About ten years ago I flew a charter passenger and some of his mates for a boys weekend away, he holds a PPL and flies an R 44, but needed to take 6 so he hired from us and I got the job of flying them.
We left London in viz of 600m and a cloudbase of 250-300ft. As we went IMC he (sitting LHS so he could "help me when I needed it") became quite nervous, we didn't see a thing until 200' on the ILS the other end, all the way he kept saying " I could never, ever do this."
Turned out he'd got himself IMC by accident a little while before and nearly killed himself, his wife and his daughter, coming out of clouds, almost out of control and just missing some power cables. To this day his wife will not fly with him and has banned the kids from flying with him. He told me that the control loss happened in the 180 turn he tried to make, that in cloud he could see nothing, with foggles he could always see a little bit. Looking at the cockpit of his aircraft the thing that struck me was the fact that the AI and HSI are set incredibly low and so you are in an unnatural position for IF with your in-built balance mechanisms at a strange tilt giving a built in version of the leans. I suspect from his description of the weather and the turbulence he may have been in a small, embedded Cu and that the turbulence played havoc with his already overloaded mind and senses.
I sat in the cockpit and put on a pair of foggles and was staggered by how much of the outside world I could see. I'm not an instructor, but I do have 9 500 rotary hours another 4 500 fixed wing and IRs on both and that makes me question just how many PPLs doing instrument appreciation are really on instruments and how many are dishonestly sneaking a peek outside, no-one can really tell, but there are enough AAIB reports to suggest to me that a lot of them are, and very few of them understand the weather properly, or the concept of arranging your flight in bounds. I.e. I can see the next bound 5 miles ahead so all is well at my speed and altitude, I can't see the next bound so slow down, is my altitude ok? How much of the weather is at my altitude? If its a lot I need to change my heading or altitude or speed. Now I need to start re-planning, do I need to turn back? is it worse behind me now? do I need help to find an airfield and land? Do I need to tell my ego to f*$% right off because actually I'm quite scared and I want down?
Like (I suspect) many on here I can imagine what was going through the mind of the pilot of this aircraft and it is not pretty. I have heard a pilot panicking with his TX held open and it was the stuff of nightmares, I truly feel for the Newquay controller who heard this, just as I feel for the Bournemouth controller listening to the pilot of the A109 who crashed on approach in poorish wx at night in 2004.
Flying is a big boys passtime/profession (or girls) it can take the fun away in seconds, if you allow dishonest training, ego or arrogance it will kill you in the same time.
Just my 2d worth
SND
Nigelh; You've actually hit part of it on the head, make the 180 turn while you can still see. Do it in the cloud and your'e probably screwed.
Last edited by Sir Niall Dementia; 19th May 2012 at 18:03.