#192 Stop the Scud Running – Lowering your altitude to avoid clouds or bad weather is dangerous..
22 Nov 2025 · 4 min
Kenny Keller explains why lowering altitude to fly under clouds and bad weather kills pilots. He describes a VFR flight that ended 40 miles off-course and a recent diversion back to Toledo, arguing that get-home-itis makes people ignore the safest choice: turn back.
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All right, day 192, coffee with Kenny. Wanted to shoot this real quick. We land on the ramp here at Lorraine county and my daughter's laughing at me always. And then Patrick comes out. Follow her on YouTube. Just got his private rating in R22 about, about a month ago, right? Yep. And so you know, part of the fun of getting out in the world and you land on a ramp somewhere and boom, you know, there's, there's a Hogs fan. So congratulations on your private and thanks for coming out and talking to us. Thanks for the help. And Today's I believe 192. I remember we're on a cross country trip and I talking about the helicopter fatal accidents and stop the scud running. Okay, that's the number three thing that just came out from the US Helicopter safety team and this is a great topic for today because using my Excel for the example again of doing the stupid that we do, I took off of here years ago because I had get home itis and the girl holding the camera right now is my 16 year old daughter. Well, I wanted to get home. She was just a baby at that time. And the guy that owned the company here had an airplane and he would let me fly home into airplanes on the weekends. Flight service said VFR not recommended and I did it anyway between here and Indiana. I got in myself in a horrible situation. Scud running in an airplane, flying it like it was a helicopter. So I'm admitting to my stupidity here people. I get turned around somewhere between here and Toledo. I got so confused on where I was. I thought I was landing in Toledo and I landed an airport 40 miles in the other direction. I have never been so scared in my entire life as that day. So when they say stop the scud running many of us experienced guys have done it. Get home itis. I had a good reason, right? I wanted to get home for the weekend. 4 now half hour drive versus jumping airplane and get home maybe in an hour and a half or two hours. What I do, I chose the airplane. It was stupid. It was one of the stupidest things I've ever done in my life. So when they say stop the scud running, those of you that have done it, you know what I'm talking about and you've done it and you survived it. And there's been those that haven't survived it. Scud running is why do we put ourselves there? I don't know. Last night, glorious with me on this cross country trip from Indiana to Ohio. First half of the Trip was great, was beautiful. We knew there was some weather on the second house. Half of the route we stopped, got fuel, and if you don't know what a diversion looks like, I'll show you in the next video. I'll put it up. If I'm at a computer, you know, here's our track going across, going across. And then all sudden we diverted back to Toledo. So last night we get fuel, we continue on. And I'm thinking, well, we can go around this storm that way or we could go around that way. And then there's lightning off in the distance. And my daughter says, the voice of reason. Why don't we just turn around, dad? Yep, good thinking, Gloria. We turned around, went back to Toledo, got a nice room, hot wired a room, and we stayed. Finishing the trip today. Why do we push ourselves and do this stupid shit? Get home? Itis or it's your pressure from your job, someone's pushing you. We got to get that aircraft there. We need it there by tonight, we need it there tomorrow morning. We're paying your wages. We don't want to pay for another night in the hotel. There's those reasons as well. So I'm gonna wrap it up. The wind's picking up, probably making a bunch of noise in the camera. So thanks for coming out again, Patrick, and stop the scud running like, subscribe, put your comments down below. We'll see in day 193.
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