PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Do you listen to ATC if they tell you the weather ahead is bad?
Old 13th Jun 2012, 09:12
  #142 (permalink)  
peterh337
 
Join Date: Dec 2011
Posts: 2,460
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Yes of course, it is immediately obvious on the most casual walk around the Friedrichshafen show that the vast majority of the "ultralight/sports" types are built to be flown unofficially IFR. The glass cockpits make it easy.

The gotcha (as you know ) is that once you are in IMC, there are thingies out there which can come and bite you and you won't see them coming.

Turbulence / convective wx
Lightning
Terrain

Even, as I said, plain static is likely to occassionally wipe out the fancy avionics in the all-plastic types. And you will get that from flying in almost any conditions where there are water droplets around, including perfect CAVOK VMC. I had a big problem with my VHF comms a while ago (posted the details here) due to bad bonding to the elevator, so its static wicks could not work properly, and mine is a metal aircraft.

PPL training doesn't cover much of what is needed to fly safely in VMC, never mind IMC

Last edited by peterh337; 13th Jun 2012 at 09:13.
peterh337 is offline