Scariest IFR experience....

[planemad_bk]

Just wondering what your most frightening experience has been during instruction on IFR twin training?

[BEagle]

Lost most of the pressure instruments above solid cloud in a Phantom once when cabin air got into the nav's altimeter, so had to do a close formation GCA.

That was twin engined IFR - does it count?

Hardly scary though as we trained for such things quite regularly.




:hmm:

[Whopity]

Nothing to do with Instruction

Passed position report on HF mid Indian Ocean. 2 seconds later USAF C130 reported the same position, same time, same level, 2 seconds later we hit his wake! But we saw nothing it was in IMC.

Which is the odd one out?

VFR
IFR
IMC
VMC

clue; one of them has nothing to do with the weather!

[FlyingForFun]

Again, nothing to do with instruction, although it was, coincidentally, an instructional flight.

At 3000', in a C172, the altimeter started behaving eratically, jumping by 100' at a time, or not responding to pitch changes. Asked for immediate vectors to the ILS, and didn't relax until I had intercepted the glideslope at what seemed like a sensible indicated altitude vs the DME distance. Even then, had a bit of a panic when ATC reported the cloudbase as BKN 100' and expected to have to go around, but fortunately the isolated patch of low cloud had cleared during our approach (I later found out the aircraft in front of us on the ILS had to go around), and we came out into beautiful clear weather at 1000'.

Strangely, during all of this, it never occured to me to try using the alternate static knob. :confused: No idea if it would have made any difference, but I was so busy thinking about how to get the aircraft on the ground, the thought didn't even cross my mind. ILAFFT.

Whopity, the answer is..... no, I'll let someone else answer, but it's a good question!

FFF
----------------

[mad_jock]

The gear warning horn going off in a stage of flight which it wasn't expected.

Just done a go around had the engine failure controlling it and doing all the normal things.

When I selected 0 flap the horn went off, it was fecking loud and totally unexpected.

Put the fear of god up everyone in the aircraft. I looked at the instructor he looked at me. Engine became un-failed very quickly.

And doing unusual attitudes with the 170A examiner was bloody scary. The guy in the back that could see out the window agreed.

MJ

[A37575]

Total electrical failure night in cloud in a Baron (single pilot freight) with destination aerodrome low cloud and rain. Left with no cockpit lighting, no electrical operation of gear, no flaps. no landing lights, no navaids because battery flat.

Thankfully had strong enough teeth to grip torch firmly in mouth. To add to problem, emergency handle to wind down gear was jammed giving only 12 turns.

Thought I must be winding it wrong way but unsure. Found POH in glove box and attempted to fly on instruments using torch (thank goodness for suction driven ADI and DG) and at same time holding knees close together in order to rest POH on them while I tried turning the bloody pages to find description of which way the emergency gear handle winds (clockwise or anticlockwise).


Got into unusual attitude a couple of times while attempting to look down to read small print in POH interspersed with using torch to watch flight instruments.

Had badly cut right hand trying to lift emergency gear rotating handle situated low and behind the two seats and which had sharp edged plastic cover that was difficult to remove in order to uncover the emergency gear handle. Jagged plastic took considerable skin from back of hand. Found out later the handle was distorted due years of freight being placed on top of it.

Found airport by dint of glow through clouds and circled lower over glow and spotted runway lights. In and out of cloud during turns to keep airport in sight. Cloud base fractured at 800 ft.

Inadvertently strayed into ILS approach path of major international airport 5 miles from my airport but found out later ATC radar watching my progress with interest so no collision risk there.

Resigned to do wheels up on the runway but tried battery switch again and found slight recovery so managed to get wheels electrically down before it went all black in cockpit. Landed OK sans lights, flaps etc. Wrote up tech log with little drops of blood on it - couldn't be bothered to be neat and tidy. Got home and wife said "Did you have a nice flight, Dear?" Unprintable reply.

Found out later that aircraft owner had been annoyed with a long term defect that caused alternator warning light bulbs to blow so he simply removed the globes and replaced the red plastic cover so you couldn't see there were no lights there. Therefore when electrics began to play up there was no alternator warning red lights to alert me. Nothing recorded in tech log which had lily white pages.

Cause of problem was un-marked circuit breaker which in fact was the main alternator control CB hidden out of sight several inches under the pilot's instrument panel and which had been jagged out by the action of the rudder gust lock wire which happened to pass within a cat's whisker of the collar of the CB.

With no alternator warning lights to alert double alternator failure it was only a matter of time before battery went flat during night flight. I had checked all known and visible circuit breakers during preflight and when failure was first apparent. But due no decal on lower coaming indicating presence of vital CB out of sight, it was Murphy's Law that the bastard was jagged up. POH systems pages never mentioned this CB as this was an old Baron.

Moral of the story? Know the POH back to front of any aircraft you fly. Be ever vigilant for unreported defects in any general aviation aircraft you fly especially if the operation is on a shoe string where other pilots are scared to report defects in the tech log. There is no honour among the thieves of GA. Finally carry two torches with good batteries. You never know when you will need them for real.

[B2N2]

Scariest IFR experience as a:

PPL-IR:

Fresh instrument ticket, nearly killed myself (and my pax) on my first actual IMC flight after gaining my IR. Embedded thunderstorms in a Cherokee.
Alternating up and down drafts exceeding 1500 fpm with either being in the caution range or on the stall horn. Stupid, stupid stupid...:}

Instructing single engine IFR;
My very first instrument student lost it in actual IMC, we got a ATC vector into a fairly large cloud (tops above 20,000').Things got really really dark and rainy.
He went into unusual attitudes for real. Don't know for sure if we rolled the airplane or not. In any case I lost a 1000' of altitude in the recovery from the RH seat. :ooh:

Instructing Multi engine IFR:
Receiving vectors for a VOR approach at our home airport in IMC.
We were deviating around the darkest bits, refused a couple of heading suggestions from ATC. Discovered some sort of a lighter break in the clouds,headed for the "hole".
Kept my eye on the strikefinder. As we were about to intercept the final...BLAM..the sky lit up . Strikefinder showed a nice blip right at the airplane symbol. Notified ATC as we turned 180 degrees. Right as we completed the turn the sky and clouds lit up all around us. Had the strikefinder on the shortest range setting and counted 8-10 strikes within the inner ring.:eek: :eek: :eek:
The funny part was asking ATC for holding instructions.
His reply was: " cleared to hold"
I said were?
His answer :" cleared to hold anywere...."
We found a nice break in between layers and held in VMC till the storms moved on.

[Dan Winterland]

Again, not instructing, not in a twin, not technically IFR, or not even in an aeroplane for that matter!

When I was young and stupid (I will mention that I'm just stupid now before someone else does) I used to do cloud climbs in gliders on nothing but a T+S. One day while climbing through a cloud, another glider's wingtip passed a few feet over my canopy!

Ooooher! :eek:

[funfly]

As a novice PPl (which I still am) I was flying back home from Oxford last year in nice clear skies when the sky arround me disapeared, I had entered unseen cloud and was in total 'white-out'.
Tried to stay calm and did (wrongly I know) two things at the same time; 1. climb to MSA and 2, turn 180 degrees.
After the 180 turn I was still in cloud and not sure of my attitude so decided to fly on a reciprical heading to my flight plan. After a total white-out time of less than one minute I emerged from the unseen cloud not at the attitude or even the altitude I expected.
Next day enrolled for my IMC.

[Craggenmore]

Not getting airways clearance for the first time; on my 170 A

:\

[SixDelta]

Young and stupid. In a 152 following another one in loose and pretty much unbriefed formation (we certainly hadn't covered "lost-leader") entered cloud, was told by the other that he was level and that i should climb 1000' for seperation, somewhat caught out I temporarily lost all sense of pretty much everything, by the time i remembered to look at my AI i was in a sixty degree banked decending turn... so, naturally, I rolled out, commenced the climb and came within around 20 feet of hitting my mate (i can still remember exactly how his beacon looked as if floated past my front screen).

I never told him quite how close we'd come. :\

[Flyin'Dutch']

A long time ago!

TT66 hours; of which 36 were in motorgliders; the rest was to get my PPL; ink of the twin rating not dry in the book yet.

Wanted to take then GF to Guernsey.

Set off from Wolverhampton Spaceport for Exeter as the weather at the Guernsey was crappy. Checked weather at Birmingham and Exeter both something like sct 2500.

Just acquired my new GPS with 'moving map' a Magellan one channel receiver (piece of sh1te that was) as back up for this VFR flight.

Set off.

Cloudbase 2000ft.

As we got further South the base got lower and lower. I kept going down with the cloudbase to try and stay in VMC.

I was handed from Gloucester to Filton who advised me that I my last request for lower meant that I would be going below their radar altitude.

I felt brave and said I was happy to accept that.

Fell out of the clouds at about 1200ft and saw, directly below me, a farmhouse and a white Peugeot 307 (funny how you never forget details like that)

Yikes.

Poured on the coal and advised Filton that I was climbing to 3500ft, was lost and wanted vectors, please.

They vectored me into the Severn estuary and descended me to 1000ft. Still solid IMC so they advised a climb to something safe again and suggested to divert into Bristol.

Bristol sounded like the place to be!

Vectored into Bristol and broke cloud at 700ft on right base.

Loved the lights, managed not to forget to put the gear down!

Upon landing in crewbus to the terminal. Into the local shoppe and bought a few bottles of the good stuff for the controllers.

Flew to the Channel Islands the next day in good weather!

Ah, you want to know how many hours in IMC training I had at that stage.

2

ILAFFT big time.

FD

[GusHoneybun]

Just to continue with the young/stupid theme.

Ferry flight for maintainance down in Dundee. Cloud about 500' at departure aerodrome, wind southerly about 15 kts. Happens to be the cairngorms between myself and destination so decide to pottle off using my IMC rating. Climb (eventually) to FL75. Halfway there, lost the navaids and almost instantly hit mountain waves. Anyone ever been in a true mountain wave will know how butt clenchingly scary they are. Aircraft starts descending at 2500 fpm despite full power and nibbling the stall. Hit the bottom somewhere below 5000ft well below MSA before the updraft, and then climbing at 2500 fpm with the power off. Got up to 9000ft before the whole thing started again. This is all coupled with what can only be described as turbulence so severe I couldn't focus on the instruments. I know what it feels like to be in a washing machine.
After 10 minutes of this, I get spat out of the cloud somewhere over Rattray into clear and calm conditions. It was a very serene moment and I must admit I was physically shaking from the experience.

Anyhoo, when the engineer released the aircraft back to be taken back up north he takes me aside to tell me that the fuel line to the carb was loose and could have dislodged at any point on the flight down. If it had of done, after the inevitable engine fire, there is no doubt that I would have become part of the mountainside somewhere.

Single Engine + IMC. Stoopid Idea.

[ShyTorque]

The young first-tourist helicopter pilot (guess who) was tasked to fly 110 nms south to a VFR only destination, an army camp in Central America. As he drove around the perimeter track at his base airfield, he noticed that the airfield was shrouded in fog. On arrival at the hangar, he was immediately briefed and auth'd by a senior Sqn Ldr who said that he had checked the weather, which was was fine just to the south and the fog was only a couple of hundred feet thick. "Do a towering instrument takeoff, you'll pop out into 8/8ths blue in a few seconds. Climb to 1000 feet and carry on south, sign here!" he said.

Duly signed, taxied out. Airborne, towering takeoff and instrument climb. 1000 feet later, still in fog. 1500 feet, no change. 2,000 feet, no change. 2,500 feet, suddenly out into bright sunshine on top. So much for the weather reports. :rolleyes: Carried on south.....

Gradual realisation, the whole country was fogged out.... except three mountain peaks in the distance, far too steep to land on. :ooh: The only radar equipped airfield was the one we departed from; well below limits for an instrument approach as there was only a search radar.

At full fuel, the aircraft had 1 hour twenty five minutes endurance, not leaving much holding fuel at the destination.... there was no other airport and no diversion.

So we had a very uncomfortable flight with no viable option but to continue to destination, continually scanning beneath us for a gap in the fog, although it was mainly jungle beneath us. There was no gap. Our track took us fairly close to the coast and we saw that the fog also extended far out to sea. We had no navaids (there WERE actually no ground based navaids) and this was in the days before GPS (or Decca TANS) so we were flying DR only.

HF radio comms were established at the destination and the Army weather check was: "We've got thick FOG down here!" This was somewhat disappointing as the country ended a few miles further south of the destination and the adjoining country was "unfriendly"......the sole reason for our presence in that part of the world. A cross-border landing was out of the question. We were sure that they would have been delighted to receive an unexpected gift of an RAF Support helicopter, even with empty fuel tanks, but as we would rather not have spent the next few days suspended upside down over a vat of Pirhana fish, we decided to forget that option....and carried on.

We were a mile from the destination and becoming "rather concerned" :eek: when a small gap appeared in the fog. Down we went... Highly fortunately for us, at the bottom of the gap we saw an army camp - our destination. Boy were they impressed! Boy, so were we!

Yes, I got a bollocking. Thank goodness we didn't have a serious in-flight emergency such as a fire.

The authorising officer got a bigger bollocking. His "weather report" wasn't exactly wrong - it was just that it came from a manned army rebro staion on the top of the mountain we saw. It WAS clear up there! :hmm:

I learned a few things that morning... :O

[The Otter's Pocket]

Great Post Shy. Tell me was that Belieze?

250hrs clear sky absolutely clear. Set off Corby to Exeter 7am summers day. C150 with 1 VOR an ADF and a lazy AH. Somewhere near Brize I realised I was over the top of 8/8 cloud at 5000ft. Came to a bank of cloud and thought with my IMC that this should be no problem.
Went to instruments in good time. Forgot about the AH. Thought I was flying straight and level, only to find was in a descent, increasing compass heading and sliding into a turn.
Could all of a sudden got very dark, large drafts and rain on the windscreen. Went to full power and tried to climb. Tried to do a 180 with the standby compass and the VSI. The aircraft started to run away with me.
Saw a light patch and went for it. Could just see the green of rolling hills. Dived for the ground like a Stuka, thought that I would be better scud running than in IMC with unreliable instruments and some carb icing.

Ended up flying down a valley at VNE with a farm disappearing above the wing. Took a condor moment, three deep breaths. Steadied all the instruments I thought that I could trust, (every other instr, became a trend style instr) and climbed back into IMC.
Brize were fantastic. Vectored into an airfield (forget the name) and greased it on, yet I couldn't stand when I got out from shaking.
Telephone Brize to thank them. Took off for home 4 hours later, sky was full of towering cumulus, was so shaken that I struggled to get get a decent ROC. When ever I hit turb. I went white.
Refused to fly the a/c again, 2 weeks later the engine on the a/c went tech with a hole in a cylinder and valve, and a sticking valve. Was told by a know it all at Sibson that it was carb ice. F***in T**T. Never flew for the company again and I believe that they were investigated by the CAA. Hateful situation to build hours for a job in a dangerous a/c.