<img src="images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> LOL I was just kidding, you can't get rid of me that easily.

Maybe I need to clarify some points. I wasn't suggesting that everyone stay home in a padded cell and have their food shipped in daily. Otoh, there's a difference between a "calculated risk" and foolhardiness, or outright negligence.

Flying through the mountains in a light plane is a calculated risk, as long as you actually do the calculations; but doing so with only one day of training, without (apparently) bothering to check the weather reports, and getting yourself sandwiched between two frontal systems, is arrant stupidity.

>>Also, pilots aren't likely to take kindly to having untrained individuals question their judgement and may be reluctant to 1/2 educate a bunch of back-seat drivers.

If a pilot got miffed because a non-pilot passenger questioned his judgement, then IMNSHO that in itself would be a red flag that this is not a pilot you would want to trust your life to.

I have two words for those pilots - JFK Jr. (Or is that 4 words?) <img src="images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> I'm a private pilot, though I haven't flown for several years. I hope that, as a pilot, I would never put a passenger into the position of having to say "Sorry, but I have a bad feeling about this flight, so I'm going to stay on the ground." Many pilots might actually be relieved, because it enables them to cancel the flight without "losing face", as it were.

Anyway, I'm about falling asleep here so I'd better wrap this up before I start rambling inhecorently...