Flight vis, locale, and experience

[Pilot DAR]

We are again discussing an accident, in which reduced visibility would seem to be a factor. Experience and local knowledge can be factors in dealing with low flight visibility (or deciding to avoid).

With low experience, a wise pilot would raise their personal limits for visibility, and different locale should cause them to further consider the factors. If you're well experienced, and in very familiar locale, you might accept lower visibility for a short local flight. If vis is great, you might venture into "new" terrain.

This theme follows the "Swiss cheese" model of accident risk. As different factors (the pieces of cheese) change relative to each other, the holes could align, and you drop into an accident.

What are pilots doing, and being trained to do, to recognize the increasing risk, when factors combine?

[Mach Jump]

This is just the kind of thing Instructors and Examiners should have been working on.

Unfortunately, in Europe, for the last 15 years, all our time and resources have been spent coping with shambolic re-organisations of the Licensing system!


MJ

[thing]

I'm not a trainer but one aspect of other people's flying that does surprise me are the crap conditions that people will take off in, often without any form of IR rating, pinning their hopes on the forecast weather.

'Oh it's forecast to be great after 1100'. Can't think how many times I've heard something similar.

Each to their own though, if you're a qualified pilot then part of that qualification is the ability to manage risk, and we all do that to different criteria.

If you're not a commercial pilot then you don't have to take off. If you were a scuba diver would you happily plunge into an ocean with sharks nearby on the say so of someone who said 'Oh they'll all be gone by 11 mate.'?

[maxred]

To the east of Ben Cruachan it is highly likely that the weather was perfectly reasonable VFR. In the lee of that ridge running down the east of Loch Linnhe it would have had a very low ceiling. To the west more typical of the Tiree conditions

Over Tiree where there is a single area of high ground and the rest of the island is about 20ft high it would have been reasonable to descend over the sea and sneak in. These conditions are not unusual on the west coast and it is possible the pilot was familiar with them - or equally they were not. But being natives of the island and IMC rated? Likely they were familiar with the typical conditions.

Dar, it may have been my despair moment, that prompted you to start this new thread. I am not digging at the poster, but I am in despair that this kind of thinking prevails. There is just so much wrong here.

1. I have been lost, five miles from my local airport, in a 400 overcast. What I see very often, that at different levels, particularly under low cloud base, all of the tell tale local landmarks change perspective. In fact, the landscape, and the visual perspective, changes markedly at different levels.
2. With a low cloud base, there is generally a low forward viz.
3. Knowing the locale, scares me senseless. My view it creates a false security. The, I can find my way in/out', mentality.
4. Within mountain terrain, I defy anyone, who happens to "pop" out from cloud, to know where they are. Valleys tend to look the same.
5. The flight in question, should never have started with destination forecast conditions. Over the sea let downs, to, in this case 300', can really only end one way, unless Lady Luck is really watching over you.
6.I do not think ppl trainees are being taught any of this. It does appear that experience is the teacher, and that individuals find out, generally the hard way, what it is really like to be caught in this stuff.
7. I also get concerned on longer flights. Take off, cruise ability, and approach landing weather, must ALL be taken into consideration. Weather, spooky this, changes, not only with the prevailing forecast. The west coast of Scotland, in particular, can have some very localised weather, therefore, an achievable plan B must always be available.
8.My personal experience is that as my ratings expanded, and my Instrument flying got more involved, then my own minima, increased. I think that as a direct result from being in such IFR conditions, you soon realise what a potential disaster could unfold, unless you really were current and on top of your game. The days of winging it, certainly for me, are over. Every flight, over any distance, is thoroughly and totally planned, the most important being weather.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Originally Posted by maxred

6.I do not think ppl trainees are being taught any of this. It does appear that experience is the teacher, and that individuals find out, generally the hard way, what it is really like to be caught in this stuff.
.

I teach it. My home drome is right next to a channel about 2 miles wide that opens to a bay away from the airport that extends another 5 miles or so. There is a small airport 11 miles away near the end of the bay on top of a rise that is about 300 feet higher than the surrounding terrain. So I pick a "nice" day ideally 600 -700 foot over cast and vis less than 3 miles and the exercise is to get to the little airport and land. Almost all of them can't find the airport unless I cue them and then most of them get discombobulated trying to fly a circuit at 300 -400 feet AGL. A surprisingly large number even get lost on the way home to the airport they have done all their flying out of.

When we get home the they invariably remark "HOLY S*HIT !" and then they go to say " I see what you mean when you say you don't want to be out flying in these kind of conditions even though it is legal VFR "

[Pilot DAR]

I do not think ppl trainees are being taught any of this. It does appear that experience is the teacher, and that individuals find out, generally the hard way, what it is really like to be caught in this stuff.

That is key.... A few too many times, I have been flying in deteriorating conditions, and then had an additional scare. I can recall asking myself a few times: "Is this what the person who had the fatal accident was doing moments before it happened? Is this scare what it feels like?".

A few of those, and you smarten up promptly, but dangerously, you have to be in the situation to get the scare. How do we keep pilots from getting into the situations, which scare them into learning?

[maxred]

A few of those, and you smarten up promptly, but dangerously, you have to be in the situation to get the scare. How do we keep pilots from getting into the situations, which scare them into learning?

I am not sure you can. With the exception of BPF, comments above, does it fall within an instructors remit to go that far? One would hope that common sense eventually prevails, coupled with experience, but as you rightly highlight, you have to have been there to truly appreciate how bad it can get..

[tecman]

I had a first instructor who did someting similar to BPF. Travelling (to him) a well-known track and making me lookout for the pylons, trans lines across the valleys, radio towers and other obstacles, while all the time assessing the very marginal weather and re-planning accordingly, instilled a scud-running aversion that's lasted 30 years, and counting.

There's another twist here in Australia, with most pilots being flat-landers and, for many PPLs at least, not having to practise even the basics of mountain flying. As I flew in more places around the world, I learned a lot from patient check pilots in e.g. France and Canada. Those lessons all went into the survival tools kit bag but, if anything, I probably became even more cautious in flight planning and operational decision making.

While not directly relevant to the mountain scud running discussion, I'll admit to being surprised at the weight of resistance expressed in a previous thread to the option of making a precautionary landing in the best area available. You can cobble together a list of objections but, in all cases - and certainly for common light GA aircraft - this remains an infinitely better option than a uncontrolled crash. It's always been high on my options list and deserves to figure more prominently in those thought experiments we all do. Sadly though, a precautionary landing does not appear to have been easily applicable to the tragic accident which triggered this thread.

Of course, those instructor words about controlled crashes into forest canopies as absolute last resorts come to mind as options in some circumstances. When young and callow, I though this was something instructors made up (!) but I can now think of a couple of accidents where people survived by virtue of this strategy by the pilot.

In retrospect, I can see that the role of the instructor in forcing at least thought experiments is crucial. But building in some level of practical demonstration, in a few high stress situations, is likely to add greatly to the effectiveness of pilot decision making. There is of course a role for instructors in simply passing on local area hints and tips, but I think this is less significant than helping to develop good judgement.

[150 Driver]

When I came out with my shiny minted PPL I had had enough of training and the very last thing I wanted was more studying

But within a year and due largely to a couple of scares I went for my IRR. As a result I am much more conservative now in respect of conditions that I take off in, even though I have a greater skill set plus more experience to deal with it !

Am I alone in having this perverse logic ?

[thing]

Am I alone in having this perverse logic ?

Nope. I'm just the same. In fact I'm getting more circumspect with each hour in the logbook. I have my own criteria for cloudbase, xwind and vis on take off (and as far as I'm able to ascertain, conditions for where I'm going to land) and if those criteria aren't met then I stay on the deck. No exceptions.

[sunday driver]

While I was recently renewing my little used IRR, my instructor pedantically (I see that as a virtue BTW) reviewed the TAFs for our session.

H'mm, he said.
Scattered at 500ft here (300 AMSL).
To me that means a 50% chance that we won't get back in.
Are you feeling lucky?

We scrubbed.
I learned.

SD

[Piper.Classique]

When we get home the they invariably remark "HOLY S*HIT !" and then they go to say " I see what you mean when you say you don't want to be out flying in these kind of conditions even though it is legal VFR "

Nice. Just out of interest, has anyone ever succeeded without help, and if so what did they say?

[Baikonour]

I felt that, after passing my PPL, I had not been 'scared' yet, in the sense that I had never encountered weather conditions where I did not feel in control, or had the aircraft do unexpected things where regaining control did not come pretty easily/naturally.

Of course, I would not want to have the proverbial constantly scared out of me as I was going through the course, but it would have been useful to experience, in the relative safety of an instructor by my side, more marginal events which could have taught me a lot about recognising what the limits are - my limits and the aircraft's limits, weather limits etc.

Visibility is a good example. Apart from some short 'hard' IMC training when we were in cloud I think we might have flown some XC down to 7000m sometimes. Solo QC were not taken unless the METARs and TAFs were CAVOK/all the nines. With the license, I can fly down to 3000m and I might well have been tempted to do so and it could have been a very bad idea - 3000m is not a lot - even in s slow spamcan! Yet, how am I meant to know how bad an idea it would really be if I had only ever flown on 9999 days?

Of course, as a fresh PPL it is up to you to gently push your own limits as you gain competence and experience, but I think it would also be good if some of this pushing outside the comfort zone was part of the PPL to begin with.

I'd love to have had to do BPFs 'test'...

B.

[gasax]

I have a just post war RAF Navigators training 'book'. It has a cardboard page with a set of circles to represent various in-flight visibilities.

It has an exercise where the navigator is asked to plot a course home from observed landmarks. It's a good game and one which one off my instructors had played with me for real (is there more than one BPF?).

Much of what maxred banged on about is true, my comment elsewhere was in trying to understand how people would end up where they did. At my age it is all too daring and I would not have tried - but they did. How and why they thought it was achievable is the question.

In my immediate neck of the woods (circa 60 odd miles) I can get myself lost, but not for more than about 5 minutes odd, then a suitable landmark will appear. That was the whole point of the navigators game, even if you see 'nothing' it actually means something, because you now have a line of one joint of a finger or longer which you have to place so that you see 'nothing'.

[9 lives]

This is one of my favourite phones of me flying, and it illustrates this point:



I'm being mentored to pick my way into the fog, to continue, because in those mountains, going back is less desirable. The helicopter does not have gyro instruments, so flight out of sight of ground is not safely possible at all.

What was against me: In the mountains, unfamiliar territory, few ways out, nowhere practical to land close by. The helicopter cannot be flown without reference to the ground. Flight over the top would be very unwise.

What I had going for me was an awesome mentor (without whom, I would never have attempted this), I can fly as slowly and low as I need to, and I can turn around. I had the GPS track to follow backtrack.

Indeed, as my mentor predicted, the fog was very local, and picking through it slowly was no problem - he had local knowledge, and that made all the difference! Despite looking very intimidating, I never lost sight of the trees, never slowed to less than 50 knots, and never flew lower than 300 feet above the trees.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Originally Posted by Piper.Classique

Nice. Just out of interest, has anyone ever succeeded without help, and if so what did they say?

Nope. Everyone needed some level of coaching. One student did find the little airport without help and did a quite good job of staying orientated to a good safe landing. However they figured the hard part was over and got a little complacent on the way back. I did not say a word until the tower came back and asked them "where were they going".

At that point their mental gyro totally tumbled and I could see panic starting to set in, so I told him to turn right 40 degrees, a heading that would take them to the airport.....and yes as a matter of fact the first words out of his mouth when we shut down were "Holy Sh*it"

[skyking1]

I got caught out in it once, to the extent of having to get a pop up IFR clearance. It was a short mission across the lower Puget Sound area to drop somebody off. I flew across the nearby air force base with 2000' and 5, and within a scant 5 miles it dropped to 400 and not much. I turned back and it was no better. It had really dropped early and hard, far in excess of forecast. Having the equipment, rating and experience saved the day and I will never forget it. We did have to go to an ILS equipped airfield and leave the plane for a better day of weather.
Today I would file IFR for that same flight from the start, or bag it.
Thinking back, my instructor did do some marginal flights to help cement how bad VMC can be.

[thing]

Today I would file IFR for that same flight from the start

I do that if it looks like it is going to be at all iffy in the UK. May as well be flying in the first place what you might be asking for later.

[skyking1]

back then the difficulty was
A: not having enough sense to bag it.
B: not having precision approaches at either airport.
Today they both have decent GPS minimums.

[maxred]

Indeed, as my mentor predicted, the fog was very local, and picking through it slowly was no problem - he had local knowledge, and that made all the difference! Despite looking very intimidating, I never lost sight of the trees, never slowed to less than 50 knots, and never flew lower than 300 feet above the trees.

Step, those are indeed impressive images, but in fairness you are in a helicopter. Can I highlight that in line with Maoraigh1, I do not think this particular crash, which prompted the OP, was a scud running incident. I feel something went wrong at a higher altitude.

Now, this very public accident,
Victims identified in fatal Cantwell plane crash, pilot posted viral video weeks ago | Alaska Dispatch News,

was. Dale Hemman, was a highly experienced, and very knowledgeable guy in Alaska Tours, until he decided to take a troupe of Bonanza flyers, Scud Running. His luck ran out