I am a fanatic about not ever going into the
last hour of fuel, for any reason...

This will usually keep you out of trouble, but I can see where it might
get you =into= trouble. If, for example, weather is deteriorating, an
unnecessary fuel stop will have you flying in worse weather than if you
had simply continued on. Which is to be preferred depends of course on
how much worse, and how much further on. There are many variables, and
while it's usually safer to just be on the ground, that defeats the
purpose of flying in the first place. Using five minutes of a one hour
reserve to save half an hour in which ceilings would be lowering from a
smooth 3000 to a ragged 1500 with the sun going down is an exchange I
would make. Using forty-five minutes of that same reserve to avoid a
3000 foot scattered layer in the middle of the day is not.

Setting conservative personal minima may be a good thing, but knowing
they are conservative should give you leeway to extending them in some
circumstances, and accepting the additional risk in exchange for
additional benefit, or for lowering a different additional risk. One
must always be careful not to let the creeping "just-a-little-mores" get
you, but that is what aeronautical decision making is about. Personal
minima not to be exceeded "for any reason" is not really decision
making, it is decision avoiding. Sometimes that's a good thing. But
not always. I see nothing wrong with your decision.

Jose
--
The monkey turns the crank and thinks he's making the music.
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