Light plane missing in blizzard in Scotland (Merged)
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Enlighten us as to what you mean by a vast factor. I am not being cheeky, just curious to know what info you may have and if you can share your knowledge with us so we can all have a better understanding of this event.
Around the crash site, there is no controlled airspace (EGPE ATZ) being the closest at around 20 nm or so. It is all open FIR, therefor not preventing any climb or lateral movement to avoid WX.
Agree with Mad Jock on that, scared myself in that area once in my PA22, had full power on, best rate indicated, still going down at 1000 fpm, learned about wave and that adrenalin is brown that day.
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Ive been flying in the Scottish mountains for years and have experienced similar effects. Recently I have considered taking a few gliding lessons to get a different perspective.
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On the other hand crashing within 150 meters of an open air assembly of 100k people in central London and not killing someone would be a very close call.
Having looked at a chart, I can't see how P600 would be a problem unless his route from Carlisle involved going to the east of the Edinburgh airspace, and even then only if he was above the base of the main parts - FL85 & FL105. If he went via Cumbernauld he would be under the very south-most part of P600 for a very short time and would then be free to climb to whatever altitude seemed to best avoid the wx.
Carlisle to Wick is pretty much due north and a straight line pretty much goes over Edinburgh. I would have thought a route east of the TMA would be more natural, and that's where all the class A is. In principle you could avoid that by aiming directly between Edinburgh and Glasgow and crossing the middle of the TMA which is class D, despite presumably being much busier. Not having had cause to try it, I have no idea how receptive Scottish is to "request crossing at FL100 and you have to keep me out of the class A". Perhaps it's standard practice?
An instrument rated pilot just files a sensible airways route from Talla to Perth, climbs quickly above the weather and lets ATC worry about the airspace. The last thing you'd want to do is be forced to descend into the icy tops as you were approaching the worst of the weather because of a daft airspace classification issue.
An instrument rated pilot just files a sensible airways route from Talla to Perth, climbs quickly above the weather and lets ATC worry about the airspace. The last thing you'd want to do is be forced to descend into the icy tops as you were approaching the worst of the weather because of a daft airspace classification issue.
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No its not normal to go up the middle bookworm.
When we have stupid headwinds we can go down to FL120 or FL140 for the TLA Foyle section heading up North instead of our usual FL180.
It causes ATC no end of grief. Either you are in the way of Gla's arrivals or Edi's departures or vice versa. We know what grief it causes and don't do it unless there is a pretty good reason. We can get an increase of 50knts ground speed by going low. This is in CAT
But Scottish are pretty good at dealing with specials and alot of them seem to really enjoy helping light aircraft to do the unusual. So I wouldn't say it it would be impossible.
I wouldn't even consider it to be honest. It would be St Abb's up to Angus (I think thats the intersection name) then direct over the top or to perth and up the A9. I think the bottom of the airway is about FL70 at Angus and you have more than enough room to climb to FL100+ before getting to the worst wx at the intersection between hill and Spey valley.
When we have stupid headwinds we can go down to FL120 or FL140 for the TLA Foyle section heading up North instead of our usual FL180.
It causes ATC no end of grief. Either you are in the way of Gla's arrivals or Edi's departures or vice versa. We know what grief it causes and don't do it unless there is a pretty good reason. We can get an increase of 50knts ground speed by going low. This is in CAT
But Scottish are pretty good at dealing with specials and alot of them seem to really enjoy helping light aircraft to do the unusual. So I wouldn't say it it would be impossible.
I wouldn't even consider it to be honest. It would be St Abb's up to Angus (I think thats the intersection name) then direct over the top or to perth and up the A9. I think the bottom of the airway is about FL70 at Angus and you have more than enough room to climb to FL100+ before getting to the worst wx at the intersection between hill and Spey valley.
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Taking a reasonable size for the restaurant and the wreckage area, you probably have a 5% chance of hitting the building if you crash within 150 meters of the building - even then the chance of fatalities on the ground is not that high for something like a Lance hitting a building.
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Best Route through Cairngorms
For what it is worth, for those with local knowledge, the best routes through the Cairngorms are as follows:
Wind west of N/S - go east of Perth and try to get west of the ADN zone. If you can't get over the hills to the south of Aberdeen they will let you route up the coast. Can be turbulent in strong westerlies.
If there is any east in the wind there may be up-slope stratus on the coastal plain. The A9 route is best. The Drumochter pass is quite high but in extremis you can go west of it via Loch Tummel. In my experience Drumochter is usually OK in northerlies, the crunch point is often Dunkeld in southerlies.
In northerly winds as (in this case) the sucker trap is that the weather is often reasonable up to Aviemore and then you get into the weather and it's a long way to go back.
I am assuming that you cannot fly VMC on top for whatever reason.
The straight line gps route takes you over the highest ground with the fewest visual references, possibly through the Lecht valley (beware fast-jets)
The weather as viewed from Kinloss on the day of the accident was not suitable for light ac aviation but if you are contemplating a trip in a single engined aircraft across the north Atlantic and Greenland , a forcast main base of about 2000ft with snow showers for sixty miles or so may not have seemed all that off-putting. Hard rules.
Further points for the unwary: the weather forecasts for the Cairngorm region are not very helpful - the rainfall radar cannot see below 8000ft (I believe) and there are no observing stations sw of Aberdeen. The weather at Wick in my experience is often foul even when you think you can see it from Kinloss; I too have sent a solo qualifuing cross sountry to Wick only to have a totaly unforecast band of rain and low cloud cross the area while the poor lad was groping his way south towards Inverness. For what it is worth, my advice on encountering weather in montains in a low performance aircraft is ' whatever you do, do not even consider climbing - stay VMC below at all costs'. It won't work every time.
Wind west of N/S - go east of Perth and try to get west of the ADN zone. If you can't get over the hills to the south of Aberdeen they will let you route up the coast. Can be turbulent in strong westerlies.
If there is any east in the wind there may be up-slope stratus on the coastal plain. The A9 route is best. The Drumochter pass is quite high but in extremis you can go west of it via Loch Tummel. In my experience Drumochter is usually OK in northerlies, the crunch point is often Dunkeld in southerlies.
In northerly winds as (in this case) the sucker trap is that the weather is often reasonable up to Aviemore and then you get into the weather and it's a long way to go back.
I am assuming that you cannot fly VMC on top for whatever reason.
The straight line gps route takes you over the highest ground with the fewest visual references, possibly through the Lecht valley (beware fast-jets)
The weather as viewed from Kinloss on the day of the accident was not suitable for light ac aviation but if you are contemplating a trip in a single engined aircraft across the north Atlantic and Greenland , a forcast main base of about 2000ft with snow showers for sixty miles or so may not have seemed all that off-putting. Hard rules.
Further points for the unwary: the weather forecasts for the Cairngorm region are not very helpful - the rainfall radar cannot see below 8000ft (I believe) and there are no observing stations sw of Aberdeen. The weather at Wick in my experience is often foul even when you think you can see it from Kinloss; I too have sent a solo qualifuing cross sountry to Wick only to have a totaly unforecast band of rain and low cloud cross the area while the poor lad was groping his way south towards Inverness. For what it is worth, my advice on encountering weather in montains in a low performance aircraft is ' whatever you do, do not even consider climbing - stay VMC below at all costs'. It won't work every time.
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I would have reservations with that as well.
You do get a band over the hills to the south of Inverness but its nothing compared to the wall that occurs at the Cairngorms. You can nearly always either go west to drop into the great glen or nip through following the A9 at low level.
The best wx you can get for the cairngorms is by an old boy who has been doing mountain forcasts for hill walkers for years. He was in the local papers last year because he couldn't afford to do it much longer and the 6 hourly met obs were getting to him and his wife. I presume some oily in Aberdeen that enjoys his hillwalking got his company to bung him some cash.
Hang on it could be PK with his obvious knowledge on met.
The sad thing is 20 years ago when there was a proper met officer at ABZ and INV the quality of the forcasts were alot better. It is way to common for the apron at INV to fill up with a line of helibuses coming from ABZ on fuel maydays due to unforcast fog; the Met office don't seem to know that the Haar is affected by the tide on the east coast. And you can't even ask the old hand ATCO's for an opinion these days due to them being liable and not apperently trained to look out the window and have an informed opinion based on 20-30 years experence. Instead we have to go with some graduates opinion stuck in an office miles away who has never felt the wind on his face or the taste of the air when the wx is a changing in ABZ.
You do get a band over the hills to the south of Inverness but its nothing compared to the wall that occurs at the Cairngorms. You can nearly always either go west to drop into the great glen or nip through following the A9 at low level.
The best wx you can get for the cairngorms is by an old boy who has been doing mountain forcasts for hill walkers for years. He was in the local papers last year because he couldn't afford to do it much longer and the 6 hourly met obs were getting to him and his wife. I presume some oily in Aberdeen that enjoys his hillwalking got his company to bung him some cash.
Hang on it could be PK with his obvious knowledge on met.
The sad thing is 20 years ago when there was a proper met officer at ABZ and INV the quality of the forcasts were alot better. It is way to common for the apron at INV to fill up with a line of helibuses coming from ABZ on fuel maydays due to unforcast fog; the Met office don't seem to know that the Haar is affected by the tide on the east coast. And you can't even ask the old hand ATCO's for an opinion these days due to them being liable and not apperently trained to look out the window and have an informed opinion based on 20-30 years experence. Instead we have to go with some graduates opinion stuck in an office miles away who has never felt the wind on his face or the taste of the air when the wx is a changing in ABZ.
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Angusmunros.
I was a member of one of the mountain rescue teams that spent Saturday afternoon/evening and Sunday morning tramping over the Cairngorms looking for the ac. Your information, other witness statements, and - eventually - some radar plots was very useful in narrowing the search area.
Thank you.
I was a member of one of the mountain rescue teams that spent Saturday afternoon/evening and Sunday morning tramping over the Cairngorms looking for the ac. Your information, other witness statements, and - eventually - some radar plots was very useful in narrowing the search area.
Thank you.
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I was a member of one of the mountain rescue teams that spent Saturday afternoon/evening and Sunday morning tramping over the Cairngorms looking for the ac. Your information, other witness statements, and - eventually - some radar plots was very useful in narrowing the search area.
Does that breed a false sense of security? I know I try to avail myself of all the info I can, but , bottom line you've got to know YOUR limits; not anyone else's, yours. If in doubt, bin it. And that's the challenge!
Interesting comment about radar plots; rumour is it was accurate down to 300m radius of site - but, as you say, I guess it takes time to feed that info back through the tech machine to the Coal Face.
Heading back up tomorrow since conditions for ground based activities
are unseasonally good. .P.S. I know what some of the posters mean about Av. Met. Services and centralisation of the same!
Last edited by angusmunros; 12th Apr 2008 at 00:16.
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Pictures of the aeroplane in question:
http://www.airliners.net/search/phot...nct_entry=true
Link to the accident referred to in caption on the second of those two pics.
http://www.aaib.gov.uk/publications/...00__g_bsyc.cfm
http://www.airliners.net/search/phot...nct_entry=true
Link to the accident referred to in caption on the second of those two pics.
http://www.aaib.gov.uk/publications/...00__g_bsyc.cfm