These stories are useful, BUT should this guy be flying at all, even with an instrument rating? 1000 hour VFR pilot? Did he learn nothing in those 1000 hours? I just don’t get it. 120 knots 20-50 meters above the ground? I admire his courage in speaking about it so frankly, but still….
Unfortunately I have heard (first hand) many more like it, where people continued a VFR flight into seemingly assured death, but lived to tell the story.
Sure a % of pilots just find flying hard work and probably only just got the PPL after say 100hrs. I trained with several like that, so there must be many more. A one-time business partner of mine was described by his FI as having “a reaction time measured on a calendar” and he gave up before getting the PPL, saying he wasn’t enjoying it. This was 10 years before I started flying and I thought the description was spot on. But not all will give up flying early like that.
I also think a much bigger % are possibly good pilots but cannot do exams; not sure if that relates to susceptibility to doing dumb things in flight.
But I don’t think the pilot in the video was unskilled. I reckon he was pretty good. After 1000hrs he ought to be!
One must make one’s own decision. Back when I flew in aeroclubs I refused to depart on a weekend club trip to Guernsey because the weather for the next day seemed to preclude a safe return
That is fine if you know what you are doing and are independent in terms of your thinking and resources (alternatives). A lot of people are stuck where they are, cannot escape their aeroclub, would face fresh check flights if they moved clubs, etc. And non-owners with limited money are stuck with having to find spare seats and it’s difficult to apply pressure when enroute because you won’t get another offer…
In the wider picture of continuing into “impossible” situations, there is unfortunately a certain psychology involved and in the civilian environment you cannot train that out / weed out the people who are susceptible to it, and you have no mandate to do so. I am sure all FIs can tell stories of students they thought weren’t going to be around for long, but it is not their job to do anything about it once the person has a PPL. The pilot very likely can fly OK; it’s an attitude thing.
I find it admirable that in the US, they let him speak out to everyone and make an instructional video out of it. In Europe (well, most countries), people would be too afraid to even come forward anonymously on a forum with such an experience for fear of the “regulations police”.
We would never allow here on EuroGA the sort of thing that goes on elsewhere where people get lynched for writing about some mistake they made. This is one past thread on that topic. You will find that the big “polite” US sites are closely modded, so you don’t see much bad stuff going on.
My understanding from French pilots is that the IR is hard and rather heavy on theory. Some who went that route regret the expense and endurance. I have spoken with others who passed the FAA IR in the USA without too much trouble despite not having English as their first language. The average aeroclub pilot does not fly enough to keep current, but there are often retired professional pilots who accompany other members on longer trips and everyone seems satisfied.
A hangar partner has this RV8 and flies all over the place. He also flies larger aircraft for a well known airline. He told me he had a complete electrical failure once and flew home OK, but you can see that he has a vacuum back-up instrument. I asked him about his VFR GPS which is the same as mine. I have tried to use it for simulatated IMC approaches and found myself going round in circles. He said that it was rather tricky as the screen updates so slowly. Before one flight to Brittany where there are many wind turbines and the weather is capricious I asked him about his strategy. He said simply that obstacles higher than him turned red on his Dynon Skyview.
And this Jodel was flown into the side of hill in a perfectly executed descent in IMC, but he had no navigational aids and thought he was somewhere else. He was a military pilot and acrobatic champion.
You need training, skills and the right instruments to fly IMC, which the recreational pilot may not acquire. The first pilot has the right training, skills and instrumentation, while the other one had excellent training and skill, but inadequate instruments.
Simon
WhiskeyPapa wrote:
Usually, my reaction to these stories is, “I can imagine myself getting into that situation,” and I can maybe imagine this scenario beginning, but his handling of it was pure panic.
Exactly. A person used to clear blue sky and a flat earth, doesn’t do much imagining about these kind of situation. In the end, it’s a preparation thing, like Jan mention.
jwoolard wrote:
the incremental cost of basic IFR kit in a homebuilt is on the order of 100s of pounds
I’m not sure what you mean by basic IFR kit. My Onex is NVFR equipped (as 99% of all VFR “kits” are today), but from there to IFR costs a couple of GTNs today (or one + VOR), at least 10-15 k + work + a couple of more instruments for redundancy.
Aviathor wrote:
I just saw a conversation about the BIR on another (French) forum where the VFR community basically expressed that IFR is for the pros any most PPLs will not have the required currency to use such a rating
I tend to agree to this actually, but it depends on the equipment on board. Norway and Alaska are very similar, weather and topology, as far as flying is concerned. With IFR you will be able to fly between main cities, but nowhere else where you really want to go. IFR is not all that useful. Good VFR skills will get you “everywhere” (you cannot land in heavy snow IFR either, so not much real world difference). Good VFR skills include using all equipment on board, GPS, VOR, ADF, DME, AH, etc. But, I don’t see why you should learn IFR for this reason.
simon32 wrote:
You need training, skills and the right instruments to fly IMC, which the recreational pilot may not acquire. The first pilot has the right training, skills and instrumentation, while the other one had excellent training and skill, but inadequate instruments.
Simon, you are entirely right about the IR requiring a significant personal and financial investment to obtain, and regular flying to stay current. What I object to is that they do not embrace the efforts made by EASA to make some kind of IR or IR(R) accessible to more recreational pilots by lowering the threshold. I get the impression that because they do not want an IR themselves, others should not get one either. Very selfish.
Despite this, there are flying clubs in France that do offer training towards the EIR and IR. I personally know of two. One in Besançon La Vèze, and one at Pontoise. The one in Pontoise even has AOC status.
I have not looked into the details of the BIR – just some summaries. But in my book, anything that can improve private pilots’ instrument flying skills and even allow them to practice instrument flying, rather than setting off on VFR flights in marginal weather (my VFR planning minima are 2000 feet), is laudable. That includes the EIR regardless of how useless it is in the eyes of many.
Currency is not black/white. And currency is not a concern only for instrument flying. Some say flying is like riding a bike. It is not. But whether you are flying IFR or VFR, lack of currency is mitigated by setting higher minima and not embark on a flight that will be too challenging.
LeSving wrote:
Good VFR skills will get you “everywhere”
Well, it (the lack of instrument skills) almost killed this pilot… And it kills VFR pilots every year who press on in deteriorating conditions and put themselves in a difficult spot. I have however seen IR pilots flying VFR on the deck and hitting an antenna.
LeSving wrote:
With IFR you will be able to fly between main cities, but nowhere else where you really want to go.
That may be true in Norway but you would be surprised how many “minor” airports have instrument approaches. And with GNSS their number will be increasing. And even in Norway you have the “Short field network” or “STOL network” as they word it in some places which serve not so major cities. I would hardly call Rjukan a major city either. And how would you know where people want to go anyway, except from yourself?
LeSving wrote:
IFR is not all that useful.
Let those who want or have an IR be the judges of that. It may not be useful to you to get to the places you want to go, but it is to me and lots of others. At least with the rating you have a choice between IFR and VFR, and you have the instrument skills to get yourself out of a tight spot when VFR.
LeSving wrote:
But, I don’t see why you should learn IFR for this reason.
You illustrate exactly my point about the naysayers. Let people make that decision for themselves. But for God’s sake, let them have the choice and stop fighiting those new ratings.
LeSving wrote:
I’m not sure what you mean by basic IFR kit. My Onex is NVFR equipped (as 99% of all VFR “kits” are today), but from there to IFR costs a couple of GTNs today (or one + VOR), at least 10-15 k + work + a couple of more instruments for redundancy.
I think its worth differentiating between the 3 cases: minimum equipment to keep you alive if you end up in an unplanned cloud; minimum legal IFR equipment; minimum practical IFR equipment. The first will keep you alive, the second will keep you legal and the third will let you plan long distance flights IFR. I reckon a GTN etc is only needed for the third case. Frankly, if I end up in a situation where entering a cloud without suitable instruments is unavoidable,then legality will be the last thing I care about.
Gyro attitude and GPS track will keep you alive for a few minutes (and probably a lot longer if you are trained and moderately current) – the Dynon D2 connected to aircraft power will do a perfectly good job of that.
Agreed – the full plannable IFR suite will easily cost 15k.
I have written previously that if I was training somebody I care about I would make sure they can fly an ILS, irrespective of the legality of it. That is your final lifesaver option in flying.
And anything is legal if you declare a mayday.
Without such capability, if you end up between a converging cloudbase and terrain, all you can do is a 180 and hope the wx has not closed up behind you… and almost nobody does a 180, for various psychological and sometimes technical (fuel and alternates) reasons.
Obviously this is wishful thinking because it is politically impossible to train any useful IMC capability formally – because if you train anything beyond the most basic instrument flight (and keep telling people they will die anyway if they try it) then they “will” go and use it… 
You get the same dilemna in IFR… flying a non deiced type VMC on top, at the operating ceiling, and the tops rise and the OAT is -5C, so you know you will get ice. How many will turn back? I definitely would but luckily I have always managed to avoid that situation.
Aviathor wrote:
Well, it (the lack of instrument skills) almost killed this pilot… And it kills VFR pilots every year who press on in deteriorating conditions and put themselves in a difficult spot. I have however seen IR pilots flying VFR on the deck and hitting an antenna.
It can be discussed what exactly nearly killed him. As he say himself, – except the obvious of not entering the situation in the first place …
It’s a time budget also. We only have so much time to fly. Being always prepared for an “unprepared” VFR into IMC requires training and being current, and I’m not sure that half of the IFR rated people actually would handle such a situation properly when it occurs out of the blue so to speak. That time has to be taken from some other flying, VFR flying, thus deteriorating the VFR skills (be it dead stick landings or aerobatics, or whatever). At some point you have to focus on something to be good at. The ideal is to be good and current at every aspect of flying, like military pilots usually are, but for the average private pilot, that is simply impossible. All in all, I would believe it is better to be a good VFR pilot (with the head on the right place), than being a mediocre VFR pilot and hardly current IFR pilot. Besides, I don’t see what is wrong with training some “VFR-IFR” whenever the circumstance occurs, using HSI, the artificial horizon, VOR or whatever else instead of constantly looking at the mangenta line on SD.
Without such capability, if you end up between a converging cloudbase and terrain, all you can do is a 180 and hope the wx has not closed up behind you…
Or put the plane down. If flying low (600’?) with hills in the cloud, nearer than the IFR 5 nm, that is likely to be safer than going IFR. The former Alaska Senator Ted Stephens was killed after the pilot, a former Alaska Airlines Chief Pilot, went into IMC and hit a hill.
The advantage in Scotland is that, if I put the plane down successfully, there’s nothing around to eat me.
Indeed, though unless the ground is good or you have a nice slow plane, you will likely do some damage during the landing. Maybe write the plane off. Psychologically nobody wants to do that. Any “truck job” to get a plane out will cost a few k and that’s if there is zero damage.
I know the precautionary landing is taught in the PPL but in reality almost nobody ever does it.
It is common in helicopters; they stop even for a pee 
