The Gap in the Line and the Nonrefundable Hotel
You are a CFI flying a commercial applicant's long cross-country in a Cessna 172S. You departed at 1430 local with 53 gallons usable, burning 10.2 gph, on a 2.4-hour leg. Ninety minutes out, the ADS-B display shows a broken line of cells about 15 miles wide directly across your route, and the convective outlook covers the area; the storms are moving from 250° at 25 knots. The applicant's checkride is in five days. He says, "I can pick through the gap near the river - and the airport behind us has no fuel, plus my hotel is nonrefundable." The nearest airport with fuel, weather reporting, and a runway long enough is 20 nm southeast of your position and about 60 nm north of the line. Ceilings are 8,000 ft broken, visibility 10 miles in haze. You have been on duty since 0600; this is your fifth flight today. The applicant is paying for the flight and watching the clock.
1. What are the risk factors in this situation, and what do you say and do right now?
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Risk factors, named plainly: convective activity with no airborne weather radar and no real-time depiction of a broken line, cells moving at 25 knots, pressure from a checkride date, a sunk cost (the hotel), the customer-pays relationship, and your own fatigue after nine-plus hours on duty and four previous flights.
"Picking through a gap" is not a VFR option. Gaps close, unseen cells build between the visible ones, and a 25-knot storm motion means the line is on you quickly. The decision is to divert now, not to press 20 more miles and then divert with fewer options. Turn southeast, land at the fuel airport well clear of the line, and stop there.
Say it once, clearly, and take the decision off his shoulders: "We're diverting to X. Here's why - the line is 15 miles wide and moving toward us, and we have no radar to see what's in the gap." Let him fly the diversion so he stays engaged and gets the practice. Do not argue about the hotel or the checkride in the air; the hotel is already spent and the checkride moves if it has to. Debrief the decision on the ground.
2. How would you use this event to build the applicant's own decision-making so he could do it without you on the checkride?
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Use a structured framework and make him run it out loud, because on the checkride he will be alone:
- PAVE before departure: Pilot (his experience, his fatigue, your fatigue), Aircraft (fuel, equipment, radar), enVironment (the line, the motion, the terminals), External pressures (hotel, checkride, money).
- 3P: Perceive the hazard, Process it against the plan and the alternatives, Perform the best option.
- DECIDE for the in-flight version once the hazard is identified.
Then convert it into triggers he can recognize without prompting: "Any cell shown within 20 nm of our route, or any deviation more than 30° off course with no clear way around, we land." Triggers beat judgment calls under stress, and they are what he can rehearse.
Rehearse it on the ground with the chart, the fuel numbers, and the alternatives laid out, including a frank discussion of sunk cost. In the debrief, have him re-run the decision himself and tell you what he would have done at minute 60, minute 90, and now. Connect it to the risk-management task elements he must demonstrate on the practical test.
3. Does this event affect the endorsements you will sign for his practical test?
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Not automatically, but it tells you exactly what to work on. The endorsements under §61.39 attest that the applicant has received the required training within the preceding two calendar months and is prepared for the practical test - that is a statement about the applicant's competence, not about how the flight went.
What matters is what happens next. If he can independently identify the hazard, assess it, decide, and communicate the decision, he is prepared. If he still needs you to make the call, he is not, no matter how good his airwork is.
So: log this leg as training, build a scenario-based lesson with deliberate weather decision points, and have him brief the go/no-go and the in-flight divert before you fly. Then let him make the divert decision solo-observed while you stay quiet. If the pattern doesn't change, postponing the checkride is the professional answer - and he should hear that possibility early, not the week of the test. Prepaid hours or a family trip do not change what your signature means.