Negatives of SVFR
--The willingness to cancel a SVFR flight indicates an excellent judgmental decision.
--Pride in your ability to fly SVFR is a certain road to becoming a statistic.
--A SVFR flight must be based upon positive information; not on hope.
--Situation: Field was SVFR minimums but area adjacent was not. Emergency situation.
--One-mile visibility takes 30 seconds at 120 knots. Slow down for better recognition and reaction.
--I have my own personal SVFR minimums.  ONLY into
improving conditions.
--Never plan a flight into deteriorating weather.
--.No SVFR into unfamiliar situations.
--Never pass an opportunity to get fuel and use the bathroom.
--A SVFR arrival can be made when IFR arrivals are not possible due to ceilings.

Training for SVFR
I would like to take some time to make some training suggestions that apply to anywhere you fly.

Every local VFR flight should be flown at minimum altitudes so that you can mentally map your minimum safe altitudes when you need to know your SVFR margins. Plan some ifr (I follow roads) routes and make sure the right side of the road is clear of obstacles. Do not plan your SVFR departures and arrivals for the instrument approach routes.

Learn the common checkpoints used in the area and learn the identifiable points about one mile in the four cardinal headings from those points. Practice communicating so that you are not where traffic is likely to be. Cessna 1234 one north point A at six hundred fifty request SVFR ready to copy.

Any time you are within 700' AGL outside of towered airspace you can be a close to a cloud as you want without being in it, You only need one-mile flight visibility. Of itself these conditions are not hazardous if you know exactly where you are in relationship to where you want to go and have the visibility.

With a SVFR clearance you should be the only aircraft in the towered airspace. Two aircraft are allowed only if one has visual contact with the other and accepts responsibility to maintain clearance. Once you admit that you have visual contact you are responsible for maintaining that contact. On occasion, you may not want to admit that you see another aircraft if you anticipate losing contact.

SVFR clearances are all essentially the same. Call your local tower and have them tell you what to expect both for departures and arrivals. Practice making your arrivals as though on a SVFR clearance. I have never been able to get at simulated SVFR clearance.

When you get time, money, and situation settled consider an accelerated program to get the 'rating' out of the way. Then embark on a program to learn what you want and need to know. California IFR is completely different than mid-western IFR.

SVFR Safety
There has been quite an internet thread about the lack of safety associated with SVFR (special visual flight rules) The Luddite approach to safety says that you should never do something that compromises safety.

The logic of this if applied to every day life would mean that no one would ever strike a match, go out in the rain, drive a car, or fly an airplane. Just living is a safety compromise. We must learn to live in and perform in the world as it is. To select one portion of that world and contend that it does not apply is but closing your eyes to reality.

Interestingly, if you were to look through any number of flight training programs, you would be most unlikely to find SVFR as part of the program. All too many pilots encounter SVFR for the first time alone, inexperienced, and unaware.

When I am called to give a pilot a checkout in a new aircraft I generally try to hit him with, "Have you ever flow SVFR?" Most often they have never been in SVFR conditions and have no plans to get the experience. I do not fly in SVFR conditions, rain, or winds of 30 knots for fun. I do train my students and other pilots in those conditions, however. I do it because, at some point in our careers toward becoming old pilots we may face conditions not of our choosing.

Not too many years ago student pilots could ask for and get SVFR clearances. Bad things happened just often enough so now only pilots can get SVFR. Like IFR, SVFR increases the utility of flying. On occasion, it is possible, safe, and legal to make an airport arrival under SVFR when IFR flights cannot. My personal feeling is that a pilot should be trained in the use of SVFR, not to be used as challenge to weather conditions, but rather, as a parachute through an unplanned condition. SVFR at night is very near an emergency situation. That said here is how to do day SVFR.

I deliberately teach SVFR. Before the FARs prohibited student SVFR I taught it. After the FARs prohibited student SVFR I teach it. I am often disturbed by those who preach the evils of SVFR and the exposure to danger that exist in such flight. I, very deliberately, have taught all my students the procedures of SVFR both as to flying and radio. I feel, to do otherwise is an abrogation of my instructional responsibility as much as would be not teaching stall recovery.

I have given many checkouts in which, on inquiry, the pilots have never flown in SVFR and have no knowledge as to how the procedure works. They fly in an effort to totally avoid SVFR, under the impression that it is both unnecessary and dangerous. In terms of the utility of owning an airplane, I wonder what is the proportion of VFR, to MVFR, and to IFR weather. Here, in the S.F. Bay Area, the pilot unable to handle SVFR sure stays home a lot.

My contention is that a pilot who does not know and fully utilize the rules of flying when the situation requires, is not a competent pilot. I am not advocating that we should all go pleasure flying in SVFR conditions. I am saying that SVFR is a not uncommon condition that can, by adherence to the rules, be made relatively much safer by specific instructional flights much as is done with cross-country flying. I fly SVFR for instructional purposes and not for fun.

The student has been conditioned by reading, experience, and previous instruction to view weather and its associated conditions as pilot killers. Even IFR instruction is apt be very limited in ‘actual' exposure. It has long been my contention that most students begin and learn to fly during the time of the year most likely to inhibit their growth and development as a pilot. The first storm of the winter eats a disproportionate number of airplanes whose pilots have never learned how to deal with unexpected marginal weather. There, nearly half of the article was used to justify the remainder.

The time for a deliberate training SVFR flight are always selected based upon forecast improving conditions. This is a basic rule for all weather flying. Several variations can be used. A low level departure with an overhead arrival. Low level flight to and from an nearby airport, or just a departure and return to the home field. It is important that the student become familiar with the radio procedures for both going and coming. The airspace restrictions placed upon ATC and clearance restrictions on the pilot are never truly understood without an actual exposure to the variable situations.

Prior to the flight the radio procedures should be written in full and then again in short-hand. Then a blank form is made ready for taking the actual clearance. Between airport flights may require four different clearance procedures. A complete weather briefing is obtained. Prior to aircraft entry you visually decide if your planned direction of departure is going to work. If not, make an alternate plan of departure. Your drive to the airport told you a bit about at least one direction. Inside the controlled airspace you can always return if you have not reported clear of VFR.

Once you have reported clear of the controlled airspace or VFR you are on your own to meet the visibility and cloud clearance minimums for your altitude. Depending on the transition area you can remain within 1200' or 700' of the ground as long as you have one mile flight visibility. At any altitude above these you must meet the VFR minimums of 3-mile visibility and 1000' above, 500' below, and 2000' lateral cloud clearance. If unable to maintain the VFR requirements you must either get down to the Class G airspace or declare an emergency. This sounds very glib and easy to do in writing. In real situations it requires considerable local knowledge and decision making skill. If ever there is a flying skill requiring ‘learning by doing' it is SVFR.

The greatest intangible of SVFR is the delay caused by other traffic. IFR flights have preference. You will be held on the ground or told to remain clear, usually at a specific VFR point, while IFR flights arrive and depart. ATC will try to slip you out between IFR flights if they can. It is best if you request departures and arrivals that avoid IFR routes. To make ATC's positioning your SVFR flight into the mix it is important that you are able to understand and comply with ATC instructions. If you don't and can't, say so immediately. The more you expedite your arrival the better it helps everyone.

The essential, non-dispensable element in SVFR is that the pilot NEVER lose situational awareness. You must know where your are and where every obstacle, identifiable check point is in relation to your position. No compromise. For this reason most pilots must only do SVFR at their home airports. Every VFR home field arrival and departure should be used as a situational learning opportunity. If you don't know where you are you have no business being in the air. The lower the visibility the more important it is that you know where you are.

The first requisite for SVFR is knowledge. You must know the FARs, you must know the area, you know your own capabilities. SVFR flight can only be flown with a Class C, D, or E clearance. A SVFR clearance can only be given when ceilings are less than 1000 feet and visibility is less than three miles but more than one mile as is determined by a qualified weather observer. In SVFR conditions ATC has special restrictions that allow only one aircraft in the airspace at a time, unless visual contact is established between the aircraft. This contact may be by ATC having seen both aircraft or one aircraft seeing the other and accepting avoidance responsibility. An IFR aircraft either arriving or departing has use of less than VFR Class C, D, or E airspace before SVFR aircraft. This means that when an IFR aircraft is inbound to the airspace or inside the airspace no SVFR aircraft will be allowed to enter or leave until ATC has visual with the IFR aircraft. If an IFR aircraft is departing SVFR aircraft will be told to remain above specific altitudes or clear of the airspace. If a number of IFR departures or arrivals occur in sequence this can be quite a while.

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