Long-time pilot Steve Fleishel talks to AccuWeather about the weather and flying from a pilot's perspective.
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00:00Welcome to AccuWeather's Ask the Experts. I'm your host Jeff Cornish. Whether you
00:16nerd out on it or just want to know more about it, we talk to some of the best
00:19minds in meteorology, space and science to get answers on everything you've
00:23wanted to ask. And today we're talking about aviation and air travel and how
00:28the weather can impact you when you're traveling through the air. And joining us
00:32as our expert in this episode is longtime pilot Steve Fleischel to give
00:38us some insight on weather and aviation from the pilot's seat. So Steve, thank you
00:42so much for making time for us. My pleasure. Thank you for having me. Well
00:46it's a great talking to you. And Steve, your resume is very impressive. We
00:50understand that you were born and raised in Deland, Florida. Went to Clemson and
00:55earned a degree in electrical and computer engineering, which is not an
00:58easy task, before heading to the Air Force, where you then flew C-131s in the
01:031970s. After the Air Force, you started a career with Delta Airlines, where you
01:07flew the Boeing jets, including the 727, 757, 767 and even the 777, and then the
01:15McDonnell Douglas MD-11. These are big planes. All of that has led you to
01:20logging over 25,000 flying miles. What a career and great knowledge base to draw
01:26from, so we're honored to have you on the show. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
01:30All right, let's get to it. And how much weather training does a pilot have? Is it
01:36more intense and thorough, depending on the type of plane and the purpose of
01:40their flying? Absolutely. When you first start with the airline, the weather
01:46training is more intense, of course. They want you to be aware of all the
01:52particulars that that particular airline wants you to know about, and then once
02:00you pass the initial training and are tested on that, then every year when you
02:06go back for what we call recurrent training, you are also exposed to updates
02:15to that information, new products that are available, new sources that come
02:21online that can be can be helpful to you, and it also involves the different areas
02:28that the airline might fly to that could be new. Maybe now you're going to be
02:34doing more trips to South America and the weather is different there than it
02:37is perhaps to Europe, where fog might be an issue in the wintertime. South America
02:44has convective thunderstorms in the summer that are concerning, so they cover
02:50all the differences and the different parts of the world, and everyone is
02:54exposed to that kind of information with recurrent training and on a regular
03:00basis. And on an operational level, before a flight, what kind of weather
03:05information do you get and who do you get that from? Is it from when you work
03:09with Delta? Would it be from Delta or would you get it from air traffic
03:12control? Really many different sources. Delta would of course use information
03:19from the National Weather Service and they have their own meteorological
03:23department, so a lot of that information from multiple sources was revealed to us
03:29in printed form on a flight plan. We would want to see the forecast weather
03:36for when we were going to arrive at any given destination, and there would be
03:41several lines for the time before and when you would arrive and the time
03:47after, so a forecast, a current observation. We would also get convective
03:54activity charts that would show where the weather is in a printed form as
04:00well, but also we have on board, of course, weather radar, and that's a
04:09very helpful tool, needless to say, but before the flight, it's pretty much a
04:17printed portrayal. International would involve other products like turbulence
04:24predictions that we would also get as well. And as you're progressing through a
04:30flight, how much responsibility do you have in terms of monitoring the weather
04:34versus having others dictate where you might travel through air traffic control
04:39or the FAA? Well, I think it's an interesting and a very
04:45effective system where there is a FAA licensed position called a dispatcher
04:51and that position involves a person who is required to monitor a flight that he
05:02is assigned to and from the time it leaves until it arrives at the
05:07destination and that dispatcher has a joint responsibility with the pilot in
05:11command to make sure that the safest possible route is selected and as
05:19situations change, the dispatcher may actually have a unique and better
05:26perspective than I would have in my immediate area as to what's coming up,
05:30let's say, for an international flight four hours ahead of me. So that's not
05:36going to show on my radar, but the dispatcher would be aware of it and
05:39could data link, call me up, let me know what to expect. So there are many sources
05:48in flight that are available to me and one of the most useful ones would be
05:53other pilots report, hey, it's really choppy here at this altitude and you are
06:00listening to those broadcasts, air traffic control will let you know what
06:04another airplane has experienced. So there are a great many sources available
06:10to you for a given flight once you're underway to help you to make the best
06:15decision, but ultimately it is the captain's decision what you do with that
06:21information, whether you should continue or go somewhere else. And you mentioned
06:25turbulence there, the choppy air. Are there days when it's difficult to find
06:30smooth levels for flight? Yes, and unfortunately that in a high-density
06:38traffic area, let's say the Northeast, a lot of airplanes are trying to use a
06:43limited space. You may be aware that it's much smoother at a lower altitude, but
06:50that altitude is not available to you. Somebody else is already there. So there
06:55are times when we know what's smooth, but we can't get there. Other times we
07:00can hopefully make a request early if we're aware of it ahead of time, and you
07:06proactively try your best to get the smoothest altitude that you can, but
07:12there are limitations. You don't have an unlimited altitude capability. It may
07:18be smooth at 41,000 feet, but your airplane can't get there. It's too
07:23heavy to go that high. And if you go too low, you burn so much extra fuel that
07:31you may not have what you need to have with reserves to continue to your
07:36destination. So there are parameters that limit you to what might be the best
07:44possible ride, but you always try to achieve that. Very interesting. We want to
07:50get to our first viewer question. This comes from Bill in Virginia, and Bill
07:53writes, what additional work goes into pre-flight checks when weather is a
07:58factor? Well, when weather is a factor, let's say a typical example would be
08:05that there are thunderstorms in the area, and there's a likelihood that they may
08:13restrict our routing as we leave an airport. We won't be able to go the
08:18normal way. You work that out. Let's say a domestic flight would be a captain
08:24and a first officer. For international, typically, you have a captain and two
08:28first officers. You put your heads together and discuss possible options. If
08:35we can't go this way, it looks like to me that going more to the northwest
08:41today would be a better choice. What do you think? And you collectively build a
08:47plan so that you are ready, should that occur, that you can choose something
08:53else than the normal way, because the weather is now restricted, which you
08:58would usually do, to something that may take you out of the way, but is safer and
09:04smoother. And Steve, as a commercial pilot, do you typically fly the same route or
09:10routes that you're assigned in a variety of different paths in a typical week?
09:16Most of us, I think, choose to have some variety, and the scheduling, especially
09:22with computerization of scheduling, makes that a pretty easy task to be able to go
09:29to different places rather than always the same place. If you want to, and you
09:36have what we call our seniority that allows you to choose something, some
09:41people like to fly to the same places, but I often would get the question, oh,
09:47so what route do you fly? And that's really from the old days when there
09:52weren't so many routes, and people would fly the same place every time. And for
09:58myself, I did mostly international, and I like to change it up. I would do a Paris
10:05trip, and the next week I might go to Frankfurt, Germany, and that was my
10:10preference. And others, I noticed, seemed to want to do that as well. I bet you've
10:16seen the Aurora Borealis and all kinds of amazing things on those North
10:19Atlantic flights. We're looking forward to speaking with you. Almost every time. Oh, that's
10:23great. That's amazing. Well, this is all great information so far. We want to
10:27continue our episode in just a couple of minutes. Coming up later in our Weather
10:30Wise segment, it's our latest edition of Is This Really a Thing? when we look at
10:35popular weather myths to see if they really are true. Like, are you safe if
10:40lightning hits your car? But coming up next, Steve is back to give us his
10:43expertise for the pilot's seat on what you, the consumer, can do to plan for a
10:48better trip when flying. We're also answering more of your questions when
10:52Ask the Experts continues.
10:55Welcome back to AccuWeather's Ask the Experts. I'm your host, Jeff Cornish.
11:08Retired Captain Steve Fleischel is back with us to talk about weather and
11:12aviation. In our first segment, we talked about the information and planning a
11:16pilot goes through as they get ready to fly us to our destinations each and
11:20every trip. And Steve, we want to get your take on how to help people travel
11:25better. You probably have some good insight on that. So we want to ask you to
11:28maybe take off your pilot hat for a moment and become a consumer. When it
11:32comes to the weather and traveling, are there things we can look at and plan for
11:37to have a better flying experience? I think so. When it comes to weather,
11:44especially summertime when you have rain showers or thunderstorms, that it's
11:50common for them to move through a given area. If you select a flight that's early
11:55in the morning, we all know that's typically not when bad weather occurs.
12:00And that's an easy choice to pick the earlier flight. And also, if weather were
12:07to cause delays, the airplane that leaves first thing in the morning or
12:13early is probably already there. It doesn't have to get there. So later in
12:19the day, the airplane that you're going to take, it may be wonderful where you're
12:24departing from, but that airplane had to come from an area where it
12:29experienced a delay due to weather. So earlier is better. And if you are
12:35concerned or uncomfortable with bumpier conditions, if you want to call it that,
12:41then also later in the day or early evening typically is a
12:48smoother time. It's easier to find smoother air than in the middle of the
12:53day. So that to me is a simple and an easy way to do and it's a little more
12:58pleasant. You get there sooner when you take that earlier flight. And if we do
13:02see a large storm system on its way into one part of the country, maybe a few days
13:06out, is it better to try to switch our plans early or should we try to stick it
13:10out and fly even though we know there could be problems? My advice is to stick
13:16with your plan because the airline in any airline is really pretty good at
13:23managing that better than you would you would be trying to guess it at what kind
13:28of situation you could improve upon. You don't know what airplanes are available
13:36or or what the parameters are for an airline to work with, but they have to
13:44manage that all the time. So stick with the plan and let them manage their part
13:50of it. That's part of what an airline provides is to get you there the best
13:55possible way, the safest way of course. So I say stick with the plan. Don't try to
14:01second-guess or come up with your own solution. I just don't think you have a
14:06good chance of making a better one. And what are some of the biggest weather
14:11hazards that ultimately lead to delays? I would say that in my experience that
14:18whenever there are icy conditions where like freezing rain or ice and snow
14:28that requires de-icing, and there's a picture I think I see that maybe, that
14:33that takes a lot of time to take each airplane and spray it down with the
14:40de-icing fluid and then you apply a second fluid to keep it from sticking on
14:45the wings. That is additional time that is it just you can't account for it. It's
14:52going to really ball things up. So that's one place where you would see the most
14:58amount of delay. Another one would be that anytime that it's not clear and
15:04wonderful, let's say a busy airport like Atlanta, that if there's fog or other
15:11restrictions where every single airplane is going to have to be doing an
15:14instrument approach, the air traffic control system can't handle as many
15:18airplanes as they can when it's clear. The spacing requirements are very
15:24different between airplanes. So the improvements I saw at toward the end of
15:31my career were that instead of holding airplanes as we many of us have
15:37experienced are in a holding pattern, they hold the airplanes at the point of
15:42departure instead because then they can sequence in and control the system so
15:48that air traffic control is not overwhelmed by the number of airplanes.
15:52Way better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air than being in
15:56the air wishing you were on the ground. That makes good sense. We do have a few
16:01more viewer questions. So we want to hear from Sean in San Francisco. Sean,
16:05what do you want to ask the experts? What is one of the worst cases of flight
16:12delays or airport closures due to weather? I would say that once again I've
16:20seen the longest delays occur when icy conditions required every airplane to be
16:27de-iced and that just takes an inordinate amount of time to be safe and
16:34to operate within the parameters that need to be adhered to. De-icing an
16:42airplane, you only have a certain amount of time before you have to become
16:45airborne. The de-icing fluid is not a forever thing. If it continues to you
16:51have cold precipitation, that is going to may even require you to go back to
16:58the gate because it took too long to get to the runway and take off before now
17:04you need to be de-iced again. That's the the delays I've seen that have been the
17:08greatest is would be that and second to that would be if you have to divert
17:14let's say because a bad weather came in by thunderstorms and you you can't land
17:20at your intended time you have to go to a different airport refuel and then get
17:24to the original destination. That can take quite a bit of time otherwise the
17:30delays are dramatically less I would say. That makes good sense.
17:35Well Steve thank you so much for your insight. That does wrap up our question
17:38and answer segment and we do want to thank retired pilot Steve Fleischel for
17:42joining us today. Steve thanks again so much. My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
17:46Up next it is time for weather wise are you safe from lightning in a car and
17:51also are men more prone to getting struck by lightning than women. We're
17:55going to let you know if these are true or false when we come back.
18:04Welcome back to AccuWeather's Ask the Experts. I'm your host Jeff Cornish. It is
18:08time for weather wise and in our segment is this really a thing we reveal if
18:12popular things people say about the weather are fact or fiction. So let's
18:15start with a question. Are you safe from lightning in your car? Is this really a
18:20thing? And the answer is yes at least for most of us. According to the National
18:25Lightning Safety Council you are safest inside a hard-topped metal vehicle. When
18:30lightning hits the shock is dispersed by the car's metal frame keeping those
18:33inside the car safe. Next up does lightning always hit the highest point
18:38and superlatives are dangerous especially in weather. If you say always
18:43or never it typically does not work out well. So lightning does not decide what
18:46to strike. It depends on where the charge accumulates and the boat can
18:50easily bypass a taller object to hit a smaller one. Sometimes it even hits the
18:54flat ground. So it's not really a thing. Lightning does not always hit the
18:58highest point. In general though the path of least resistance is often to a taller
19:03or more isolated or even a pointy shaped object where that charge can accumulate.
19:09Finally are men struck by lightning more than women? Men are four times more
19:14likely to have a lightning strike than women. So when a storm hits skies
19:17involved in outdoor activities are less likely to react to the lightning threat.
19:20So yes more men are hit by lightning than women. So maybe we should hop off
19:25the golf course or get out of the boat maybe a little earlier. Thanks so much
19:29for joining us here on AccuWeather's Ask the Experts. I'm Jeff Cornish. Don't
19:32forget when you have a question about weather space or science you can write
19:36us or send us a video question at AskTheExperts at AccuWeather.com. You
19:40can also call us at 888-566-6606. Have a great one!