On Soap Box
Mmm....its ok to say "you should never get in that position".....anyone with any sort of experience knows how easy it can happen. I ALWAYS taught survival techniques outside of that pathetic Day VFR syllabus (taught to robots and monkeys). Yes i simulated a clagged in situation where the student must make a command decision to turn back, PSL, or "press on". Yeah we were down below the legal limit, yeah we were canyon flying and following rivers,yeah we were breaking all the rules, but by golly our students knew how to survive the worst situations. We often flew them inadvertently into IMC when they were in a jam with absolutely no way out but through it, to experience the absolute isolation, anxiety and yes, fear and to understand never to go there. If by chance (good chance) they did find themselves in that situation sometime down the track they have been there before and know how to get out of it in a controlled situation. Hundreds of students to CPL, many now flying in the airlines, and we never lost a student. These people ALWAYS call me and thank me for the survival training we offered. Flying training today is all about litigation avoidance not flying skills or common sense. The majority of Instructors I know have never spun an aeroplane!! They do there wizz bang course, pay their $$ and then ask me to show them how to spin and recover!! I feel for these Instructors.... Its ALL about training.
Off soap box!