And here was me thinking it was just me……Flying with the family is definitely the worst, and I always looked on my flying as a de stresser, but find when flying the family, until I am airborne, I can get quite stressed. Not outwardly, because I am trying to convey an air of calmness to all around, but, as always it is my wife that picks up on it. Once airborne, I am fine, and totally relax, but it seems to be all of the pre check stuff. Weather, have I done this, have I done that. What seems to work, at the airport, is that I leave the family to get a coffee, whilst I, on my own, go and get everything ready. Then get them out to board. On my own, I really do relax, but admit I still have the odd doubts, especially where weather at destination is subject to change.
Good topic, and same here! No doubt.
I am even a bit surprised that the very experienced pilots such as Flyer59 are reporting the same. Good to know. With my only 330hrs total time and, in parallel, pretty fast track up to MEP/IR within 4 years I always kept thinking that this ‘ugly’ feeling is only caused by my lack of experience. My typical mission profile is not the local short haul trip around my backyard and back to the airfield, but the long haul across Germany or even different countries in Europe. Thus differing weather situations are typical challenges which then make me to check the general weather forecast already days ahead, the ‘flugwetter.de’ and GRAMETS sevearl times a day finally the last two days prior to a trip. I am totally happy now having a weather radar on board as well as stromscope and FIKI, but still I am very critial and thus a bit nervous.
I remember a trip from KISM to KEYW I made with my IFR instructor in a C182 when I just had my IR. It was a very rainy day, we are flying in solid IMC with a lot of heavy rain and I said to him ‘I would not have made this trip without you, that’s for sure’, when he lauhged and said ‘Same here, I would not have made this trip without you’. We both laughed because he of course had a fully different meaning with this similar sentence, but it relaxed the sitation for me.
Wonder how many hours it needs to be fully relaxed because you have seen everything already.
I used to have the similar reaction as Peter the night before departing on a longer VFR flight as sole pilot with pax, mostly due to WX concerns and uncertainties. But as experience has increased the less stress there is the night before. Also if I had planned to have a pilot friend in the RHS I always slept like a child all night.
Today the stress for VFR is mostly gone and has turned to IFR instead. As a rookie IFR pilot there is always a bit of nervousness when departing to new airports.
At 2000 hrs I find it the same as at 200hrs. I am quite capable of being awake the whole night… Fortunately, and maybe there is a medical explanation for this, I find that lying there with eyes shut is almost as good as sleeping – for one night only. The IR has made no difference – it probably just expanded the wx spectrum in which one will fly 
I can empathize with the comments here. I do think we are trained to consider many variables but where there are too many unknowns, it can un-nerve us a little. For example, flying a strange SID, what if CBs are embedded and we can’t get VMC, what if I miss a ATC call etc. I find having another pilot on board can ease the nerves and can be fun if you haven’t flown in a while but tend to want to be rather current for taking non-pilot or in particular, non-technical friends up. On another point, how many of us get annoyed when we cancel a flight only to realize the weather was fine and we were being overly cautious?
I have the same experience as Peter as far as weather goes. I don’t usually lose sleep over it, but it is on my mind more than would be necessary. OTOH, I’m not bothered at all with unusual routes/airports/aircraft. I guess that’s because you can prepare for that, but you can’t really prepare for the weather since you don’t know what it’s going to be like.
I don’t then to suffer from this in recent years, but that’s probably because my flying isn’t as adventerous.
Most of my flying will be within Ireland, which is all very familar to me and uncomplicated.
When I go futher afield I almost always do so with another pilot who I’ve flown plenty with. (We split up the legs and fly a leg each.) That means that any weather decisions and options are already discussed considered, and the weight of those decisions doesn’t rest totally on my shoulders. It also means that the other party doesn’t have any unrealistic expections about how certain the flight is to go ahead. Or in other words, they won’t be surprised if we have to cancel, or hand around the airport all day waiting on a weather break.
However if the weather forecast is less than clear blue skies, and the passenger isn’t a pilot, then indeed the stress does kick up a gear as all the weight of the decisions fall on my shoulders. I suppose if I could afford to do more international trips with non pilot passengers, then this would be more of an issue!
Great thread. Nerves are a standard human reaction and are common in other fields such as competitive sport or music performances, and presumably of benefit (even if it doesn’t feel like it) as they must have an evolutionary background.
If your experience and currency improves, the threshold at which the nerves or worry kicks in should increase too. Let’s say you have just taken up golf – you will probably be nervous on the first tee at your local club with people waiting behind which is more than enough pressure for you. Whereas a professional player would need to be in contention at a major tournament to start feeling similar pressure.
But with flying, you will probably keep pushing your personal minimums as the experience level increases, to a constant stress level. Which means a flight at 1,000 hours experience might be as stressful as your first solo circuit in perfect conditions.
But whether this stress effects your sleep or only affects you in the morning of the flight probably varies with the individual.
I have read this thread with great interest. In some ways it is a relief to hear that what I consider to be very experienced pilots still also suffer from the same worries that I do. However, I had always assumed that I worry so much because I lack hours and experience, so perhaps the admissions from the more experienced pilots on here mean that I should simply resign myself to a future of always feeling worried before I go flying!
