Originally Posted by
calcapt
Here are my basic guidelines in determining alternates:
If your destination weather sucks, plan an alternate where the weather is good, or some place you really want to go. Your dispatcher will do all the legal-eze filing and forecasting but you as the PIC should look closely, based on your experience and gut instinct, to make your decisions. Just because you can legally do it doesn't mean you should. I routinely get filed with alternate airports that I would have no intention of going to. We file that way for convenience and efficiency but in reality I will likely have other ideas in case we really need to divert. As long as I have enough fuel and resources to get somewhere I want to go safely, I am good with it. You can look up the specifics of your regs over the first round at your chosen alternate.
Very good point. I was riding the jumpseat on a 737 that had to divert due to destination weather. Our original alternate was fine to land at but would not have allowed us to take off with the very full load we had. Long story short, the decision was made to divert to a different airport that would not have required the crew to leave payload behind.