Originally Posted by
DeltaV
OK, it was a bit tight scudrunning
I was afraid of mentioning the dreaded word of "scud running" (#1 VFR pilot killer), but a little bit of that it indeed was.
The point I think Maoraigh1 was making about a descending turn is that you were right in the cloudbase and that by descending you would have much better visibility to see any hard bits you would not want to hit. Your idea of a level turn on instruments gives me the chills and in all such cases I would opt for good sight of the ground features over just about everything else.
In principle I agree, in this case however literally everthing is way too hard to hit at the mountain tops (no soft spots at all), and I made myself familiar with the terrain before crossing, so all the hard bits were to the north of me ahead, nothing behind to the south, so I felt in this specific situation a level turn is less dangerous than a descending one. You can see how reluctant I was giving away altitude when approaching the ridge, as I rather manouvered horizontally to avoid clouds in my way, in order the keep my altitude "reserve" over the ridge.
In case there was confusion over Maoraigh1's description of a "steep descending 180", I think he meant a steep 180 but descending, not steeply descending.
Thanks, I misunderstood that a little bit too.
Approching the crossing, I made a mental note of not overbanking the aircraft in case I hit a solid wite-out IMC cloud. I was afraid of G-stalling it with a too steep turn, which is also a bad bad thing in clouds by a VFR guy.