flying into ifr without training, sad outcome.

[aro]

The one thing that seems to be missed in this thread is how poor the VMC minimum conditions are.

 

If visibility is 5000m you are legal, but you can't see a horizon, you can't see landmarks 3 miles away, you can't see mountains 3 miles away.

 

Even the maximum 10000m the BOM will report is very poor if the visibility is actually 10000m.

 

Legal VMC conditions can in practice be IMC, so you need to be aware and you should probably use much higher minimums than simply what is legal, particularly for visibility.

[turboplanner]

53 minutes ago, aro said:

Try again - the word you are looking for is "cloud".

 

Visibility is how far away you can see things you don't want to fly into - clouds, mountains etc. Clouds are - well, clouds.

 

If visibility is 5000m you can't even see a cloud until it is closer than 5000m.

Take it up with Airservices then.

[F10]

I would have to agree that some pilots may flirt with cloud or low visibility conditions which may lead to a false sense of security.  I personally would not recommend climbing straight ahead, unless you were very, very sure, of cloud size and cloud tops. Certainly most ULA's are not equipped for IMC. Flying partial panel is not easy, and requires lots of practice...I have tried some last ditch maneuvers in VMC of course, in my Gazelle, probably more out of curiosity than anything else. High wing aircraft have an inherent stability due the CofG being below the wings. If I hold the aircraft in a low power setting and attitude for low speed and lock both my arms on my legs, she keeps wings level. Even in a stall, she will tend to keep wings level and waffle downwards in a pretty gentle descent the sweet little thing!  Now yes, you are flirting with possible autorotation. To me most IMC situations end up with aircraft exceeding VNE and breakup due to normally negative "g" overload. In a spin you can't overstress and breakup....but yes, you better hope the base is high enough to recover. All in all a very terrifying situation where clear thinking is difficult. Please practice carrying out off field precautionary landings (low go around...another good thing to practice...)  and low level circuits, a far better option. Even better....avoid IMC!

One thing to remember and in my experience, there is definitely a difference....between flying under a hood and actual IMC....believe me. Actual is scarily for keeps....I have been in a Kiowa with a student when I had vertigo so badly, all I could do was lock two hands on the cyclic and fully focus on the Attitude indicator, because as soon as I looked away I would make an involuntary control input to match what my toppled ears were screaming at me....very uncomfortable. Modern display panels and GPS, help enormously with SA and orientation of exactly where you are.    

[facthunter]

The spiral is the usual way of going in.  Nev

[Ian]

On 15/05/2024 at 2:14 PM, BrendAn said:

does anyone besides me find  it odd that when you listen to awis the wind speed is in knots,  the cloud height is in feet and visibility is in kilometers.

instead of going between imperial and metric why isn't there one standard.

Personally I'd like to see all units and airspace management changed to metric however that process has been put on the back burner.

If Europe ever has a crack at this I'd love Australia to follow.

 

 

[spacesailor]

 Mps.  ( metres per second ) .

Is it better ! .

And don't start me on their '  crazy  ' time .

SI Paris France .

spacesailor

 

 

 

[Area-51]

On 15/05/2024 at 2:14 PM, BrendAn said:

does anyone besides me find  it odd that when you listen to awis the wind speed is in knots,  the cloud height is in feet and visibility is in kilometers.

instead of going between imperial and metric why isn't there one standard.

There "is" one standard; "Nautical Mile"  "feet" "seconds" "minutes" "hours" "degrees" "north" "south" "east" "west" "kilograms" "litres" and "psi"... everything else is fake 😃👍

[spacesailor]

France wants a " METRIC " 10 hour day .

 

I sleep 8 hours & feed my face for 1.5 hours .

Only leaves enough time for a good sheeet. 

spacesailor

 

[Area-51]

6 minutes ago, spacesailor said:

France wants a " METRIC " 10 hour day .

 

I sleep 8 hours & feed my face for 1.5 hours .

Only leaves enough time for a good sheeet. 

spacesailor

 

France gave the world many things that did not work out well on this planet... Maybe on other planets a metric day will work just fine. On this planet 12x12x12 allows everybody to celebrate christmas together, a case of beer to be used as currency, and enough eggs to make an omelette.

[Ian]

I've had to deal with far too many types of legacy units during my working life.

Chains, links, yards, feets, inches, decimal inches, knots, furlongs, miles, gallons, pounds, quarts, pints, stones, ounces, troy ounces, cooling tons and while there is a bit of a sting initially everyone breaths a sign of relief when SI units are in common use.

 

Aviation and the associated industry has just been a bit of a retard with respect to this.

 

Everyone knows that a single system used on a universal basis would produce fewer errors and reduce human factors. Instead we persist with system that no-one uses in their education or in industry.

 

I know that lots of people will make light of this however every time we fill planes we need to deal with converting quantities which are no longer acceptable in any other industry. Every time we do weight and balance we need to know how many pounds a person weighs. Does anyone under 80 know what their weight is in stones and pounds? And should they?

 

Otherwise intelligent people froth and scoff simply because they don't want change rather than accepting a common good.

 

But you know I'm right. 😉

[Ian]

Back to the topic at hand.

Not everyone is as perfect as they might want to be in assessing their ability to assess risk and mistakes will continue to be made across the aviation industry. So we can assume that despite the best possible advice people will continue to fly into IFR conditions.

I was told a story by a pilot who was far more experienced that me who flew into a situation of low cloud and icing weather. He was a qualified IFR pilot however familiarity with the route made him make a couple of dumb decisions. 

 

Does anyone know of a resource which points out the pros and cons of the 180 back out of the cloud or straight and level increasing altitude.

 

VFR flight above the cloud also poses risks in this area as it's often easier to see breaks in the cloud to climb through rather than finding holes to descend through. It's always nice to see your destination cloud free when choosing this route.

[Garfly]

1 hour ago, Ian said:

Back to the topic at hand.

Not everyone is as perfect as they might want to be

in assessing their ability to assess risk ... //

Does anyone know of a resource which points out the pros and cons of the 180 back out of the cloud or straight and level increasing altitude.

 

Ian, IMHO, the two articles below (among many other resources) offer serious, savvy and fulsome discussion of the issue. But most experts seem hesitant to favour one method over the other, I guess because so much depends on circumstances (what's above; what's below; what's ahead; what's in the panel; what's in the pilot's head, etc.).

   

As F10 suggests, above, you wouldn't want to start a climb if you weren't pretty sure of the tops. Though I suppose it might work for a thinish stratus layer (that is well below the freezing level). On the other hand, the SKYbrary article (below) urges caught-out VFR pilots to avoid turning unless and until the manoeuvre has been well planned out (and, I assume, there's an AH available).

 

 

Inadvertent VFR Flight Into IMC | SKYbrary Aviation Safety

SKYBRARY.AERO

---

The primary risks associated with VFR flights in IMC are loss of control and inadvertent flying into terrain.

 

 

Inadvertent VFR Flight Into IMC

MYCFIBOOK.COM

Edited May 19 by Garfly

[facthunter]

Keeping wings level is more easily achieved.  When you end a turn you  think you are turning in the opposite direction.. You have to absolutely TRUST the instruments or you're gone.  An autopilot doesn't know when it's in cloud , but you must know where the rocks are. Nev

[turboplanner]

2 hours ago, Ian said:

I've had to deal with far too many types of legacy units during my working life.

Chains, links, yards, feets, inches, decimal inches, knots, furlongs, miles, gallons, pounds, quarts, pints, stones, ounces, troy ounces, cooling tons and while there is a bit of a sting initially everyone breaths a sign of relief when SI units are in common use.

 

Aviation and the associated industry has just been a bit of a retard with respect to this.

 

Everyone knows that a single system used on a universal basis would produce fewer errors and reduce human factors. Instead we persist with system that no-one uses in their education or in industry.

 

I know that lots of people will make light of this however every time we fill planes we need to deal with converting quantities which are no longer acceptable in any other industry. Every time we do weight and balance we need to know how many pounds a person weighs. Does anyone under 80 know what their weight is in stones and pounds? And should they?

 

Otherwise intelligent people froth and scoff simply because they don't want change rather than accepting a common good.

 

But you know I'm right. 😉

I'd suggest you haven't done much W&B.

[facthunter]

Kgs to Lbs is dead easy.  Add 10% and double it. Nev

[BrendAn]

2 minutes ago, turboplanner said:

I'd suggest you haven't done much W&B.

Weight and balance sheets in pounds are a pia. It takes longer for me to look up conversions than doing the sheet itself. I hate imperial rubbish

[turboplanner]

2 minutes ago, BrendAn said:

Weight and balance sheets in pounds are a pia. It takes longer for me to look up conversions than doing the sheet itself. I hate imperial rubbish

Two dead chooks x 60 dead chooks /  40 dead chooks = 3 dead chooks.

[Garfly]

9 minutes ago, turboplanner said:

Two dead chooks x 60 dead chooks /  40 dead chooks = 3 dead chooks.

But only in Australia   ;- )

[facthunter]

A lot of it grew out of marketing produce but at least a foot is about a foot long... I have to work in both every day making stuff. Nev

[Ian]

22 minutes ago, facthunter said:

Kgs to Lbs is dead easy.  Add 10% and double it. Nev

But kgs to kgs it easier, just multiply by 1

[BrendAn]

19 minutes ago, turboplanner said:

Two dead chooks x 60 dead chooks /  40 dead chooks = 3 dead chooks.

Helpful as usual

 

[BrendAn]

6 minutes ago, facthunter said:

A lot of it grew out of marketing produce but at least a foot is about a foot long... I have to work in both every day making stuff. Nev

We all have to work with it but one standard would better.

[turboplanner]

Just now, BrendAn said:

Helpful as usual

 

Clearly not for you; it's very elementary and the conversion only has to be done once then used as the base. I'm stunned that people who are implying that they are PIC are saying there's a problem.

[facthunter]

What units would you use for altitude? 1.000 feet is about the right size .  Nev

[turboplanner]

1 minute ago, facthunter said:

What units would you use for altitude? 1.000 feet is about the right size .  Nev

What we've got to comply with is what we've got.

 

In answer to your question, when metric conversion came to Australia I'd just learnt Imperial, but realised the key factor was to be able to visualise the new measurements, so I started holding finger and thumb at 20 mm, 50 mm and visualising  1 metre and in building things, quickly adapted.

 

I could pace yards very accurately for mesuring post spacing and wire measuring for farm fences and had a lot more problem pacing metres; in fact don't trust myself even now,

 

I was luck enough (or unlucky enough) to catch the last of Full Reporting in cross country flying, and got to know exactly what 2 minutes to check point looked like, so converting, 5 km to minutes at cruise then practicing on every flight is not that hard, and gives you ample time to make a turn, and why would you wait to the last legal second anyway?