PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Lowering cloud base rising terrain
View Single Post
Old 1st Jun 2005, 21:32
  #28 (permalink)  
bar shaker
 
Join Date: May 2003
Location: Essex, UK
Posts: 616
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
DFC I agree with you.

I am not IMC rated and have no intention of ever being so. I spent a couple of hours RHS for a flight to Paris, years ago, the whole lot was in cloud. It wasn't fun and I wish I had spent the time in my local pub. IMC is fine if you need to get there, I fly for the fun and for the thrill of it.

If, during my troubled flight, I had flown on, to the point that I had to either put into somehwere I couldn't see or climb above the cloud, I am not sure what I would have chosen. I hope I would have put down whilst I still had the option of determining somewhere suitable. I was over flat terrain, so the ground was not rushing up to meet me. The SE is, however, notorious for its wires. The other option of going up, may have given me more time, but I would have been met with 100+ mile viz, all of it of cloud. Knowing that the cloud was down to the deck, I would have been biding time until I ran out of fuel and then I would have died.

Calling 121.5 in such a situation could only set up the 999 services, to hopefully pull you out of the wreckage more quickly.

Aviate, Navigate, Communicate.

If you were in a valley, I doubt you would get hold of 121.5.
bar shaker is offline