Thanks for pointing that out. I am not familiar with the Garmin 307 but now that you point it out it does seem to be on for some portions of the flight, but not others (even prior to the icing event). Weird!
Antonio wrote:
As an observation, some of the prior attitude excursions (not the one after the ASI loss) look like he was not using the A/P. To me that is one of the most useful tools available for SP IFR, especially when the workload gets high. That alone takes care of a big part of the “aviating” so you can think of “navigating”
I dunno, when I see what he is doing before the loss of airspeed, he was using the autopilot, indeed, in the video he mentions that “the noise you hear is my autopilot kicking off”. If you look at the control unit – looks like a Garmin 307 – before the upset, the bottom right LED is lit up, meaning the aircraft is in altitude hold mode, the middle two are lit, indicating autopilot and flight director is active.
After the airspeed becomes invalid, the autopilot kicks off, the top centre LED is extinguished, the autopilot switches to standby HDG mode (LED bottom left lights up)…
Yup, the uncertainty about what’s going on tends to use up 80% of your braincells. I got that t-shirt too for a different matter.
IN my case, the thing that helped was making an inventory of what you do have certainty on (QA32-style ) and working from there. That alone immediately freed up most of those hijacked braincells for me…the RV10 pilot obviously had such a hijack too.
As an observation, some of the prior attitude excursions (not the one after the ASI loss) look like he was not using the A/P. To me that is one of the most useful tools available for SP IFR, especially when the workload gets high. That alone takes care of a big part of the “aviating” so you can think of “navigating”
In 1987 I had cloud form around me at the West end of the Great Glen. In a C152, a few solo hours after regaining my PPL. I did a good enough 180 to get back to visual at Loch Lochy. My pax, almost completed PPL course, monitored me and broadcast to other aircraft following us. Well below the hills on either side.
In 1993, in a Jodel DR1050, SW Ireland, over the sea, I thought there were a few cumulus with showers. They were deep fog cells forming. I was unable to climb on top, as my clear area was shrinking. I straightened out, went on instruments, called ATC with a PanPan, as although I now had an IMC Rating, it was not valid in Ireland. As I spoke, I noticed the AH and T&S differed. My voice rose several octaves. But they came together and I climbed on top, with permission to enter controlled airspace. (The DI was unreliable.)
I’ve managed to avoid cloud since then. The Bolkow has reliable instruments.
The “Max # minutes” is rubbish if you keep cool, as have an AH.
Yes especially is the pilot tries to sneak VFR between clouds with changes of power & attitude, entering clouds while trying to avoid with +/-45deg bank or +/-20deg pitch is disorientating to anyone !
There are various reasons why an IR pilot may en up in that situation in Golf, not planning to fly in clouds and not turning back on time, but there are others: one being afraid of doing something illegal? or getting fined by ATC or NAA for flying in clouds without flight plan in Golf? or some need to be on radar with clearance & separation to switch VFR/IFR in Golf? not getting pop-up IFR in CAS by climb?
However, entering clouds wing level in stable cruise with positive intent to fly in clouds is walk in the park for current IR pilot, let’s not exaggerate this: especially if wings are level on altitude & heading, even 10000 more easier with an auto-pilot…
It may be an underestimated challenge to abruptly toggle from visual to instrument flying after having gotten into IMC. If you don’t react very quickly and decidedly, you might have messed up already too badly.
There are load of accidents by “VFR only flights”, however, those by IR pilots are interesting and they all involved hitting terrain, the most notable ones were with very IR experienced pilot, sometimes even with two pilots inside the same cockpit doing s***t show bellow safe altitude, recent examples: one in Greenland to Goose Bay and another one in Spain to San Sebastián, in clouds surrounded by terrain with zero awareness of height & obstacles the pilot is usually swamped and dumb as hell that qualifications rarely matters
If you are referring to the two I think you are referring to, both used a VFR app (Skydemon) which is so complex that many don’t understand how to use it properly. One of them involved two VFR-only pilots flying in IMC, and the other one involved a ferry flight with the customer being new to the type and the ferry pilot he paid to come along posted that he was using his laptop at the time of the collision. On the latter one, has anyone checked the accuracy of terrain depiction in the area of the crash? They were flying at a ridiculously low altitude given the general area.
Sure, plenty of IR holders have done CFITs. Sometimes it involves lots of familiarity with the area (but getting it wrong). On another occassion (N403HP) the guy was flying a circuit for the benefit of Vienna radar (because he cancelled IFR way back) but happened to be in IMC, and got it wrong. In a few cases (e.g. N2195B) it looked like the pilot was somebody who “always flies” and barely checked the wx.
There are load of accidents by “VFR only flights”, however, those by IR pilots are interesting and they all involved hitting terrain, the most notable ones were with very IR experienced pilot, sometimes even with two pilots inside the same cockpit doing s***t show bellow safe altitude, recent examples: one in Greenland to Goose Bay and another one in Spain to San Sebastián, in clouds surrounded by terrain with zero awareness of height & obstacles the pilot is usually swamped and dumb as hell that qualifications rarely matters
On climb strategy vs scud run strategy, here is a sad example (one out of 4 CFIT accidents in UK), what is interesting is they were two aircrafts with exactly the same equipment, one flying in clouds at the planned min VFR altitude (500ft above obstacles) before executing their cloud break, the other one was flying all over the place bellow cloud base on visual navigation, I won’t get into the legalities of these flights (both are illegal anyway) but this graph does give a lesson on flying performance, it’s remarkable how a non-IFR pilot stayed on tack within -/+1nm exactly at his VFR cruise altitude using 100£ tablet and zero IFR training !
In the other hand, no idea why on earth an IFR rated instructor with 6000h, CPL & IMC rating can’t fly in clouds in uncontrolled airspace wing level at some min cruise altitude? (let’s say 100ft flat above highest obstacle along whole route if PIC holy aim was to stay out of clouds and in sight of ground but without having die hard trying), maybe because he was flying with student? icing at 2kft? of course, he could have turned 180 back at cruise altitude as well…
PS: against all odds, they did not hit each other in clouds, they took off on exactly the same route: 2min delta on takeoff, 500ft on altitude and 1nm/2nm on distance…still makes me wonder how much lookout and traffic scan an IR pilot does when “trying to remain VMC at 500ft agl”? and how much that is effective? after all it’s the only sensible reason to avoid IMC in Golf for anyone IR rated and IFR equipped, this key element: mid-air-collision seems to be missing when pilots talk about their experiences of “inadvertent VFR in IMC encounters”…
Being able to ‘think straight’ and not panic, is the biggest life saver in these circumstances.
That may happen because you have an experienced buddy onboard to shed the workload, you haven’t planned it but are qualified and can get sorted, or you are experienced but perhaps not legal for some reason.
I always relied on my IMC-rating training as a tool to ‘not panic’ even when on occasions it was long since lapsed.
When in the UK, to fly frequently & when planned, you have to be prepared to fly when it’s not perfect wx.
Some days the wx is better than forecast, some days as forecast, but eventually there will be some where even the best met guys get it wrong. ie you are away from base, heading home and thinking…..where did this crap come from?
If you are very cautious you’ll have not gone that day but when I used to be that guy, I cancelled many flights. Some people are happy with that, some get frustrated and give up flying, I got experience and occasionally flew in legal VFR, but realistically very marginal wx.
The legal minimum is quite extreme unless in a heli or anything suitable for a field and landing at <35kts.
I would never encourage anyone to do that but would not criticise a pilot of competence for doing it.
