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A Syllogism

If you really need to look away while hand flying in IMC (and it’s a very bad idea), and you don’t have an autopilot, it is best to trim as accurately as you can, check over a period of say a minute that it’s not going anywhere and then take your hands off the controls while you turn round.

But it’s a very bad idea to do it at all.

EGKB Biggin Hill

Noe wrote:

Why, unless there is icing? I can see how heavy turbulence for longer than 30min might drain your mental capacity quicker than you can, but otherwise on relatively smooth IMC what’s the issue, especially if you have an AP?

Yes, fair point on IMC/AP, having just a simple wing leveler makes a whole complete difference (you can fly a heading accurately by cheating with rudder ), the AP does not have to be fancy 2/3-axis for heading/height, or to do VOR/ILS tracking, 90% of mental capacity is around keeping wing level, something automation can take care of easily and has no add “skill value”, even if you practice doing it for 4h you will not get on top of it !

I was referring to hand flying in IMC with shaky needles while doing other stuff (or even something robust that can go wild), personally, I lost control two times in my IMC training (with an instructor on board after long training in clouds), first I stalled while trying to comply with ATC and second turning my head/hand in an awkward position trying to reach something the back seat, that was in simple training environment: full planning, concentration and even better currency than what I have today…

The first case, I think here practice can help, for the second one, I doubt so, anyone can get “incapacitated” trying to search something in the backseat of a typical GA aircraft while doing awkward moves of his hands/head this happens even while setting on the ground, I don’t think those flying airline/military jets have to deal with much of that? maybe it is something people learn about in cockpit resource management or two pilot ops classes

Last Edited by Ibra at 12 Feb 21:12
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

I think that the time the unpracticed/ unqualified pilot can stay the right way up also depends on the equipment.

It would be much, much easier on a G1000 with synvis than a ropy old suction driven AI with worn bearings.

It is very largely to do with the pitch angle, which is tiny on steam, quite a bit bigger on blue and brown glass and really quite big on synvis.

EGKB Biggin Hill

Ibra wrote:

Why 30min? One has to set some random limit and live with it, mine is probably less than that

Why, unless there is icing? I can see how heavy turbulence for longer than 30min might drain your mental capacity quicker than you can, but otherwise on relatively smooth IMC what’s the issue, especially if you have an AP?

I think practice makes it perfect. Before my first IR(R) revalidation, I had viewed the rating exactly as a “get out of jail card”, and used it mostly to just pierce layers (never practiced approaches). Suffice to say that when revalidation came I was miles behind the airplane.
Now with more frequent practice, things are much better, and I don’t really see long IMC flights as an issue. Sometimes I’ll even come back from Paris without using the autopilot, just for fun (and trim practice!) – but of course skydemon tracks will tell!

“Personally, the way I view IMC rating (or even full IR) for GA use: they give you say 30min in IMC before you crash or you find a safe way out, "
I did get an IMC rating, but let it lapse. I was not going to stay current. Also the aircraft I’d bought a share in had poor gyro instruments.
But I question the 180 seconds. I was revalidating my IMC with instructors who stressed the likelihood of losing control if I flew in cloud, when I stopped.
The ex-WW2 reconnaissance Spitfire pilot who taught me when I regained my licence failed to teach me this in the few hours under the hood, and I did get into cloud several times in my first year renting his C152. Each time I did a 180, and came out, in control, at least once well after the three minutes were up.

Maoraigh
EGPE, United Kingdom

It is an excellent UK rating and give the same utility as full IR for IMC flying (both subject to currency, I know some who probably never flew GA in cloud, do get hurt by this statement) but does not allow full IFR capability (this brings some dangers !), my guess the reason of its sucess is probably the perfect match with UK GA fleet (pipers, cessnas, dimonds) and aerodromes capabilities?

Personally, the way I view IMC rating (or even full IR) for GA use: they give you say 30min in IMC before you crash or you find a safe way out, some will call that “out of jail” or “get in jail”, but in any case 30min it is far better than 180 seconds and more than enough for a pilot who did a good planning but still getting some unexpected glitches

Higher than 30min in weather and one needs to start investing heavily in his training, aircraft, systems and even hire pilots…

Why 30min? One has to set some random limit and live with it, mine is probably less than that

This has been debated to death in FAA world, especially that reduction of 200h to get an IR !

Last Edited by Ibra at 11 Feb 22:24
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

The IMC claim is local to the UK, and was used to defend the IMC rating.

Statistically the Warrior/172/DA40 have enjoyed a safety record around 2x better than private GA, not sure what this does for a Bayesian analysis – although accidents tend to be poissonic, with a thicker tail than the normal Gaussian curve.

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

Maoraigh wrote:

lot of fatals in IMC with IR pilots

Those don’t mix that well neither, the real question is the proportion of IMC hours vs IFR hours for a typical IR pilot?
My guess is that for CAT IR rated pilots that would be 5% of IFR time in IMC? not sure about GA IR rated pilots but that could probably be higher somewhere around 10%?

Also, it will be also interesting partition is how much of that was in solid IMC vs marginal VMC? A large number of IR pilots got killed by attempting to fly bellow a low ceiling in low visibility rather than “staying safe” in solid IMC (you can call this “IMC into VMC”)

Here is a nice paradox: in low visibility one will find the runway much easier with 200ft minima/ceiling than 1000ft minima/ceiling, you have more chances of getting killed in the latter if you don’t let it go, in/out of cloud is a binary choice while forward visibility is a highly relative concept

Last Edited by Ibra at 11 Feb 20:47
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

The NTSB have a lot of fatals in IMC with IR pilots. Usually a few every month.
I prefer the Pa28 to the C172 but cannot think of any reason one would have more accidents than the other.

Maoraigh
EGPE, United Kingdom

I’ve never spun the Warrior (=not allowed) but no amount of stall practice has ever suggested any kind of wing drop.

IMC is another matter since the proportion of IMC’s even in Warriors is so small and smaller still would be the proportion of IMC pilots with current instrument practice, which I would suggest is somewhere between vanishing and infinitesimal.

Maybe a bigger contributor to the no spins in Warriors (if this is indeed true) could be the fact that the Warrior pilot limits rudder use to steering on the ground…

EGBW / KPRC, United Kingdom
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