3rd April 2023 Proserpine light aircraft crash.

[facthunter]

Autopilot's fail occasionally in the real world. You should be able to cope with it. Earler Autopilots can't cope with severe turbulence so you hand flew things often in the worst of weather including having a few goes at getting in occasionally if the conditions were Marginal and fluctuating.  Thats what you are paid for.   Nev

[kgwilson]

I flew deliberately into IMC once. There were valid reasons I won't elaborate on. The 5 hours "Under the Hood" training were invaluable. I set my heading & looked only at the panel saying to myself in my head "Believe the instruments" all the time. I popped out into bright sunshine at 9500 feet after an 8000 foot climb & then called CH-CH centre. It works but feels wrong.

[Garfly]

11 minutes ago, kgwilson said:

I flew deliberately into IMC once. There were valid reasons I won't elaborate on. The 5 hours "Under the Hood" training were invaluable. I set my heading & looked only at the panel saying to myself in my head "Believe the instruments" all the time. I popped out into bright sunshine at 9500 feet after an 8000 foot climb & then called CH-CH centre. It works but feels wrong.

Yes, if ever I was caught in such a situation I think I'd do the same.  I'm not persuaded that attempting an immediate 180 is the way to go, at all.

[facthunter]

I suppose the worst  thing that happened to me was early in the Piece we had just put out the firepots at West Maitland and the CFI asked me to check the circuit for Night circuits.Training. At 500" turning crosswind I was in thick fog. I thought of Doing a Uee but decided a DR circuit (timed) was a better alternative, as there was no wind at all. I broke out turning final and landed and the training session was cancelled, naturally  The students could go home. I had bugger all night hours up but enough to use my brand new instructor rating for the intended purpose (Night VMC). but it didn't stay VMC.  I got caught.  I suppose I could have flown to Sydney and got radar to help. Nev

[kgwilson]

4 hours ago, Garfly said:

Yes, if ever I was caught in such a situation I think I'd do the same.  I'm not persuaded that attempting an immediate 180 is the way to go, at all.

A 180 was not an option. I'd descended through a hole in thickening cloud to find myself in a valley with all the tops of the hills in cloud. Up was the only option. The Archer 2 I was flying was fully IFR but I had no IFR training except the under the hood stuff. At the time it didn't seem a problem & I had 2 passengers with me & they trusted me emphatically. It was only later after returning from our destination later that I realised how lucky we'd been.

[RFguy]

Best to do some Instrument flying training.   I think that S&L and Rate 1 turns can be effectively  taught in a hour of work if the right clouds are abound. I mean clouds, not under the hood. real cloud time is  priceless. and a little bit of a situation/serious reality brain state  goes a long way for future flying.

 

A  good  simulator seems pretty good to maintain those basic , IMC back into VFR skills , recency recency recency ! flying the aircraft from the 6 pack scan needs to be inate.

I am a firm beleiver this should be part of basic syllabus for the XC rating of a PC/RPL/PPL  (but requires an IR aircraft)
 

as----If that is your first 180deg  turn in IMC, I'd put real money on it that you will put it into a spiral dive, and if you are lucky, you will fall out of the bottom of the cloud before Vne ensues or your run out of altitude...

 

yeah yeah dont go near clouds ? I dont buy it. I have been flying around the western edge of the tablelands in what looks like benign weather  (FEW) suddenly to be surrounded by puffy cumulus that seems to appear out of nowhere and become BKN and in cloud. The real cloud time (IE you are looked into the white)  instead of under the hood drives home  just how wrong your perception and brain can be  in a white out !!!

Edited April 10, 2023 by RFguy

[turboplanner]

49 minutes ago, RFguy said:

Best to do some Instrument flying training.   I think that S&L and Rate 1 turns can be effectively  taught in a hour of work if the right clouds are abound. I mean clouds, not under the hood. real cloud time is  priceless. and a little bit of a situation/serious reality brain state  goes a long way for future flying.

 

A  good  simulator seems pretty good to maintain those basic , IMC back into VFR skills , recency recency recency ! flying the aircraft from the 6 pack scan needs to be inate.

I am a firm beleiver this should be part of basic syllabus for the XC rating of a PC/RPL/PPL  (but requires an IR aircraft)
 

as----If that is your first 180deg  turn in IMC, I'd put real money on it that you will put it into a spiral dive, and if you are lucky, you will fall out of the bottom of the cloud before Vne ensues or your run out of altitude...

 

yeah yeah dont go near clouds ? I dont buy it. I have been flying around the western edge of the tablelands in what looks like benign weather  (FEW) suddenly to be surrounded by puffy cumulus that seems to appear out of nowhere and become BKN and in cloud. The real cloud time (IE you are looked into the white)  instead of under the hood drives home  just how wrong your perception and brain can be  in a white out !!!

Well in GA you get three hours which is usually enough to show you the benefits to life of staying away from it without training.

There are two reasons not to just do a few more hours and think you are OK to fly IFR out of an inadvertent entry into cloud.

 

1. There is a lot less cost involved throughly learning MET so you can understand the MET report and identify the clouds ahead and not get caught.

2. In the three hours it's not hard to learn the scan process and fly level.........in calm air, but usually if you've flown into weather you didn't identify          you will be bouncing, the instruments will be bouncing, the stress level will be through the roof, so you will be pushed out of the stable position          and have to get back in by reading the instruments. A lot of ATSB reports find that a deceased pilot has been making a habit of a few little          excursions into IMC and getting away with it. If you look at the IFR syllabus you find not only a lot more than three hours, but a mandatory x hours per year once you get your rating, so your cost of flying is exponentially higher if you need to do business without sitting out a day or two at the other end.

3. An important factor in IFR flying is the rock filled cloud. You can be flying towards rising ground and you don't know there's a cliff there. 

    In IFR flight planning you idenify a much wider corridor on the route and have a lowest safe altitude for each sector. That involves searching within the corridor for all the hills and mountain peaks, high tension power lines and towers. You can still do this in flight but the quality of the search is less, and if you've inadvertently flown into could, you're pretty much in a raffle.

In Victoria we had six skydivers flying IFR from Perth smash into the only mountain in their way. For a casual fly in one pilot decided to fly IFR - straight into the side of a hill. At another fly in, with a clear (except for the thick cloud he was in) run available to the coast, the pilot, knowing he was near mountains started climbing......straight into one.

Yet with the correct training syllabus, correct currency, correct MET interpretation, correct flight planning, commercial pilots are doing it with an exceptional safety record every day.

[facthunter]

Recency of the order of 35 days is required on some procedures. Some particular places  (like Queenstown NZ) require a special endorsement for RPT ops. Charter etc operate to a lesser standard and that's reflected in higher accident stats. Single pilot IFR is high workload and challenging and generally acknowledged as such.   Nev

[Thruster88]

ATSB investigation discontinued. 

 

 https://www.atsb.gov.au/media/news-items/2023/unlicenced-pilot-flew-towards-poor-weather-prior-collision-terrain

[RFguy]

waste of a good airframe.

 

unfortunately also took the life on an innocent.

Edited July 4, 2023 by RFguy

[rgmwa]

Unqualified, inexperienced and now dead. What a waste of two lives.