Originally Posted by
rotorspeed
Whilst I appreciate that the ability to maintain a given heading/track fine tolerance is important in certain IMC departures, mainly runway, surely no-one here can actually think this is particularly relevant to this accident? If there was any pilot error from disorientation on climb out/transition it would have almost certainly come from the basics of not keeping wings level and pitch controlled appropriately, would it not, which should have been the main focus.
I am more interested in how this phase would have likely been carried out - was it hand flown or coupled autopilot upper modes? What is the 139 like to hand fly in pretty much zero zero conditions?
Hi Rotorspeed,
The discussion of heading control was to address the question as to why these types of departures were not included in the IR check asked a few pages back in the thread. We always do low vis runway departures on our PPC’s instead of black hole helipad departures in the sim.
I agree, drifting off the heading would have very little bearing on the outcome of this departure. However, drifting more than 5 degrees off the runway heading or 10 degrees off your assigned heading on an instrument departure on a checkride would most likely end in a fail. That’s where the discussion came from.