To answer the initial question, I wouldn't fly on top knowing that the cloud base touches the ground. It seems to me that even if you know very well the area, "ditching" into this layer of clouds hoping not to hit anything before getting in a valley under the clouds is a hell of a bet. I would rather fly around the clouds or around the mountains. To go to Cannes for exemple, I would rather fly along the Rhone valley and then turn East than fly over the Alps with so many clouds. Or maybe would consider flying under the clouds, depending on the clouds height and the route. In most valleys, the sides of the valley are not parallel to the ridge. There are a lot of lower mountains, mountains shoulders and so on which can really twist the shape of the valley. I have no screen in my airplane (no glass cockpit, no ipad) and might think differently if I had. In my opinion that's a scenario where a twin is really worth the money it costs.
Then, if you have an iPad, install e.g. AirNav Pro. It has synthetic vision
Cool! Wasn't aware it could do this. Will give it a try!
That is pretty good.
I wonder if there is a simple SV program which runs the SRTM imagery under Windows?
Actually there is one - FSX 
But it's complicated (or maybe impossible) to configure it so it just starts up by itself, in the correct mode.
Same goes for X-Plane. I've emailed X-Plane to ask if such an autostart config is possible.
The Garmin 795 has synthetic vision. I still have one of those around, so if anyone is interested :-)
Then, if you have an iPad, install e.g. AirNav Pro. It has synthetic vision. See YouTube video: [
While - alas! - not pertinent to Europe, AOPA FLYQ and ForeFlight have synviz.
Guess he used up his life's supply of luck that day.....
Yes I think very much so
Synthetic vision should be easily possible these days on a handheld device. It was around more than 10 years ago, on PCs no more powerful than today's tablets (FS2000 on a 1GHz CPU) and it must be 5 years ago that I bought the NASA SRTM imagery for X-Plane on several DVDs for about €50.
Yet I haven't seen it actually working usefully. PocketFMS has it, but the demo I saw was extremely slow.
The Cirrus chute would be a very good option in this situation.
The topo map in my original post was a set of about 10GB of map tiles (10GB covering the Alps, the Pyrenees and various terrain north of Greece) which were generated using a tool called Mobile Atlas Creator (MOBAC), which rips the data off Google Terrain. Google (and all the other online map providers) don't like automated tile download, and the authors of MOBAC got threatened with legal action and removed support for all the useful data sources. However they left a way to put it back in using custom scripting...
The data I have runs under Oziexplorer which is just a generic GPS moving map tool. There is probably a way to getting it running on an Ipad.
I would have checked BEFORE the flight that there's space between the clouds and the ground
I think, most of the time, there is plenty of vertical room. Most areas of the Alps have plenty of flat valleys. The Pyrenees are a very different proposition, however...
Yep, syn vis.
I'd first try to glide into the widest valley available, and of course I would have checked BEFORE the flight that there's space between the clouds and the ground. If that wouldn't work as planned then I'd pull the chute ... (Cirrus SR22).
I've done flights like that in my Warrior. Crossed the whole Alps on top in FL 125. When I did that I tried to have a perfect position fix every minute of the flight and I always knew PRECISELY where i was and where the next airports were.
I know a guy to whom exactly that happened. Was on his way back to UK from southern France or Italy, some 10 - 12 years ago. He knew where he was (following his route on a paper topo map), aimed the airplane into a valley and hoped for the best. Came out of the clouds, saw a meadow next to a small road and put the a/c in there. IIRC the a/c was written off, but he and his family walked away with not even a bruise. Guess he used up his life's supply of luck that day.....
Synthetic Vision?
Today - absolutely! He didn't have that option at the time.
Synthetic Vision?
