Just listened to the tape and it give me cold chills to listen to the fear in that guys voice.
It brought back memories of a trip many years ago I made as a freshly minted PPL flying from Sydney (Bankstown) to Coolangatter. scud running up the coast all the way to the Queensland border I ended up in cloud just north of Lismore, and Lismore is bordered to the north by 3,000ft hills. I was in IMC bigtime with no IFR rating.
Fortunately I had just completed a night VFR rating with 15hrs of real black night flying( on several cross country training flights). Two things saved me and my 3 passengers, 1 that I was quite comfortable in being able to maintain a a basic wings level attitude as well as being able to perform rate1 climbing and descending turns on instruments as was hammered into me during the NVFR Rating. 2 Being drilled to allways having an appropriate navaid tuned, in this case the Lismore NDB as well as being able to make basic ADF Intercepts.
I remember the wave of fear that overtook me when I realised I was in IMC bigtime, it's an indescribable feeling that one has to encounter to know what it's like. Once I was able to compose myself and get on the clocks I was able to do just as I had countless times in training, do a climbing 180 , get above LSALT and intercept an appropriate track inbound to Lismore on the ADF. Over Lismore I broke out of cloud and landed at Lismore to evaluate my mistake.
I am 100% sure that the NFVR training saved my bacon. Now as an Instructor I drill my students mercylessly on recoveries from unsusual attitudes both looking out the window as well as under the hood. The Oz training syllabus has several hrs reqired under the hood required before sitting the PPL flight test. I frequently do more than that with my students as well as telling them what happened to me.
Last edited by Ozgrade3; 6th November 2005 at 18:40.