Freezing fog, lowering cloudbase, follow the river!

[mary meagher]

In the forums discussing the helicopter/crane accident, some macho chopper chaps are recalling their younger days, when they had pressed on in bad conditions.

I looked in my logbook, and sure enough, on 28 February, 1991, I was flying solo back from Alicante, Spain, in stages, in my 150 Piper Supercub. Fly two hours and stop for a cuppa, fly another two hours and spend the night in a small hotel.
Leaving Le Blanc, the cloudbase got lower and lower and lower, and I got lost.
Was trying to get to Tours, and after that, Le Mans, and Le Touquet.

Talking to the nice English Speaking Controller at Tours, he identified my transponder, and told me to follow the river that would lead me straight to that friendly city. Also, following the river meant that I avoided the tall masts that were sprinkled fairly frequently over the French landscape, which were now visible only half way up....I was LOW! Figuring that they wouldn't stick a mast in the middle of the river, I carried on toward Tours, but suddenly spotted a small airfield on my right, which turned out to be Amboise Dierre, and very welcome and welcoming it was. Tours was pleased that I was OK. I waited for better vis before continuing, two days later.

Anyone care to contribute a similar yarn of surviving unfavourable conditions?

[Fitter2]

Not that I would admit to now - the fact that I'm still alive might encourage younger pilots to be as foolish as I was when younger...:\

[peterh337]

I think a fairly big difference between today and the bad old days is that today super accurate navigation is handed to you on a plate, with GPS, so nobody should get lost.

[taxistaxing]

Interesing thread.

I had a hairy experience last summer. Routing west to east along the south coast from Bembridge, IOW, I'd been up at 3000 feet plus but was progressively pushed down by cloud over the coast, which seemed to bubble up from nowhere.

I pushed on for a few minutes and decided to throw it away just east of Shoreham. I was down to 1,000 feet and the ground rises to the north and east of Brighton towards the south Downs, blocking any escape. A lot of other people had the same idea so Shoreham was suddenly very busy. I found myself orbiting over Brighton, at 700 feet, with the cloud lowering all the time. Don't mind admitting I was absolutely sh:mad:tting myself by this point. I'm low hours PPL, VFR only, so no escape route by climbing through the cloud.

20 minutes after I'd landed there was torrential rain, and solid cloud at 200/300 feet.

I got away with it, but the situation was entirely my own fault for pressing on too far in deteriorating WX. The weather had been forecast to worseon, but much later that day, so I hadn't expected such a sudden deterioration. My take away from this experience was turn back when you still have options, rather than waiting until it's (almost) too late.

I've definitely been reminded of that incident by the chopper crash at Vauxhall - he was probably pushed down to the same height I was.

[liteswap]

Can't help but be reminded of my student piloting days back in 1989. I went for one of those four week - er - crash courses in Florida (I'm from the UK) sited at Rockledge Airpark (which wasn't nearly as surrounded by housing as Google Maps shows it now is), about halfway down the Florida finger and a mile or two inland from the eastern coast.

It was April and thunderstorms are common in the area, especially in the afternoons after a day's heat build-up, so most flying was done in the morning or away from the coast. One day my instructor directed me on a northbound flight jaunt close to Cape Canaveral - restricted airspace of course - but it was soon obvious that we were surrounded by thunderheads, with the only way out towards the space terminal.

We started getting tossed around a bit. I flew while the instructor got on the radio....

There was lightning to the left, behind and ahead - the only way out was west, so we requested emergency clearance to overfly the shuttle runway. We got it, used it, and that runway is huge - it must have taken five or 10 minutes to fly down it, we could almost have landed across it in our Cessna 152.

So we flew around the storms, headed into the boondocks for a burger at a fly-in ranch off to the east, and flew back an hour or two later. The sight of towering dark clouds all around is one that will live with me forever...

The PPL has long since expired, sadly, but the aviator inside lives on.

[trident3A]

taxistaxing

I had a very similar experience getting into Shoreham one morning last summer, flying west along the coast from Dover the cloud base came down until I was about 700ft over Brighton, luckily I knew exactly where I was and ATC gave me straight in approach to 25 but it wasn't a situation I'd like to be in again. The coastal weather really surprised me.

[A and C]

GPS just enables the unwise to get to precisely the wrong place !

[taxistaxing]

Trident -must have been the same day.

May know who you are - did we share a train journey home by any chance? :ok:

[Fuji Abound]

Mary

I recall a flight, which also involved L2K.

There were two of us - well three.

Two aircraft, two of us and another pilot in the other aircraft.

We had chatted in the terminal. He was ferrying a Yak back to the UK. I think he may have had a few thousand hours. He seemed to know what he was doing, and he knew a lot more than me, that is for sure.

I pointed out the base looked pretty low. Dont worry about that, he said, we will fly across the Channel in formation. In formation said I. Yes, said he, I will formate on your wing, and you follow me, it will be fun he said.

When we reach the coast, you turn left and I will go straight on, the weather on the other side will be much better.

Were we at 500 feet or lower for the whole crossing, could we make out the deck hands on one of the Panamaxs as it steamed down the westerly separation lane, I dread to recall. The sea and horizon seemed to merge into one, wisps of cloud passed above, around and occasionally below us, although it was difficult to distinguish between the cloud and the ping pong ball haze. My eyes never left his wing tips until the coast appeared through the grey grime.

Unfortunately the weather was no better.

With a friendly wag of the wing he departed to the right and we turned left.

At least there were now some features that loomed out of the scenery, a coast line to follow, sea to the left, land to the right, nothing to bump into well as long as we stayed over the sea - which we did.

I said to my son, don't worry watch out for the power station chimney, you will see the red beacon on top, when you spot it we slip into a bad weather circuit and we can look forward to enjoying a half of the cold stuff.

Well we never spotted the chimney, but we managed to identify the signal light and with some relief the PAPIs welcomed us home.

So what happened to the vital chimney?

We left the week before and unbeknown to me it was scheduled to be demolished the weekend we returned. Sure enough someone had won the prize to press the button a few weeks earlier and the whole lot had come tumbling down. How easily we could have sailed on past. ;)

I think that was the last time I went flying without a GPS. I often wonder about the Yak pilot, the friendly wing waggle and the bon chance over the radio on 123.45. He saw us across the channel as he said he would but I suspect he had a more challenging flight up country than he imagined.

I wish I had also wished him Bon Chance!

Bon Chance Mr Yak.

[Pace]

Mary

I had been asked to pick up a very basic Cessna 150 and move it to another airfield some 80 nm away.
The aircraft flew well but had not one piece of working navaids fitted.
I had a radio so pure VFR.
The weather was not good with an overcast sky at 1000 feet and slight rain.
The area was surrounded by a chain of hills and high ground so I elected to follow a river which winded its way to within a couple of hundred meters of my destination.
I reckoned that if things got worse and I kept the river right under me I could not possibly hit high ground.
As I followed the river I was being forced down by a lowering cloudbase and visibility which was fast dropping in heavier rain and mist.
I was now horrified to find I was scud running ie chopping in and out of cloud at 400 feet AGL with visibility down to 1000 meters.
The river was getting harder to see and I did not want to go lower plus the cloud had moved in behind me to so turning back was not an option, neither was turning left or right into high ground.
The cloud chopping got worse with now just occasional glimpses of the river below.
Now at 400 feet I had cloud below as well.
Thats it!!!! I went for full power and climbed into IMC to 2500 feet.
My intention was to get radar from a Military base I knew well and get a PAR off them.
Luckily that was not needed as I turned west and broke clear of the front and clouds.
So yes and no following rivers :)

Pace

[ShyTorque]

I once arrived at an RAF base in a helicopter in extremely poor weather. We had been the only flight that morning and was asked by the local pilots (who were waiting to launch the wing):

"So what was the visibility like at the bottom of the PAR?"

The answer?

"PAR? The weather was too bad for an instrument letdown, so we had to come in VFR".

Which was true. And I hope I don't get put in a position where I have to do it again.

[Pace]

ShyTorque

Without going into too much detail from many moons ago They would continue a PAR down to the ground if need be!
They would go through the bit of "If not visual at minima bla bla bla " and then intensify their directions :E

I did it once In a twin with extensive unforecast fog over a large area which caused many problems to others and I had a totally jammed fuel selector!

I got the lights at 60 feet but that was a critical situation at a color code red military base where they read the situation well :E

Pace

[ShyTorque]

Pace, yes, I flew hundreds of PARs. Our destination on that occasion was "Red", hence no-one else flying.

We had no IFR diversion fuel because it was a VFR, low level flight. Having (legally) transitted at between 100' and 250' agl, it would have been madness to climb into those weather conditions, in case we didn't get in and besides, we would have gone into icing conditions, which our aircraft wasn't cleared to fly in, as most helicopters aren't. RAF regs meant we wouldn't have been allowed to attempt an instrument approach in any case.

Continuing a PAR to ground level in a helicopter is not a safe plan in any case. In a fixed wing, you flare to arrest the descent and land at a relatively high speed then slow down on the ground. In a helicopter you can't do that, especially if it's got skids. You need to slow down to a much lower speed, while still flying, which requires far better visual references because you're still operating in three dimensions. If you get it wrong you can immediately lose sight of what visual reference you had and then you're in big trouble because you are extremely close to the ground in a nose up attitude.

On that day, the weather forecast was very, very, wrong, for much of the country. On our arrival, the station metman had already been taken to task and asked me to go and speak to him to tell him how extensive the fog was (very, and getting worse). Poor chap was almost in tears. His foreceast "Minimum of 800 foot aal, 5/8 cloud with excellent visibility" had rapidly turned into unforecast 50 metres vis in freezing fog up to cloudbase, no gaps.

We elected to hover taxy at a safe speed and at a very low height for the last ten miles, much safer a) because it was bread and butter stuff to us, b) we also had an option to land in a field anywhere if required, c) I had a local area 50,000 chart, up to date with all known wires marked and I was very familiar with the area. Even so, it wasn't easy and ATC couldn't see us as we went past the tower. An unexpected problem came as ATC told us to hover taxy to a particular, numbered parking "slot". I told them I was on the ground by the Fire section and intended to ground taxy then shut down on the first spot I saw.

Worth saying, I couldn't legally have done it as a civvy, and wouldn't attempt it now unless it involved saving life, for additional reasons.

[007helicopter]

We elected to hover taxy at a safe speed and at a very low height for the last ten miles, much safer a) because it was bread and butter stuff to us

ST, so was that yourself and another Pilot or Navigator on board? just curious would you have also been able to make that flight single crew or would that have changed your decision?

I had one Rotary solid IMC encounter in a totally basic Hiller UH12 and that was enough to teach me my lesson, however I enjoy fixed wing Instrument flying but not scud running.

[Pace]

Scud running is very dangerous and nowadays I would far rather take to the clouds where you cannot hit something.
Better to be up there wishing you were down there than down there wishing you were up there :ugh:

Pace

[sevenstrokeroll]

routine operation...taking bank checks to and from nutty little airports in the California foothills...cross huge damn below the level of surrounding mountains and clouds, fly over reservoir below cloud cover marginal VFR would be a good day, follow river to outcropping of rocks, PULL UP, then GEAR DOWN and if you were lucky you saw a runway and landed

if not, well, that's why commercial pilots learn chandelles, and they do work VMC or IMC.

especially tough when all air traffic controllers had been fired.

navigation? oh, an AM radio station somewhere and when you crossed the 350'bearing to station, you knew it was somewhere nearby(airport).

GPS...hey great. that was a long time ago.

and then there were RNAV apchs to truckee, california...runway in sight...but only the first 75 feet...whew

[ShyTorque]

Scud running is very dangerous and nowadays I would far rather take to the clouds where you cannot hit something.
Better to be up there wishing you were down there than down there wishing you were up there. Pace

I wasn't scud running, as I said we were hover taxying in very poor visibility. You can't do that in a fixed wing, or at least I wouldn't try it!

We didn't fly single crew. One pilot flying, one navigating (me). Our normal crewing was one pilot, one crewman or a Nav/crewman. Occasionally we flew two pilots up front, as on this occasion, with the crewman also doing nav assist/extra lookout from the jump seat, his normal seating position.

As I said, this sort of flying ("nap of the earth", in USAF parlance) was our bread and butter, but we normally hoped to do it in slightly better weather so we could go a bit more quickly over that sort of distance. That's how military rotary wing has to operate sometimes.

[AdamFrisch]

I have some footage from my dash cam that I'll have to wait until my medical gets pulled before I dare show it anywhere where FAA could see it. All I can say it wasn't my brightest moment, but it made me realise how much I need an IR!

Back in the UK I did takeoff in 600ft ceilings one time, only to have the oil lid pop up and have to return. Thank god for that, because I realised as soon as I was airborne what a tw** I had been trying to fly in that.

[RatherBeFlying]

I've been a bit more chicken -- 700 AGL and I turn around if VFR. I was following the trailing edge of a system and got to it before my destination; so was poking around north of terminal airspace.

Then had an interesting encounter with a sloping ceiling dealt with by a 180 on the dials.

Since there were better ceilings to the south, started talking to ATC.

[abgd]

What would your definitions of 'scud running' be. Is it just any altitude that makes you feel uncomfortable?

[Brian Abraham]

What would your definitions of 'scud running' be

This might qualify as the extreme end of the definition

Near Miss with Mountain - YouTube

[Pace]

ABDG

Definition of scud running is any attempted VFR flight where visual contact with the ground and surroundings is temporarily lost.
Ie a mix of vmc and imc flying at low level in proximity to terrain

Pace

[mad_jock]

Nobody has picked up on the freezing fog in the intial post.

But honestly don't screw around with it. Even in my approved machine I won't go near it if I can help it. And if we have to depart in it we will have allsorts of expensive gunk on the airframe. Then loads of engineering inspections/work done when we land.

You can get fast amounts of ice building up extremely quickly.

Know one pilot who did an approach through the stuff for bottom 700ft and by the time he landed he was at 80% torque when the normal would have been 20% And he reckoned at 400ft when he spotted what was happening he wouldn't have been able to Go-around. He thought he had a wind sheer event due inversion causing the power up when actually it was 2 tons of ice on the aircraft.

[Pace]

Good Point MJ :ok:

My river following was on a ****e day in the summer.
Any day when temps are near zero on the ground a single engine pilot needs to be very aware of picking up ice in any visible moisture and being unable to get rid of it all the way to the ground!

Pace

[mary meagher]

Expensive gunk on the aeroplane?

Reminds me of sitting in a wet snow blizzard at Newark. I was a humble passenger. Watching the erk on the rig traveling up and down the wing of the 747, squirting the deicing fluid. Carefully. Moved along to the empennage, squirted thoroughly and carefully. Moved along to the other wing, repeating the spray. By which time the wing next to my seat had built up at least 2 inches of pebbledash ice. I didn't like the look of it, so summoned the steward, who looked at the wing, and summoned the first officer. He looked at the wing, thanked me for the observation, and told me that at the end of the taxiway there were two deicing rigs, one for each wing, that would finish the job properly.

And so there was. Once airborne, we cleared the nasty stuff in no time. What was alarming was how quickly it had reformed at the gate, even after getting the spray job.

[mad_jock]

Expensive gunk otherwise know as a type IV two part de-ice anti ice procedure Mary.

They first of all spray type II or I to get rid of the surface contimination then spray you again with the Type IV which in europe anyway is green and is like golden syrup in viscosity. After you have had it done and flown the engineers have to inspect it because it gets into the controls and then dry's turning into a gel which can then jam the controls. It stays on the airframe for days afterwards even when flown at Vmo of 250 knts. You can't touch any surface until the airframe is washed, you just come away with a sticky residue.

Its costs a fortune over £1500 pounds for a 500ltr de-ice then 400ltr anti ice. I have only ever had it done twice in 8 years. The other times when it was going to be used we cancelled the flights, not due to cost but the lack of engineering support to get the controls checked at the other end.

[mad_jock]

http://ts1.mm.bing.net/th?id=H.5026701708886928&pid=15.1


http://ts3.mm.bing.net/th?id=H.5026701708886922&pid=15.1

Here is some photo's of expensive gunk. Although unless for training purposes I really can't see the reason for it in the second photo.

[Pace]

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-OUv1vgDYRSw/UP6IZfY42lI/AAAAAAAACNg/_JyHm-CzyuM/s640/136.JPG

Mad Jock

Me too last three flights all needed deicing and nothing in 8 years and about 1000 Euros a go :( This is how I found the jet I fly when we got back to Salzburg couple of days ago.

Removed some of the snow with brooms but solid ice underneith

Pace

[Pace]

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-J8YVh3_-H9g/UP6MEoUMYeI/AAAAAAAACN4/A2FEmz0CP2w/s640/059.JPG


And a couple of weeks earlier ferrying a Citation 560 To Dallas! Woke up In Iceland to find the Citation covered in ice
Here you can see the rig

Pace

[dont overfil]

Mad Jock,

I've seen some of the gloopy snot like de ice stuff sliding down the windows when I have been a pax, but I've never seen it that colour. :yuk:

D.O.

[Pace]

Think they use finest Scottish Malt up there ?:E

Pace

[Fuji Abound]

The poor quality malt is probably cheaper certainly judging by the cost of the last drum I bought for the Cirrus. It might do almost as good a job as well, including having to inspect the linkages afterwards to see how much lubrication the alcohol had stripped.

[dont overfil]

So that's what Laphroig is for.:yuk:

D.O.

[mad_jock]

Its very rare to see type IV in the UK, its I think purely because of the type of wx that requires it is rare as well. I have never used it in the UK.

And gut rot blended whisky or some of that irish muck would be cheaper than De ice fluid.

I really hate the stuff it stinks, rots the aircraft, shags your shoes screws with your brakes.

Give me below -10 and dry snow and white runways anyday than that wet horrible pish that the UK gets.

[Maoraigh1]

Definition of scud running is any attempted VFR flight where visual contact with the ground and surroundings is temporarily lost.
Ie a mix of vmc and imc flying at low level in proximity to terrain

A number of fatal accidents have hapened when pilots chose to fly just under the cloud, but not above mountain tops, and have got into cloud, then hit a mountain, with decent VMC at a lower altitdude - and acceptable VFR terrain clearance. High level scud running?

[tmmorris]

Once had significant ice buildup on my car in FZFG - an inch or so. Had to stop to deice!

Tim

[Contact Approach]

I recently took a trip to the AAIB and saw for myself the very reason why not to 'risk it'.

[abgd]

Thanks for the definitions of scud-running. I'd always thought of it as flying very low under a low, possibly descending cloudbase. It seems to be something slightly different.

Can the de-icer not be at least partly recycled?

[mad_jock]

In some counties the whole deicing thing is handled different to the UK.

They have holding point de-icing stations just before the runway so when your due to go you get sprayed and virtually cleared for take off just after they have finished. I believe that these places sometimes recycle. Doesn't seem to be any cheaper though than anywhere else. But that can create problems because you don't actually get a receipt because everything is done on a recorded frequency. A fact that some accountancy deptments refuse to believe. Also there is a view that after de-icing the PIC has to inspect the airframe before accepting. Which is impossible when your 50m away from the runway holding point with your engines turning and ATC clear you to line up as soon as you move forward from the de-icing bay.

Its a bit different also as well in regards to ground crew training. For example in Finland the de-icing crews have a 6 week course before the icing season starts and I quite quickly realised they had more of a clue than I did about de-icing aircraft so I used thier opinion. They also use very little fluid compared to other nations almost seems a matter of pride they can clear you with a few well placed squirts.

But in the main airports are more worried about the fluid contiminating the local water supply.