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Pilot departs in fog

For a straight departure in low IMC, ASI at VX/VY and DI (maybe not compass) on runway HDG are the primary intruments for takeoff climb if you are looking at something else then you may get that wrong one day, there is no way you can check that AH works but you can check your DI & ASI on the ground…

Last Edited by Ibra at 13 Sep 14:52
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

haven’t seen many IFR cubs

Not many Cubs perhaps, but in a hangar near here there are Husky, Jodel and Maule, all IFR capable, and all just as capable of landing off-airport as any C1xx.

Glenswinton, SW Scotland, United Kingdom

there is no way you can check that AH works but you can check your DI & ASI on the ground…

Just lift the tail?

And although for most modern aeroplanes AH, ASI and HSI are all on one screen you are technically correct; still, I prefer to transfer attention to the AH before lifting off the runway.

Glenswinton, SW Scotland, United Kingdom

Any plane with an ICAO CofA, no “VFR” limitation, and appropriate avionics, and a pilot with an IR, is good for IFR.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

@Peter – don’t know of any regulation. I’m not talking about the departure. That may or may not have been within limits. I doubt anyone will ever find out for sure.

I mentioned the other guy because of the problems you face when you need to get back to the field or make some kind of emergency landing. Conditions may have been similar. Who knows.

I don’t take off in that kind of fog. I think it’s dumb. If anything happens after having left the runway environment, there’s a very good chance you’re out of luck and don’t see the terrain until it smashes into your face.

Maybe that guy had good enough visibility to take off, as some posters here are speculating. After he’s been ratted out he’s gonna have to explain it to the bazl.

But the takeoff was still rather imprudent in my eyes because he relied on luck to be able to come back.

Last Edited by EuroFlyer at 13 Sep 16:23
Safe landings !
EDLN, Germany

he relied on luck to be able to come back.

It was the media article which said one needs to be able to land back, which was a new one to me.

Practically, most people won’t depart if they can’t come back, if they are doing a local flight, because it is just a big hassle then. But if going somewhere else, and staying there for a bit, there is no such practical requirement.

One can criticise, discuss, etc, and that’s fine, but the article alleges criminality, which is a different thing. The OP hasn’t been back, too…

After he’s been ratted out he’s gonna have to explain it to the bazl.

If they follow the law, they need to prove (to whatever is the required standard in the country in question) that he is guilty of breaching a law. In any civilised country, he doesn’t have to explain anything.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Must’ve been a slow news day in Switzerland.

Peter wrote:

but the article alleges criminality, which is a different thing

Where do they do that ? They say it was dangerous and that this kind of takeoff can end fatally and so on. It is written in a sensationalist manner and a mixup of everything, which is exactly what you’d expect from ‘Blick’. You’re right in that they will have to prove it, but you know very well the potential result when this goes to an ordinary court. The real outrageous thing is not the start, but the fact that every Tom Dick and Harry can film you and start a shitstorm that way.

Safe landings !
EDLN, Germany

Insight of the discussions at the airport on this case over the weekend:

There are so many pilots I envy because they are able to judge flight visibility of a flight they haven’t done themselves from a picture/video that was taken significant off the runway in a direction perpendicular to the actual flight direction in weather conditions with patchy ground haze/fog. I would never be able to do such a thing!

Even more interesting, I got the impression that especially these pilots are extremely good at estimating such visibilities from pictures, who at their own VFR flights often pretend it is impossible to know if you are more or less than 1000ft vertically separated from clouds.

Ability to estimate vertical and horizontal distances somehow seems to be negatively correlated …

Germany

I agree totally with Malibuflyer re the judgement of visibility but what I am not sure about in this thread is a) Are we talking about taking off VFR in low or zero visibility? b) taking off in IMC under VFR? c) take off in IMC under IFR.?
I will stick to my point that even for IR pilots with a lack of currency the transition from external visual clues to internal visual clues in white out conditions is one of the most dangerous parts of flight into IMC. Just read the NTSB reports, particularly those regarding LOC in Alaska and IIRC California and Oregon.

France
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