Pilot Weather Wisdom

On a recent Tokyo flight, the weather charts depicted a tropical storm cutting across our route. This prompted a somewhat rare call to flight dispatch querying our routing. My opening line, “Couldn’t you get us a little closer to the storm?” ensued in silence. I quickly retorted with “kidding,” and we quickly got into discussing our options. Damrey was forecast to head northeast (and it did). This meant deviations would have us flirting with Russian airspace, which is presently verboten. I requested a southern approach, and that’s what we did. I had three experienced pilots with me (no training on this flight), so it helped immensely and was a non-event into Tokyo. We met a Fedex crew from Anchorage at a popular aircrew restaurant and they admitted they flew too close. Even though cargo pilots don’t factor in passenger comfort, I could tell the skipper had his druthers. I wrote this quip to remind pilots to always challenge. It’s part of our job description especially when it comes to weather.