Originally Posted by
43Inches
And hence the issue with operating out of YPOK. In order to depart with bare minima you would need a way to ensure terrain clearance via approved methods to ensure at least low flying requirements are met, and most likely a court would want to see proof that you could maintain 500/1000ft terrain clearance during climb.
GPS waypoints not fixed in the units database cannot be used, so self plotting waypoints in valleys is out of the question. So you must then rely on cumbersome nearby waypoints or DR. Then there is calculating climb rate until reaching LSALT along your selected route, how accurately can you do this for a light aircraft that has fairly wafty manuals. Airlines usually produce escape procedures/CDPs that have surveyed the terrain/obstacles around an airport and using relevant data and worked out tracking that complies with regulations. These tracks have huge margins around them with splays expanding out to allow for winds and tracking errors etc... They can be approved to be flown via the FMS/GPS reducing splays, but those will be hard entered into the FMS database.
So in considering the points against a light aircraft departing legally from YPOK, it would be most sensible to depart VMC until reaching a safe altitude.
At night I doubt any departure direction from YPOK would comply with required night take-off splays, so even if you had lights it would be hard to prove legal.
Not true re airline Airline EOP or CDPs. The splay is normally starts at 1.5 to 1.95 time the wingspan (depending on aircraft category) and expands out to 600m eithrr side of centreline, increasing to 900m for turns. They don't need to be in the FMC data base, they could be track/distance, or even track to intercept a radial, or track runway Centreline. The use of the FMC fix page, to display pilot entered points to help with tracking is not only approved but encouraged. If you have an engine out SID all the better.
Everything in aviation doesn't need to be rocket science. ERSA gives terrain climb gradient for most airfields. And will give several for the same runway under supplemental take-off distance data.
Before NVGs and GPS we used 1:25000 and 1:50000 maps to determine safe alts for arrivals and departures for marks on the ground we needed to land on. Normally lit by cyalume sticks or hexy burners. It can't be hard if we could do it.