"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
...
Don't let your SO talk you into breaking rules. Lie if you have to.

There's no need to lie. Just assume your authority as PIC, and do
what's right.

That ignores the larger picture.

Personally, I'd be incredibly disappointed if I found that I had to lie to
my spouse in order to get her to be comfortable with my decisions with
respect to maintaining the safety of a flight. However, from many
discussions with other people, including many close friends, I recognize
that, unfortunately, my situation is uncommon. Many people are in
relationships, and quite happily so, where they rely on deception at times
in order to keep things going smoothly.

When you write "there's no need to lie", you are no longer talking about
aviation. You are making a statement about the person's relationship with
his SO, one that may or may not be true depending on the actual nature of
the relationship (an aspect of the issue that I doubt you have personal
knowledge of, unless you are their couple's counselor, or a very close
friend, or something like that).

I would say that your statement is more accurate when talking about
passengers generally. There is less risk in simply making an outright "no"
statement when not dealing with an intimate relationship. But when dealing
with a spouse or similar, things are more complicated and lying may be the
only way to ensure the safety of the flight *and* the integrity (such as it
may be in such situations) of the relationship.

All that said, I would also say that there is generally no need to educate
one's passengers, spouse or otherwise, on the finer details of the
regulations or of the flight planning details. If they don't know that 30
minutes during the daytime is the legal minimum, or if they don't know the
precise fuel load and fuel burn, it's easy enough to truthfully say, simply,
"we can't make this distance safely without stopping for fuel along the
way".

How often this will work obviously depends on the individual passenger, how
much interest they take in the flight planning and execution, and how
willing they are to accept the pilot's definition of "safely". I have also
found that, even if the passenger does wind up taking an interest and
looking into the details later, it still allows me to execute the flight as
I see fit, delaying arguments until such time when they are rendered moot.
After the fact, if there are still questions, I am more easily able to
address them without getting bogged down in "but I really want to make this
flight!" emotional issues.

Using this method, I have yet to have a single passenger get upset with me
regarding any decision I've made with respect to flying. Or at least, as
far as I know. And that includes flights that were simply cancelled, as
well as having to leave one person on the ground while I took two others
sightseeing, due to balance considerations (granted, in that case, the guy
was an unexpected tag-along, invited by my passengers and not me). All of
my passengers have recognized my authority as pilot in command and while
they may ask questions regarding why I make decisions the way I do, they
have never complained about my right to make those decisions, or about the
outcome of such decisions.

Perhaps most of my passengers would be just as cooperative if I filled them
in on all the little details, but some of them may not have been. I've
found it's simpler, and easier to stick to my standards, when the passengers
are volunteered information only on a "need to know" basis. I encourage
interest, and do answer questions truthfully when asked, but I don't go out
of my way to explain every little detail, and that includes not going out of
my way to differentiate between issues that are regulatory in nature and
issues that are my own personal safety requirements. (Of course, with the
responsibility to ensure the safety of the flight, the pilot's own personal
standards could be considered regulatory as well, I suppose ).

Pete