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Old October 29th 06, 02:40 AM posted to rec.aviation.piloting,rec.aviation.student
Roy Smith
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Posts: 478
Default My Second Solo X-Country

"CareBear" wrote:

I had asked my CFI if he thought I should fly another time and he
replied with something along the lines of how do YOU feel about it?


This is really what the solo X/C is all about -- learning how to make
decisions on your own.

About 40 nm from 3A1, I really had an experience. There were clouds
everywhere! The MEF for this quadrant is 2200 feet. So now I got to
make a decision since the clouds were about 2300 feet. I decided to go
above the clouds.


That's a decision that concerns me. What were you going to do if the cloud
deck went on for 100 miles and you couldn't find a place to get back down?
There is a reason why they've got this rule:

61.89 General limitations.
(a) A student pilot may not act as pilot in command of an aircraft:
(7) When the flight cannot be made with visual reference to the surface

which, BTW, you violated.

I talked to Huntsville Center and informed them of my intentions. They
had no problem with my decision


It's not ATC's job to tell you what you're allowed to do, or what's a good
idea. The controller doesn't know what your abilities are. It's not his
job to know what legal restrictions apply to student pilots, and it's
certainly not his job to make judgment calls about what's appropriate or
safe for you to do.

You probably told the controller something like, "I'm going to climb to
4500 to get above the clouds". What did you expect the controller to say?