Jan 28
Photo of the Day -- Live In The Moment
I had just taken off from a glacier at the 5000' elevation. I was empty and I was headed home. I climbed up to 7500' to get over a ridge and noticed the weather was deteriorating, and trending towards fickle. I was 35 minutes from home ... if I could go in a straight line, and I only had an 1:15 minutes of fuel remaining. In order to maintain my legal fuel minimums I needed to be on the ground in 45 minutes. That left only 10 minutes of "extra" time. Looking straight ahead I could see forward visibility was not good, and there were a lot of clouds obscuring peaks and ridges. I had to decide quickly whether to get underneath the clouds and below the ridges and chance unknown conditions, or maintain my altitude and press on, in order to preserve gas.
These are weekly experiences when flying in the mountains in Alaska. And this image was taken on just such an occasion. If I descended underneath this cloud cover and determined the weather to be worse than VFR minimums (legal cloud clearance) I did not have the fuel to climb back up to 7500'. Decisions like this are really difficult, because they demand immediate, decisive action. I don't mind making tough decisions, it's the consequences that are a &%#&%@. To descend under a cloud cover while headed down valley can be a risky maneuver because you don't know where the bottom of the clouds are. If you are going to attempt a maneuver like that make sure you have enough power and gas to climb back up above the clouds and enough horizontal distance to turn around in the valley.
When I need to make a tough decision like this I remind myself to live in the moment. When I say, "live in the moment" I mean, make the correct decision for that instant. I was not out of gas, I was not even low on gas, gas was not the issue for another 45 minutes. I needed to make the correct decision in the moment so I could continue the flight and make more correct decisions in the near future. My point is simply that future dilemmas tend to pollute immediate decision-making and keep us from doing the right thing in the moment. I think this is true with life as well as flying.
Shortly after taking this picture I was no longer comfortable maintaining my altitude because cloud cover was increasing so rapidly. Getting stuck ontop of a cloud layer while low on gas, is what pilot-nightmares are made of. So I descended in a place where I could land on the ice if the weather was bad. The weather was legally flyable so I continued home through the mountains and landed with my legal fuel reserve.
Make the correct decision for the moment, you can't regret it.
