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The Best Maneuver
The one-hundred-eighty turn is on record as having saved more lives than governmental inertia have killed.

Calvin & Hobbes
They are riding a wagon down a steep wooded hillside during the dialogue.
Calvin: "Ever notice how decisions make chain reactions?"
Hobbes: "How so?"
Calvin: "Well, each decision we make determines the range of choices we'll face next. Take this fork in the road for instance. Which way should we go? Arbitrarily I choose left. Now, as a direct result of that decision we're faces with another choice: should we jump this ledge or ride along the side of it? If we hadn't turned left at the fork, this new choice would never have come up."
Hobbes: "I note, with some dismay, you've chosen to jump the ledge."
Calvin: "Right. That decision will give us new choices."
Hobbes: "Like, should we bail out or die in the landing?"
Calvin: "Exactly. Our first decision created a chain reaction of decisions. Let's Jump." See? If you don't make each decision carefully, you never know where you'll end up. That's an important lesson we should learn sometime.
Hobbes: "I wish we could talk about these things without the visual aids.
by Bill Watterson

Flying Is Too Safe
The greatest difficulty I have with the following material is that in a pilot's lifetime none of the requirements for emergency decisions will ever happen. This is true, if my instruction limits your exposure to avoidable emergency situations. One type of accident is the one that occurs and defies explanation or reason. It should not have happened either to pilot or aircraft. The second type is the one that after it happens, everyone is amazed that it hadn't happened sooner given the attributes of the pilot and aircraft. Choosing not to fly when conditions are unfavorable is not a sign of fear but more likely a sign of good judgment.

Airplanes are so safe that by themselves they rarely create emergencies. Most pilots will never experience an aircraft created emergency. Far more likely will be the pilot created emergency. Statistically, you can expect to fly over 65,000 (that's thousand) hours before a serious injury accident. Making an inadequate preflight, flying into known adverse weather, running out of fuel and other pilot choices create emergencies. You will rarely have an opportunity to make the decisions required during an emergency. You will, the moment that you think of making a flight, have an opportunity to enter the decision making process that leads to an emergency or a safe flight. Any discussion of how to make a decision will never be the same as actually making it.

Flying in controlled airspace gives a pilot a shared responsibility and liability with ATC. The authority of being pilot-in-command can come in conflict with an ATC directive, clearance, or command. A pilot's authority to deviate from what ATC says is not without limits. Whenever what you have planned is different from what ATC has planned you have a conflict. Both the pilot and ATC should have alternatives when a conflict occurs. You have no way to knowing how an FAA hearing judge may decide.

A major shift in responsibility occurs when the pilot acknowledges that he has located and identified an aircraft or hazard pointed out by ATC. From that momentary acknowledgment onward, collision avoidance is totally a pilot responsibility. ATC may not give you any further assistance or warnings. Many times the controller will give further warnings but he doesn't have to. Aside: How can flying be too safe if the U.S. has an average of five aircraft accidents every day? It only takes the last wrong decision to make an accident. Hesitation is a major problem. Doing something is always better that just going for the ride.

War Stories
Over the years I have made more than a few poor flying decisions. None of these have resulted in an accident or a major problem. However, after the flights I have had feelings to foreboding and discomfort. The concerns are not because of what happened but because of how easily the exposure could have resulted in catastrophe. Some of these flights occurred before I was an instructor but most of them occurred afterwards.

I had an occasion to fly some school administrators up the coast of Calif. to survey a school camping site for the children of our school district. This was to have been my first flight of over 200 miles with passengers and
into unfamiliar territory. I decided that I could make the flight more comfortably if I went there first by myself.

The exact date escapes me but the weather was forecast to be coastal fog with bases at 2500' all the way from the Bay Area up to Arcadia. Only a club C-150 was available so I scheduled, and planned. I was going to head for the Golden Gate and fly below the fog ceiling all the way to Eureka. By phone, I made arrangements to land at the private airport that was on one of the ship docks there. There were only four airports along the way. Not exactly an airport vicinity route.

The flight was successful in both directions. The ceilings held as forecast. Had they not held I could have become a CFIT accident because shortly after my flight a plane flying down the coast flew into Tomales Bay and into a plane eating hill rather than taking the way around by Point Reyes. If you arrive at Point Reyes and only look for the East side of Tomales Bay it is easy to miss the turn to Point Reyes. The FAA even put a VOR on a hill nearby which, depending on your OBS settings, can save you or kill you.

I have never flown so far, so low, with so few back-door options. I was only able to give FSS position reports by relay through other aircraft.

War Story #2
Just a couple of weeks ago I made a similar 200-mile flight to Southern California. Because GPS made the VFR flight so easy I decided to fly direct. Direct meant that I would fly over a fog deck the entire way The deck extended all the way from the ocean to at least ten miles south east of my route. All the terrain to my east and along my route was mountainous. The valley to the west had a reported ceiling of 800'.

At 5500' I had about 2000' of VFR below me. Below that the options were somewhere between slim and none. My invincibility was showing. The flight could have been flown just as easily down the west side of the
Central valley with the surface in sight, numerous visible airports, and too many options. The route back was made with the ground always in sight below. With light winds the flight time both was nearly the same.

War story #3
PIC: Eugene L. Whitt 1876572
9:00 a.m. to 10:35 a.m.
Tuesday July 22, 1997

I got my first briefing Monday afternoon about 5 p.m. Summarized, I was told that it was just as well I was waiting until Tuesday a.m. to make the trip from Las Vegas to Concord via Trona although he thought via Bishop would be better.

My second briefing was shortly after 7 a.m. I requested opportunity to visit FSS to view satellite pictures only to find that FSS was in Reno. I said that I planned to proceed via Trona and was told that that was the best way to go. The caveat was the sooner the better. The area was supposed to be overcast at 9000 with scattered to broken lower with improvement to the west. This forecast turned out quite different on our flight. Visibilities during the flight were generally in the 3 to 5 mile range but occasionally less than 3 making course deviations often necessary.

Along with hotel, eating, rental car and Las Vegas stop lights working and non-working, we did not get moving until 9 a.m. our previously planned departure time.

The departure from Las Vegas allowed us to proceed almost immediately on course to Trona. On our flight into Las Vegas two days previously I had recorded all radio frequencies for the route which had been flown at 9,500.

We were able to cross the first mountain ridge out of Las Vegas with ample cloud clearance but immediately afterwards the choices became more difficult. We could fly high with the chance of getting caught on top
or to descend and hope for the better weather forecast to the west. I chose the low road.

We were able to fly to Trona only by making several extended deviations north and south of our intended track in an effort to maintain the best flight visibility. For some of the route in and out of Shoshone we were
able to follow the east/west road.

We listened to Los Angeles Center for most of the flight to Shoshone and then began to listen to Joshua Approach. On the flight East we were told that communications would exist at least to 40 East of Trona. I tried repeatedly to contact Joshua Approach as we neared Trona and combined that with additional attempts to contact China Lake Tower. All these efforts were without success. Our intention was to get a clearance through China Lake airspace direct to Bakersfield. Even leaving Trona several attempts were made to make these contacts without success. The VOR at China Lake was apparently out of service. We never anticipated needing it so had not asked about NOTAMS. Due to the occasional rain, rarely heavy, we began to believe that we were experiencing radio failure due to moisture which was occasionally intruding into the cockpit. We proceeded to squawk NORDO on the transponder but in process neglected to turn it back on.

We proceeded south following the railroad until reaching the restricted area R2506 At this point we were forced by visibility problems to make several course deviations which made it very difficult to determine our exact position in relationship to the restricted area 2515 of Edwards AFB. Finally we proceeded over the Sierras direct to Bakersfield without trying to proceed via the planned route of Inyokern and Lake Isabella.

Any possible incursions into any Restricted areas were unintentional. We endeavored to maintain legal and safe flight visibility while working our way southwest below the Trona Corridor. When we were unable to get
back to Inyokern we climbed in good conditions toward Bakersfield. Our departure point for this climb was the raceway clearly shown on the sectional. Few other points in that area are so clearly defined.

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