What is the general planning rule near convective weather during planning?

• A. Plan to route around or avoid convective weather; do not fly through thunderstorms if possible.
• B. Always fly through thunderstorms to save time.
• C. Avoid convective weather only at night.
• D. Ignore convective weather if visibility is good.

Answer: (A)

When planning, the emphasis is on steering clear of convective weather, especially thunderstorms, whenever possible. These storms bring strong updrafts and downdrafts, severe turbulence, wind shear, hail, icing, lightning, and gust fronts, all of which can appear unpredictably and rapidly. Routing around or avoiding convective weather minimizes exposure to these hazards and keeps fuel and time penalties as the trade-off for safety. If avoidance isn’t feasible, you still want to minimize the time spent near the storm, choose the least intense part of the cell, and have a solid alternate plan and sufficient fuel in case a diversion becomes necessary. The other options miss the fundamental safety priority: flying through storms to save time is dangerous, avoiding convective weather only at night ignores hazards present any time, and ignoring weather when visibility seems good can still put you at risk due to hidden storm activity and rapid changes.