff challenge your decision to not fly [when they would have] ask them how they have trained you to fly in the conditions which un nerved you. Yes, they should expect you to return home into a 5 knot crosswind, they've trained you to do that. I sure hope that they have not trained you to press on into deteriorating visibility conditions!

[Sulako]

When you learn to fly, along with stick-and-rudder, you are learning decision making, and you absolutely made the right decision. Pitot heat notwithstanding, a 172 isn't equipped to deal with icing at all and snow showers can easily turn into stickier stuff. 3 miles vis really isn't much, and that too could deteriorate in a hurry, leaving a non-IFR pilot in a very scary situation.

When you are in the left seat, you are responsible for the safe operation of the aircraft, and making sure that everyone on board makes it back to the ground in one piece. You did both of those things, so ignore any pressure to fly anywhere you aren't absolutely comfortable flying. Don't sweat what other people do - other people also crash planes from time to time too.

[LousyFisherman]

I had to call my school and waited for a couple of hours before the weather passed When I got back everyone came to me to asked about what happened and they had to cancel two flights because I was late..

Should have asked them how many flights they would have to cancel if you spun it in.

There's another student (licensed though) there at the time but he flew back with no problem and said he used gps on his phone to navigate. I kinda felt stupid because I could've used my phone too....

Beg your pardon? The other pilot is the stupid one! What happens if your phone fails? Battery runs out? if you blunder into IMC? If you are a good enough pilot to fly through a particular snow shower why would you need to navigate by phone?

I checked radar at the time and the area was mostly light green with some dark green in the centre. Did I think too much, was it flyable and how do you make a decision? Thanks.

You make your decisions the exact same way you made this one. Another +1 for your correct decision. Make your decisions based on the information available to your. From you description I suspect your visibility was less than you thought, so the decision was wiser than you think.

I'm surprised I'm the one to mention OAT. In snow or rain OAT is critical due to increased icing risk mentioned above. As a low time amateur my rules are OAT must be below -5 to fly in snow and above +5 to fly in rain. There is actually a use for that thing above the passengers head in a Cessna

I just brought a 150 from Van in November. After Hope the clouds were at 7500 (my preferred height there to see the weather in the next valleys) so I flew at 7000 feet. 20 second snow squalls every half hour, OAT -12. Extremely stressful just worrying about the weather getting worse. Just south of Princeton the snow squalls were 2-3 minutes every 10 minutes, I radioed Kamloops to get Penticton weather because I was more than willing to stay overnight in Princeton if I had to. Weather report was good, so I kept going, and after Princeton the snow disappeared.

I'm glad I flew in those conditions as I learned a huge amount but I have no desire to do it again. One of the reasons I am glad I am not a commercial pilot where I would have to do it regularly.

HTH
LF

[2R]

Any decision you can live with, is a good one.

Better to be on the ground wishing you were flying , than in the air wishing you were on the ground.

Some 3 mile vis snow showers can change rapidly and unless you have spent a lot of time watching the local weather patterns and are familiar with the local airflows that can give you clues as to how fast the weather can change.

The two biggest killers in aviation are summer cold fronts and winter warm fronts. watching the monsters from the ground will teach you how to avoid their teeth.

rule 1 : Always have an out
rule 2: see rule 1

[Cat Driver]

Read the two lines in blue at the bottom of my posts.

And there is your answer.

[Bede]

Textbook example of good PDM. Keep in mind that 3 miles is snow can turn into 1/2 mile in a heart beat and your buddy may not have fared so well.

[ScottS]

Great job.

[5x5]

Well done fxyz. Turning back early was the best decision you could have made.

The thing to remember about snow is that it not only reduces horizontal visibility but vertical visibility as well. Unlike rain where you can continue to see the ground, snow forces you lower as well. And if you push into snow, by the time you really can't see much you will tend to be closer to the ground as you will have descended to keep visual ground contact. Then when you finally try the 180 to get out, you will have a much lower chance of success as, during the turn, it will be extremely difficult to keep reference to a horizon since it will all be blending into white. And without solid instrument skills, the chance of success is extremely low.

[2R]

The Inuit have thirty two different words for snow.
I do not know which one means: sticks like poop to a blanket. But the leading edge of snow in a winter warm front can stick to your airplane like poop to a blanket. Or even if our northern friends have a word for such snow. That is why it is so important to know where the fronts are located. So you can avoid flying along them in the danger zone.
Penetrating fronts should be done with extreme prejudice.
You must know where the air mass is coming from to determine the energy levels and moisture levels you can expect. The speed of front is an indicator of the fronts energy as well .The height of the frontal clouds can determine what kind of monster you might be fighting. It might look VFR underneath a cloud but if that cloud is going up to 50,000 feet avoid it, like eye contact in the men`s room at the San Francisco airport.


Most light aircraft have very limited ice protection :
-Pitot Static heat (sometimes they work)
-Carb Heat
-Fuel vent position in low air pressure area
-OAT
-very poor defrost venting that is usually the same standard as an early 1960`s sports car.

Most light training aircraft do not have any de-ice equipment such as boots ,TKS systems ,hot wings, or the ability to shed ice accumulations .
Ice costs a lot of money to fly with. Aircraft fly much slower when iced up and you may run out of fuel if you have not allowed for a forty knot speed reduction at cruise. Avoiding areas of big ice will save you money.
Flying a stalled aircraft is a challenge to most in training. Some flight schools never demonstrate how to fly an airplane when it is fully stalled. They rush to recover at the first sign of a stall .Recognition and Recovery is the exercise, and is usually done without much fun at the primary training level. Flying a fully stalled airplane requires lots of room and nice weather.
An iced up aircraft when it stalls will make you a test pilot and you better be on your best game to avoid death, disease and pestilence. Although if you are dumb enough to get that far down the rabbit hole as that you probably are not coming back out without help from the sky pixies being generous with their pixie dust.


Pay attention, lest the earth reach up and smite thee

[Big Pistons Forever]

I had a friend who barely survived pushing on through a band of heavy snow showers. He kept on descending so he could see the ground and then flew into a hill......

He was rescued a few hours later. The snow showers had moved on and it was sunny with unlimited visibility........

[digits_]

When I got back everyone came to me to asked about what happened and they had to cancel two flights because I was late.

Who is "everyone" ? Students, pilots, instructors ? Were they just curious, or somewhat forcing you to fly through it ?

If there is any hint of them (school staff or instructors) pressuring you to fly, change schools right away.

Well managed !

[DanWEC]

Without poking in and asking why you were signed out by your instructor, given and what sort of weather minima your school most likely has for pre-ppl students, (I'm again questioning the instruction at whatever FTU you're at) I'll chime in and say great job!

By far the most important human factor in dealing with a situation is Get-there-itis, or "Interia". The diversion/precautionary procedures aren't rocket science to learn, but it's it's drilling in that you have to pull the trigger and DO it, and it's *ALWAYS* a good decision to do it (For all intents and purposes).
Important: If you have to tell yourself "I think I can make it". You have to seriously shake your head for a minute and rethink your situation. You can't just pull over to the shoulder and wait it out. If those words cross your mind, that should be a trigger to stop what you're doing and make a new plan.

On a side note, take a closer look at radar and how the display works, hopefully there is someone who can help you a bit- Take a look at the legend and how the colors relate to rate of precip, and echo top, and how it relates to local weather and what's developing. Make sure you know it has nothing to do with ceiling or even visibility in some respects, learn how to time it out as well to predict where things will be.

Well done!

[fish4life]

And if you still have any doubt I think this is the first time in avcanada history everyone agrees

[mike123]

Without poking in and asking why you were signed out by your instructor

Actually it's a very good question to ask. If that snow shower was so large that you couldn't go around it, somebody should have taken a note of it before letting you fly solo.

You did the right thing. If I was there I would have had a chat with the "licensed student" who went through it using his cellphone.

[AuxBatOn]

Good job making the smart decision. It's probably going to be one of the most valuable lesson of your career and I am glad there is positive reinforcement going on!

Well done.

[Rookie50]

Good call. I just grounded my plane today for maintanance, after an anomaly on run up far from home. Some would have pressed on and taken off. I'm still resolving it but after shutting down, and pulling the cowl found a little oil where it shouldn't be. (leaking from the mag case)

I'm licensed so it was my call but 2 other innocent lives depend on my cautious decisions. This is inconvenient and possibly expensive. But there is no where I'd rather be than stuck in our hotel room.

Someday you will be on your own, making all decisions, weather and otherwise. Great experience now in making a quality call.

[Donald]

Fxyz:

Good job on adding to your bag of experience, without taking away from your bag of luck!

Keep up the good work.

[fxyz]

And if you still have any doubt I think this is the first time in avcanada history everyone agrees

Thanks everyone! Glad to know I made the right decision

My instructor was on vacation so someone else signed me out. The 172 I flew that day had a OAT gauge and it showed well below freezing. Checked GFA before I left but did not see any frontal systems. Maybe it's just lake effect?

The height of the frontal clouds can determine what kind of monster you might be fighting.

On a side note, take a closer look at radar and how the display works, hopefully there is someone who can help you a bit- Take a look at the legend and how the colors relate to rate of precip, and echo top, and how it relates to local weather and what's developing. Make sure you know it has nothing to do with ceiling or even visibility in some respects, learn how to time it out as well to predict where things will be.

Thanks DanWEC and 2R! I never knew that radar image could show echo tops too.... I usually just check precip rates to decide whether there's any convective activities. I'll ask my instructor tomorrow about local weather patterns.

Some flight schools never demonstrate how to fly an airplane when it is fully stalled.

"Falling leaf" is one of my favourite

With more experience, in time, you might fell a little more comfort in flying in light snow, but that only comes with experience and confidence.

Any suggestions on how to build my experience? How long does it take you to be comfortable flying in less than ideal weather? I don't want to push the weather now as a student but maybe I have to do so after I become a commercial pilot....

[PilotDAR]

How long does it take you to be comfortable flying in less than ideal weather? I don't want to push the weather now as a student but maybe I have to do so after I become a commercial pilot...

Getting comfortable in slightly less good weather requires a combination of feeling comfortable in the plane, feeling comfortable in the geographical area you're flying, and "reading" the weather. This time of year there are "streamers" of snow coming off Georgian Bay and Lake Huron. Watch them on the Environment Canada "King City" radar, you'll get use to the patterns. 95% of the time the pattern is the same, just the location moves.

The METAR and TAF cannot report streamers, unless one happens to pass over a reporting airport (as does happen at Muskoka). The TAF will just tell you that they will probably happen somewhere in the area. The METAR does not report information away from an airport. Certainly I have run into them between Muskoka and Orillia, and back in the days before radar, there was simply no information, until you ran up to them. Radar has completely turned this around in a very helpful way.

You should never get used to flying VFR in less than VMC conditions, it's just a really bad idea. So every time you don't do that, you've made a good decison, stay with that. Streamer snow can easily make visibility much less than VMC. As a student, even 3 miles forward visibility is "testing" your capability. Learn to recognize 5 mile ground visibility, and when you cannot see those 5 miles ahead, begin your diversion turn. But that skill might allow you to fly confidently through some very light snow, where the vis is better than 5 miles, and icing is not a concern (quite cold OAT).

Knowing your locale is vital. I'll comfortably fly around my home aerodrome with the minimum VMC vis, simply 'cause I know exactly where I am, and what the visual cues and hazards are. But flying through the mountains of Quebec, even 5 mile vis makes me squirm. Flying in slow flight can make things a little less alarming, as you have simply allowed yourself more time to deal with what you see ahead. It also allows a more easy tighter radius turn, if you do decide to divert. So, of course, that means being comfortable flying in slow flight.

So experience will aid in some of these factors being a lesser worry. The different experiences combined are even better. But, you should never take this kind of flying lightly.

And a cell phone GPS is not an aviation navigation aid - just ask the cell phone maker!

[DanWEC]

And if you still have any doubt I think this is the first time in avcanada history everyone agrees

Holy shite! That's one to add to everyone's bag of experiences! When this happens on Dragon's Den someone makes million bucks on a snow shovel....really.

[GyvAir]

There's another student (licensed though) there at the time but he flew back with no problem and said he used gps on his phone to navigate.

I regularly hear talk about using phones for aircraft navigation. Most pilots for some time now have one app or another loaded on their phone that simulates aircraft navigation systems with cool graphics and features. It’s interesting and good fun to play around with them, checking how accurate they are compared to the certified aircraft instruments. (Not advocating having such a distraction in the cockpit during flight, of course.) Using a phone for navigation comes up on this forum now and then - the recent thread about the 150 lost in Algonquin Park comes to mind. People wondered at them not using their phones to find a rough southerly heading and get themselves out of trouble. Key words: "out of trouble". The phone navigation idea is a last resort option, to turn to when you've already screwed up or have had an uncommon run of bad luck and are looking at a dead panel. They should not be looked to as a primary navigation aid, used to help get oneself into trouble, as the licenced student sounds like he was flirting with.
As someone already mentioned, either he had enough knowledge and experience to fly VFR through the snow with acceptable risk, or he didn’t. Having an app on a phone to help him find his way through should not have been part of his decision making process. He probably should have been having a coffee with you at your alternate that afternoon.

[LousyFisherman]

How long does it take you to be comfortable flying in less than ideal weather? I don't want to push the weather now as a student but maybe I have to do so after I become a commercial pilot....

Forever, borderline conditions mean you should not be comfortable Always have a way out and a way back down to the ground.

YMMV
LF