Magazine stories like this often begin by harking back to the good old days, “When I learned to fly …”, followed by some anecdote that sees our hero pull through against seemingly impossible odds, or just in the nick of time, or both. And although it happens rarely, we’ve all read gut-wrenching accounts of flights in small aircraft that tangled with the elements, and ended in tragedy.
It saddens me that many in the last category are private cross-country flights, where the single pilot has the huge task of interpreting forecast and actual weather, in addition to the usual workload such operations entail.
Let’s not begin that way.
Instead, let’s examine the subject through the experience of a private IFR flight, in a single-engine aeroplane, that went well. Yes, it…
