Have u ever scrapped a flight because of a “feeling”?

WannFly

WannFly

Final Approach
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Cut out early from work today to go fly. Weather is awesome with clear and a million and calm winds, well, 7 kts, but that’s calm here.
While doing preflight a voice inside the head kept telling me not to take off today. Closed the hangar door and came home. Had a good night sleep, not tired or stressed. Looking at the sky and thinking why I didn’t fly. Can’t think of a logical reason.

This ever happened to ya’ll?


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Of course not. That’s just silly

Just kidding. Sometimes it’s good to listen to the voices in your head
 
Not a voice in my head since those don't start until the avionics master is on but yup, sometimes just said that I really don't want to fly today. Also have had the feeling of "oh yeah, time to fly!". It all balances out.
 
Yes. I flew anyway. Ended up in a bad spot, over water, building CB next to me and a rate of climb indicated while full power 10 deg nose down but still in clear air. It was a really bad feeling, especially since I was in the Bermuda Triangle at the time. I knew storms were forecast, but they ended up forming a lot sooner. My gut said don't go. But I went anyways. I got lucky.
 
this days is just getting weird. just got a call from buddy, he wanted me to fly his sister to denver tonight, her mother in law is in a trauma center and less than 24 hrs to live. had to politely decline.... flying 600 miles, at night, with 2 pax who have to get there as soon as they can, over not so flat land, for a new VFR only pilot... just didnt add up. i feel bad, but i am pretty sure i made the right call
 
WannFly said:
Cut out early from work today to go fly. Weather is awesome with clear and a million and calm winds, well, 7 kts, but that’s calm here.
While doing preflight a voice inside the head kept telling me not to take off today. Closed the hangar door and came home. Had a good night sleep, not tired or stressed. Looking at the sky and thinking why I didn’t fly. Can’t think of a logical reason.

This ever happened to ya’ll?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Normally it's not clear blue and 22, but I trust my gut, sometimes the hardest part of flying is knowing when to say no, very few people wished they didn't trust their gut, the inverse is not true.
 
Yep, and also for other activities like diving and motorcycles. Sometimes it just doesn’t “feel” right. Trust your instincts.

Unless you’re trying to stop the Luftwaffe from bombing London, you do not have to fly.
 
Always ignored any feelings and went. Maybe I've been lucky.

Stuck to 'listening' to real stuff like weather/illness/mechanical issues and that has really helped, I think.
 
I thought I was the only one. Thanks for having the nuts to throw stuff like this out there.

I think it ends up with not really being in the “mood” to fly. The weather is good, the plane is fine, the pilot is wierd.
 
A couple of my every other week trans-state booty call flights in the Warrior back in 2012 were less than smart. I did traverse through some "yellow" one night on the FIS-B wx map at that turned out to be shall we say, not so yellow. I may or may have not verbally negotiated out loud with the man in the sky that never talks back, but I was on my way to get kitty, so I'm sure he understood. :D Of course I no longer do those things....because I'm married, what ***ing kitty anyways amma right!?! LOL *looks over shoulder, sweet wife's upstairs* :D:D
 
hindsight2020 said:
A couple of my every other week trans-state booty call flights in the Warrior back in 2012 were less than smart. I did traverse through some "yellow" one night on the FIS-B wx map at that turned out to be shall we say, not so yellow. I may or may have not verbally negotiated out loud with the man in the sky that never talks back, but I was on my way to get kitty, so I'm sure he understood. :D Of course I no longer do those things....because I'm married, what ***ing kitty anyways amma right!?! LOL *looks over shoulder, sweet wife's upstairs* :D:D
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thats a great reason to listen to the other voice and go anyway ... ha ha ha
 
Matthew said:
Yeah, but it's been a while since my Spidey sense kicked in. The trick is to make sure it doesn't become a habit.
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nah.. am glued to aviation weather rt now planning my next flight ...
 
WannFly said:
this days is just getting weird. just got a call from buddy, he wanted me to fly his sister to denver tonight, her mother in law is in a trauma center and less than 24 hrs to live. had to politely decline.... flying 600 miles, at night, with 2 pax who have to get there as soon as they can, over not so flat land, for a new VFR only pilot... just didnt add up. i feel bad, but i am pretty sure i made the right call
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You did. You know your limitations (nothing wrong w/ that either) and didn't push it. Good decision WannaFly.
 
Usually it's a series of little small issues that individually would not have been grounding, but cumulatively put together resulted in me not flying. In general, that's considered risk management and it's a thing nowadays.

As far as just getting a "feeling" with nothing to substantiate it, that happened very early on and was usually a case of nerves from not flying for a while. I overcame it by deciding to do a loop around the pattern, and if I still felt that way after one take off and landing, I'd taxi back and call it a day. In every case my confidence was boosted by that .1 hr flight and was enough to make the butterflies go away.
 
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Brad Z said:
As far as just getting a "feeling" with nothing to substantiate it, that happened very early on and was usually a case of nerves from not flying for a while. I overcame it by deciding to do a loop around the pattern, and if I still felt that way after one take off and landing, I'd taxi back and call it a day. In every case my confidence was boosted by that .1 hr flight and was enough to make the butterflies go away.
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been there, done that, slowly pushed myself from 1 lap to 7 and then go somewhere. thats not the case today. i have flown about 6 hrs in last 8 days
 
Not so much flying although it does happen once in a great while. OTOH, I’ve looked over some Black Diamond runs I’ve skied dozen of times before and said, “not today” even though it looks the same as those dozen of times before.

Cheers
 
WannFly said:
this days is just getting weird. just got a call from buddy, he wanted me to fly his sister to denver tonight, her mother in law is in a trauma center and less than 24 hrs to live. had to politely decline.... flying 600 miles, at night, with 2 pax who have to get there as soon as they can, over not so flat land, for a new VFR only pilot... just didnt add up. i feel bad, but i am pretty sure i made the right call
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You made the right decision. No doubt about it.
 
WannFly said:
Cut out early from work today to go fly. Weather is awesome with clear and a million and calm winds, well, 7 kts, but that’s calm here.
While doing preflight a voice inside the head kept telling me not to take off today. Closed the hangar door and came home. Had a good night sleep, not tired or stressed. Looking at the sky and thinking why I didn’t fly. Can’t think of a logical reason.

This ever happened to ya’ll?
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Yes.
 
Just a feeling? I don’t think so.

But a perception I wasn’t at 100% on a given day? Sure. But I could always point to something specific - bad night’s sleep, pain meds the day before, headache coming on, that sort of thing. And over a 40+ year flying career, probably not more than a handful of times, not counting when I was clearly too sick to fly.
 
WannFly said:
this days is just getting weird. just got a call from buddy, he wanted me to fly his sister to denver tonight, her mother in law is in a trauma center and less than 24 hrs to live. had to politely decline.... flying 600 miles, at night, with 2 pax who have to get there as soon as they can, over not so flat land, for a new VFR only pilot... just didnt add up. i feel bad, but i am pretty sure i made the right call
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You made the right call on that one!
 
I had a weird dream once about flying. In my dream I was flying a C-425 on amphibs. We were heading towards a tall antenna with guy wires on all sides. I tried turning but one of the floats hits a guy wire, and that was where I woke up.

Note to self...... don't fly a C-425 on amphibs.....especially near tall antennas with lots of guy wires.
 
Yup. I had a nagging feeling not to fly. I tried to ignore it and was cleared for take-off and on the roll when that voice told me to reject the take-off. I did, taxied to the hangar and shut down.

I also think you made the right decision. Don't think twice about it. There will be more days to fly.
 
Good call.

A few years back when I first got back into flying I had a similar experience.

It was the perfect weather for an afternoon flight. I borrowed a friends 172 with the intent to go out in the practice area & clean home rust off. I got the Skyhawk out of it's hangar, & did a pre-flight. As I sat in the cockpit I couldn't get the headset to work. I tried everything but couldn't get sound or get the mic to break squelch. I tried a different headset & did everything I could think of with the audio panel. There was no hand mic. I was frustrated at first but then got real angry.

I let the battery sit for a while & tried one more time...it all worked. By that time I was so *issed off I decided it wasn't the day to fly.

Funny thing, on the way to the airport I had a nagging feeling that I wouldn't be flying.

I put the 172 back in the hangar & called the owner on the way home. She said "Ya, that happens every now & then"

Now that I own my own airplane I can repair the little glitches & don't have to wonder if things will function.

Over the years I've scrubbed a lot of flights because I've had that gut feeling. It was usually weather related.

I've been flying since 1972 so my intuition has worked thus far.
 
WannFly said:
this days is just getting weird. just got a call from buddy, he wanted me to fly his sister to denver tonight, her mother in law is in a trauma center and less than 24 hrs to live. had to politely decline.... flying 600 miles, at night, with 2 pax who have to get there as soon as they can, over not so flat land, for a new VFR only pilot... just didnt add up. i feel bad, but i am pretty sure i made the right call
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It is a perversity of human nature that we can make the correct decision and still feel bad about ourselves and/or question our self-worth. Your arithmetic was spot on. It does seem that you made the right decision in this instance.
 
Ken Whitson said:
It is a perversity of human nature that we can make the correct decision and still feel bad about ourselves and/or question our self-worth. Your arithmetic was spot on. It does seem that you made the right decision in this instance.
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I agree 100%. I hope I would have made the same decision.

This get into “Most Conservative Action” territory.

Any time your’re second-guessing and thinking, “Turns out I probably could have made that flight successfully”, hidden in the word “probably” is the admission there existed a chance you might not have.

Even if you’re 99% sure that something is doable, that also means 1 out of 100 times on average you’ll fail. On any given flight the odds are small indeed that that will happen, but over 100 or 1,000 such decisions, the odds quickly shift away from your favor. For those planning a long and uneventful flying career, beware the word “probably” when making decisions.
 
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When I'm going flying, I first work through the IM SAFE list. Then, once I get to the plane, if there are too many things slightly askew (i.e., aircraft or weather or whatever, e.g., radio not working quite right, weather could deteriorate, winds are marginal, etc.), I'll cancel.

If I have a nagging feeling, I'll just sit and think it out. Usually, it's a stress or proficiency related thing. With stress, I'll decide if it has a bearing on the flight and I won't be able to perform. Typically it's some minor work related thing and flying is the best solution to that. :) If it's proficiency, then I'll get an instructor and work it out. If I'm not confident in the plane, I'll check with a mechanic.

I don't want the nagging feeling to turn into not wanting to fly because there's some vague fear that I have. I want to discover it, confront it, and get it dealt with. Flying too important to me to just let it fade away.
 
Sure of course...I've gotten to the airport before, walked out to the ramp, looked at the plane and said "No, not today". It wasn't because I thought something bad was going to happen or I had a premonition or anything, I just didn't feel up to throwing myself through the air at more than 100 mph.

However if I thought something bad would happen, I would probably avoid an opportunity for me to make it real.
 
Never gotten to the airport and changed my mind... its always before I leave the house... Its a 40 min drive to the airport so if I make the trip, I'm usually sure I want to go... OTOH, I have made the trip and then cancelled because something was broke and by the time I got it fixed I wasn't in the mood anymore...
 
If I really listened to the voices in my head a whole bunch of people would be on the wrong side of the grass.
 
1st. thing,,, you dont Scrap a flight,,, you Scrub a flight!

and Yes I have,,, Scrubbed a flight, but it was a premonition based on the law of threes.
my wife wouldnt start getting ready to go when I thought she should,,, thats 1.
she was dragging her feet to get finished getting ready,,, thats 2.
sooo I took my flying gear out and put it in the car, doest really save any time, but I felt like I was doing something toward getting to the airport....
im sitting in the car,,,, waiting,,, finally she comes and gets in,,, OK, now were getting somewhere...
but wait,, where are my sunglasses?
its a nice day, i cant even drive to the airport without my sun glasses, but they are nowhere to be found.
turn the car off, take the keys and head for the house,,, really disgusted with myself for forgetting such an important part of flying gear!
then i hear her,,I FOUND THEM...
i had been sitting on them,, all bent out of shape, but not broken,,, thats 3!!!!!
 
Every time I think I want to start looking into ownership in a serious manner, I get that “Nawww, not today” feeling. Gotta do it some day. Waiting for “some day” to pop up on the calendar, but every time I flip to a new month I never see any single day named “some day.” Otherwise, I’d just about give up a couple toes for the ability to fly whenever I want, yet scrub a flight just because...
 
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