Anxiety On Cross Country Stops

I completely understand. I sometimes have the same anxiety mostly because I have a very packed schedule with my business. If I go to visit family over the weekend, generally I HAVE to be back Sunday night in order to make my appointments on Monday morning. I do have my IFR rating, but I have to be cautious about summer weather in the part of the country where I fly. What I simply do is look at the weather and if there is any question about Sunday night and I have a very important meeting on Monday morning, we simply don't fly. But in reality that only means a very small number of flying trips canceled for any given year.

Work is easy - I always fly to my remote offices. If weather keeps me from flying my own plane back, I simply fly Southwest and keep the plane in a hanger in Midland until my return trip, usually within a week.
 
For #1, consider additional training/practice. You can never get better at those things you rarely or never do. I fly out of crosswind central, so crosswind training was necessary to even get to solo stage. After 30 years of flying in perpetual turbulent crosswinds at home, I ain't skeered of no crosswinds anymore. I might get sweaty palms if it's a wild ride, but I'm confident of my ability to get on the ground safely.

For #2, consider getting your IR, especially if you like flying, and like taking extended trips in your plane. The IR will do wonders for your confidence in aircraft control and weather awareness. And a a layer of low clouds that can be easily topped will no longer be an impediment from getting from A to B comfortably. There is nothing like using and instrument rating to climb above into the sunshine on a scuddy day that is otherwise benign. I HATE dodging radio towers and limited sight lines when flying below a low cloud deck. It's not fun.

#3 is justifiably worth thinking about, but the chances of a major weather event destroying your plane is remote. If you KNOW horrible weather is coming, then don't fly or store your plane in a safer location. If you get hit with unexpected destructive weather, that's what insurance is for. I'd hate to diminish the utility of my aircraft because I thought it might get dinged. It's pretty dinged already, anyway.

As for #4, try your best to not go there. It's very seductive to get home when it is so close by air, but it's not worth huge risks in bad weather or with a partially functional aircraft. I've been stranded enough by the commercial airlines to know there are creative ways of getting yourself home, even if inconveniently or less than affordably if you HAVE to get somewhere.

You sound like you have a healthy respect for weather and your personal skills. That is a good thing. Experience and training will allow you to expand beyond your current comfort zone.
 
I think most of your anxiety can be calmed with a few good TAFs at your destination and home...that is, if you are talking about single day flights out and back. The TAFs will cover that time span. TAFs can be wrong, but usually will not be way off. So if they are calling for winds or clouds that are acceptable, but close to your personal limit, don't go. If they are way way way to the safe side of your personal limit, then go and relax.
 
Sinistar said:
So when you guys and gals do your hamburger runs or overnight trips are you completely relaxed or do you also find yourself growing anxious about the return flight, checking wx, worrying about being back in time, etc?
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It was mentioned at this forum how someone flew into Taylor, TX (T74) and left for lunch, then found his avionics stolen upon his return. Ha ha. But then someone stole tires off Bernie Ecclestone's Benz a few years ago, too.
 
At least you are flying XC. You hear stories about pilots that won’t leave their home drone. The reason I fly is XC trips. I hate drilling holes in the sky with no purpose. My wife complains all the time about how much money it is and how slow it is, but she likes flying. When I just got hooked up with a new club last month the first thing she said was let’s fly to San Francisco. Lol. Being in Salt Lake even that’s a little much for me. Maybe when I’m checked out in the club 182.

Anyways, I never feel nervous on XC regarding the flight, and I think the reason is I spend a ton of time planning, using paper maps. I’ve tried planning a flight once just on the iPad and it didn’t feel right. I guess that’s my little hang up. When we were flying to Vegas there was a rain storm that brought low viz halfway there. Got stuck for five hours at a small airport. I got out my maps and replanned the flight. Couple of local pilots were looking at me quite strangely. I think it just relaxes me. Maybe you can try that?

I don’t do it to ease nervousness but maybe it actually is distracting my brain from thinking.

But the “will I make it on time” thing is troublesome. You gotta flush that out. I know that more often than not there will be delays on XC flights. Just gotta roll with the flow. On top of that delay mentioned above on a separate flight we went to Denver. The night before departing back for home it snowed a lot. Wife and I sat in the airport restaurant until like 2 pm (on Super Bowl Sunday) waiting for the snow to melt off.
 
I've been doing this since 1964, and I still get a little twitchy every time I fly into a new airport. Down in the bottom of your brain is your amygdala, a little blob of brain flesh, and it has evolved over a million years to make you nervous in order to keep you alive.
The trick is not to ignore it, the trick is to put it to the best use possible.
 
WannFly said:
...i relax much more when there are no pax
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Most of us probably feel a great responsibility when we have passengers. Although I enjoy flying places with friends, as I get older I prefer the experience and memories from being at a destination more than the actual trip there and back. The latter is less novel than it used to be.
 
One little game I've played is to plan a xc trip on paper only (with no intention to fly). Look at the forecasts for the duration of the trip and see if they truly come to pass. It's a good exercise in flight planning and gets you better tuned in with weather. As a side effect, it may help relieve some of you anxiety.

Definitely consider getting your instrument rating. It takes you to the next level, in my opinion. Whether or not you intend to fly in actual, it'll make you a better pilot.
 
@Sinistar

I can relate. It’s not so much the cross country itself, it’s typically the return leg back. Most of my XC’s originate in the morning when things are nice & CAVU and then the return leg happens later on in the afternoon when the storms begin to pop up.

For instance, I flew up to a funeral this past June. About 120nm each way. When I left, it was clear as a bell, however scattered thunderstorms were forecasted later in the day, so I was prepared to deviate around them, but hoped they wouldn’t build as much as forecasted. I can tell you that during the entire time I was sitting in that funeral, I was thinking about the weather later that day. I kept checking radar on my phone, and taking a peek outside. After the burial was over around 2p, I told my family who picked me up from the airport that I needed to get back and start to head home. Wx ended up being nice most of the way except for a line of extreme precipitation that was hovering right over my destination. Fortunately it dissipated before I got to it and I only flew through light showers to get home.

I think a lot of times our imagination can get the best of us and our mind likes to play the worse case scenario over and over.
 
Sinistar said:
Maybe the thread title isn't the best but here goes.

I have found that just about every time I have flown somewhere (cross country) and plan a extended full stop that I have had varying degrees of anxiety about getting going again. Sometimes enough that the stop (eg. restaurant, visiting, driving around) is a bit hard to really relax into and enjoy. When you see this on you tube videos, read forums or talk to friends they don't seem to mention it. The passengers really don't have a clue unless they are also a pilot. So is it just me?

I should note that quick stop on a cross country for gas or bathroom stop has never botherd me. It is the stops that seem to have open ended times such as food, meeting people to visit or leaving the airport to explore.

So when you guys and gals do your hamburger runs or overnight trips are you completely relaxed or do you also find yourself growing anxious about the return flight, checking wx, worrying about being back in time, etc?
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I used to be that way for many years after getting my PPL. Would always be concerned about the weather, about what conditions would be like after dark if I was delayed, etc. I became a lot more relaxed about it after getting my IR, but I still had gnawing concerns about whether the engine would start, or the runup would reveal a grounding issue and force me to leave the plane and rent a car. Lately I've become more fatalistic about that sort of thing, plus I avoid hamburger runs on days before I have to work - basically I prefer to do them on Friday nights and Saturdays.

Bottom line is, I think it is a common issue and one that tends to become less of a problem as one gets more experience (and more advanced ratings ;)).
 
NordicDave said:
For me.. I generally have an attitude the trip is the adventure, otherwise I'd fly commercial. Taking this view makes the "unknowns" part of the joy, instead of anxiety.
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Timbeck2 said:
There's never a story to tell about a flight where everything went right.
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I always tell my passengers "Flying is always an adventure, it's just not always the adventure you had planned on." Then, take things as they come. No worries at all.
 
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