IFR/VFR Conflicts in Magenta Areas
Magenta area with MVFR airport West Texas loves low ceilings in the morning, an amazing fact when you consider that this is desert country. A notable exception is the Pecos airport, which evidently has a secret contract with the weather gods for unlimited ceiling and visibility year round. We plan accordingly. When we go west from Dallas, we carefully monitor the ceiling of our preferred refueling stop, the uncontrolled airport Andrews in the Midland/Odessa area. Andrews almost always has ceilings of less than 500 ft in the morning. If the ceiling lifts to at least 1,000 ft by the time we get there, we land and refuel. If that fails, we detour to Pecos, which invariably is VFR. Andrews is surrounded by a magenta boundary. It means that within that area one may fly up to 700 ft AGL while staying clear of clouds, provided visibility is at least one mile. So why wouldn't we land at Andrews if the ceiling was at least 700 ft, instead of demanding at least 1,000 ft? We could sim...