Cloud flying down under?
 

I say, chaps, a New Zealand pilot on the private flying forum has been shocked and surprised to learn that in the UK we are allowed to fly in cloud in uncontrolled airspace.

Certainly gliders in the UK are permitted to fly in uncontrolled airspace provided you wear a parachute, and have suitable instruments. These days Flarm is a good idea. We also have the custom of announcing on a gliding frequency that you are entering cloud, giving location, altitude, and intentions.

What are the rules down under? I thought NZ and Oz were glider friendly places? Or don't you have clouds?

Over here in Australia, we do things a little bit differently. How silly of you to think otherwise. Our vastly different and superior legislation is designed for our cloudy and crowded skies. Entering into cloud under VFR while flying anything will invite mid airs, disorientation, mayhem and death. Totally illegal, can't be done, never happens, an offence of strict liability.

I think you'll find it's a peculiarity particular to the UK and a few other countries.

I often wonder why I had an Instrument Rating when one could fly for 6 months between rating renewals without ever entering a cloud.

In England I guess they mostly fly in clouds or not at all.

I thought VFR was see and avoid. Hard to do when you are in cloud I guess.

89 steps to heaven, just the avoid part really, you'll almost certainly achieve the Seeing part when the whites of the other persons eyes are only a few metres away! :}

OZ has night VFR, not known in the rest of the world.

Oz would actually be a perfect place for cloud flying in gliders- isolated CUs with high bases, and PFDs available for a very low cost. It would be great if you didn't have to stop climbing at clouds base, and the chances of collision are, of course, miniscule.

USA and canada allow night vfr flight.

There are few areas where the Australian rules are more relaxed than other parts of the world....

Not strictly true, they allow VFR, and do not differentiate whether the sun is up or down. All part of having a PPL and up. Last time I noticed, UK had a night rating and the rather useful IMC rating.

Only in Australia do we insist that such things as night or controlled airspace are somewhere special, and only suitably rated pilots need apply.

Indeed, in the early days of the dreaded NVFR, I was officially advise that my instrument rating did not count for NVFR, apparently I could only fly in IMC, not on a fine and clear night. Only in Australia.

Mind you, in those days, there was no shortage of Examiners of Airmen who rather disapproved of GA IFR as well, just stick to day VFR.

Having originally learned to fly in UK, as I have often said, I didn't know flying was so bloody difficult until I cam home. And little has changed in the subsequent 50+ years.

Tootle pip!!

To play devils advocate briefly here, you didn't have to be IMC, only IFR, you are welcome to fly IFR on a cloudless moonlit night.

Aerocat,
It precluded me from flying a NVFR aeroplane NVFR.
IFR GA aircraft were very rare birds in those days.
We had a lovely 260C Comanche that was IFR anywhere else in the world, DCA would do no better than NVFR ---- at least they didn't makes us pull out our very nifty 180 channel VHF and fit an AWA Skyphone, but even that took some negotiating the "standards".
Tootle pip!!

Care to explain some more. You can fly VFR at night in more places than just Oz.

27/09
Your thinking is upside down (it is Australia).
Most elsewhere just has VFR, period.
Most elsewhere regards night time to be a natural and regularly occurring feature of life on earth, so such things as pilot's licenses and associated training automatically accommodate same.
It was never disallowed at night, so it didn't need to be allowed, despite fears of the end of civilization in Oz if it was added "as a privilege".
Like driver's licenses.
Most elsewhere do not differentiate between navigating at night versus the rest of the day. How to avoid Cumulus Granatis is part of normal training, not an add-on.
Just like "controlled airspace", ask a PPL anywhere else about the seriously big deal we make of it in OZ, all you would get is a "WTF, it's just airspace" look.
Tootle pip!!

I would think that's because in those other places, they train in and around and are familiar with operating in CTA / CTR - unlike many of our Aussie PPLs from the bush who panic at the idea of going near controlled airspace. Not their fault, just unfamiliarity, and it needs to be trained for. I certainly don't get 'WTF, it's just airspace' on the first couple of trips in, it's more like 'WTF did they just say and WTF am I supposed to do or say now?!', accompanied by a look of startled fear.

Leadsled.

I think you miss understood my point. I have no argument with your interpretation of VFR whether it be night or day

The following excerpt from Wiki, Yes I know it's not to be considered the be all and end all for correctness.

My bolding.

My post was in response to this post: which to me inferred that Oz was the only place that allowed VFR flight at night.

Glider flight in IMC
 

In NZ, glider pilots are permitted to fly in IMC subject to the provisions of Part 104 (104.53) - http://www.caa.govt.nz/rules/Rule_Co...solidation.pdf

27/09,
I would suggest that Wikipedia is hardly an authoritative reference on matters aviation.
The fact remains, Australia has a very anal approach to VFR at night,( and many matters aviation) the history is not a glorious one.
Tootle pip!!

for which one has to have a NVFR Rating.

601,
In Australia -- as far as I know the flight category NVFR is confined to Australia, as is something called a NVFR Rating (if that is what it is still called under part 61).
On the standard international flight notification form, and most other places you are I for IFR or V for VFR, night does not come into it.
That is the whole point of my previous posts.
Tootle pip!!

27/09

What he's saying is that oz has "Night VFR" or NVFR, which is a whole nother rating/licence/endorsement thing that you must have in order to fly VFR at night. It's based of navigating via navaids & such (correct me where I'm wrong here Aussies)

The rest of the world doesn't have such a separate rating. They can just fly VFR at night if whatever conditions are met.


An example that hit me a number of years ago when briefly in the land of red,- I went to conduct a local survey flight at night probably straying no more than 15 miles from the aerodrome. However because I was a lowly Kiwi with a hundred or so hours at night and no "NVFR" rating I couldn't do the flight VFR so had to file IFR, even though I wasn't going anywhere...

Weird...

Unless the rules have changed in Canada, and I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, you cannot fly at night VFR with a plain old PPL licence, you need a night endorsement which includes several hours of instrument time (not an IFR rating necessarily). Obviously flying on a moonless night over unlit countryside is not the same as flying during the day!

When I was flying in NZ (pre 2000) I couldn't fly at night VFR without an addition to my licence, and even if I had that I think it was limited to within 25NM of the departure aerodrome.

Leadsled,

I don't think the Night VFR rating (call it what you will) is as unique to Oz as you may think. Perhaps the Oz version is more upswept and restrictive than elsewhere.

The NZ one required the 5 hours instrument time need for the PPL.

I know from experience some small airfields have no visual reference what so ever once you have passed the up wind runway lights. You needed to be able to climb away in the dials on a moonless night. Not something that was an issue in daylight.

Corky

How did you get the night time in NZ without having a Night Rating? Were you an Ag pilot? I know a few of these who accumulated a few night hours getting home after sowing the last load right before dark. Some of them never had the night rating signed off.

AerocatS2A

In NZ it used to be 25 nm from an airfield with lights, not just the aerodrome of departure. It was never clear whether or not those lights had to be actually on but you could do a cross country by being within 25 nm. Effectively the each field could be 50 nm apart with the 25 nm rings over lapping (just).

There used to be a 16 km viz, 3000' cloud base requirement as well, that is now gone and day VFR minima apply. I'm not sure I'd want to go VFR at night down to 5 km viz, 600' cloud base.

Elsewhere you may just have needed the experience. In OZ we needed training, a test and Rating issued.

We also had a GA specific Instrument Ratings that had either 6 month or 12 month renewal requirements and airspace restrictions.

But holding either of these two Instruments ratings did not allow you to conduct NVFR operations unless you had more specific NVFR training.

If you wished to do NVFR Charter there was additional requirments.

The point of my posts is that it WAS weird.

Folks,
Precisely, but it was and still is Australia, one of the most regulated countries on earth, with over regulation of aviation at the top of the list.

What amazes me, in this day and age, is how restriction free aviation has become in what was (well the western end, at least) the USSR, whilst here in Australia???

And most of you sit back and cop it --- indeed most of you do not even understand what freedom of the air really means.

Tootle pip!!

PS: A night rating (quite common elsewhere) and an Australian style NVFR rating are very different animals.

"There used to be a 16 km viz, 3000' cloud base requirement as well, that is now gone and day VFR minima apply. I'm not sure I'd want to go VFR at night down to 5 km viz, 600' cloud base"

Not quite. NZ CAR 91.301 refers:

Table 4 Airspace VFR met minima - below 3000 ft - in uncontrolled airspace, clear of cloud and in sight of surface, visibility 5 km
controlled airspace - 2 km horizontally, 1000 ft vertically outside a control zone, 500 ft vertically inside a control zone; vis 5 km below 10,000 ft AMSL

Table 5 - VFR minima at aerodromes within control zone
Day and Night - 1500 ft base, 5 km vis

Table 6 - VFR minima at aerodromes in uncontrolled airspace
Day - 600 ft base, 1500 m vis
Night - 1500 ft base, 8 km vis

Can't speak for Australia, but the Maori name for NZ, Aotearoa, translates to "Land of the Long White Cloud" so yes we have cloud here, on numerous occasions down to ground level.

As for being glider friendly, I would agree that NZ has some excellent geography for gliding in the South Island, but you'd have to ask a Kiwi glider pilot for details as I don't live down there.

Does this part of the CARs not permit operation with a 600' base and 5 km viz? Table 4 doesn't differentiate between Day and Night.

If I'm not mistaken this was the day VFR minima before they removed the 3000' base 16 km viz night VFR requirement.

You don't have to have cloud to spoil you night.

I remember an Examiner relating how he had to recover an aircraft from three ua's in the circuit after takeoff when the applicant for a NVFR Rating lost it after turning downwind and away from the only ground lights in SW Qld.

In Australia there is a long standing tradition that practice stalls must be conducted high enough to permit recovery by 3000 ft agl. Nothing in the Regs of course. Some LSA flying schools still use that "rule" even though the average LSA will only lose 50 feet in a recovery. A competent student pilot in a Cessna 172 would lose maybe 100 feet.

Yet no such tradition applies to gliders where practice stalling is often done below 1500 ft agl. And with no power to aid recovery. Would be interesting to know is there a rule for glider pilots re minimum height to recover by when practicing stall recovery?

At last, a question arises on which I can possibly help! Practice stalling is done in gliders at any height, no restriction at all, in the UK, and I daresay the same applies to the rest of the world.

Two reasons for not needing a lower limit. Gliders when in soaring flight are usually flying only a bit above stalling speed, and when you reach the core of the thermal, you crank it in big time! so not only at a speed only say 5 knots above stall, but at a considerable angle of bank as well. Which means we experience stalls and the approach to the stall frequently. I now have to fly with a safety pilot, due to age and other limitations, and I am always making him nervous by tight turning with a touch of prestall buffet.

So we practice stalls and stall recovery a lot in real time. It is a lot simpler and a lot less dramatic than the routine in a power plane, like a Cessna l52 for example, when the nose being heavy, it drops more suddenly, and the power used to aid recovery is an additional hassle.

In a properly trimmed glider, simply moving the stick forward a trifle nearly always will restore normal flight in a jiffy, with no loss of height. So no big deal, and we practice it a lot. Also I used to tell my students that a good landing is a stall near the ground. Frequent stalls, without drama, not so easy to practice in power.

Spins, now, that's something else. A good way to loose height if you need to descend. But NOT to be practiced less than 800 feet in a docile and reliable training glider like the K13. In glass, particularly certain types, I prefer a minimum start height of at least 1,500 feet. With a 3 turn spin you will lose probably a minimum of 500 feet before recovery is complete. Delightful! However, you cite 50 or 100 feet of height lost in a recovery;
is this where you bottomed out? I think it would be rather more than that...but of course you are trying to maintain a required altitude for separation from other aircraft, possibly in IFR. Gliders habitually fly close together, in VFR, and without ATC. hooray!

Centaurus,

CAO95.4 lists the exemptions gliders have from CAR1988 and includes

(Exemption from) "paragraph 155 (3) (a), on condition that:

(i) if the acrobatic flight takes place more than 2 nautical miles from a certified or registered aerodrome — the flight does not take place at a height less than 1 000 feet above the highest point of the terrain or of any obstacle on the terrain within a radius of 600 metres of a line extending vertically below the aircraft unless prior approval of CASA has been obtained; and

(ii) if the acrobatic flight takes place at 2 nautical miles or less from a licensed aerodrome — the flight does not take place at a height of less than 2 000 feet above the aerodrome unless the prior approval of CASA has been obtained;"

Folks,
And for damned good reasons, too, few GA aircraft are as reliable in recovery as a glider from UAs.
There is no regulation that prohibits you from dying, either, but it is still a bloody good idea,
An example, a rare but potentially deadly occurrence, it happened again quite recently ---- a C-152 got into a flat spin, from what started as a stall off a steep climbing turn type training exercise.
Most common GA aircraft are relatively benign most of the time, but not guaranteed benign all of the time.
Many will well recall their experiences in the Traumahawke --- there were so many complaints and incidents, the FAA eventually re-certified the aircraft, the results were "interesting".
Tootle pip!!

Leadsled.

My understanding is that in Australia the 3000 ft limitation in the Regulations applies only to aerobatic manoeuvers where more than 60 degrees angle of bank are used. By this criterion, stalling practice is not considered an aerobatic manoeuvre.
Apart from some war birds such as the P51 Mustang, the manufacturer's POH do not offer recommendations as to minimum heights, so it is normally left to Regulators to apply limitations such as aerobatic flight. Individual flying schools are welcome to apply their own limitations on top of but not less than, State regulations.

Because someone stuffs up a spin recovery in a C150 and goes in, that does not mean every aircraft including an LSA must now claw their way to 3500 ft AGL to practice a stall recovery by 3000agl. Perhaps practice stalls in a steep climbing turn in Cessna 150's should be avoided due to the potential for a flat spin if poorly handled:ok:


It goes the other way of course. Obsolete aircraft like a DC3, in a full flap approach power on configuration, can drop a wing quite violently and it takes at least 1000 ft to recover to level flight even if you don't mishandle things. Been there - done that. I am sure even a qualified test pilot would want to have 5-7000 ft under his belt before stalling the DC3.

For Mary M. Thanks for your reply re glider operations and practice stalls. You made a most interesting point about tight climbing spirals in gliders at close to stalling speed. My point about an average loss of 50 to 100 ft in a stall recovery in a light single such as a Cessna 172 and flown by a competent pilot, was never meant to apply to spin recoveries - far from it..