Blackpool 3/2/07

[Lurking123]

I've flown with Bose on a revalidation and it was well worth while. I suppose we just need to be careful not to only judge people by various fora.

[DFC]

Bookworm, 421C, etc

OK let me try and make this as simple as possible.

You want to fly VFR from Glasgow to Southampton.

You check the weather and there is a front across your route and based on the actual and forecast weather you determine that there is IMC from the surface to 25000ft along a large part of your route.

Are you seriously telling me that it is OK to depart for Southampton?

If you do then by your own admission you have departed on a VFR flight that will not be VFR which is illegal.

In departing you are either;

a) Unable to determine that it is IMC and think that it "might" be VMC and are going to "give it a go"; or

b) Know it is IMC and are going anyway

a) is simple a lack of knowledge / practice / training.

b) Is plain stupid and illegal.

To make a VFR flight you must have VMC.

I highlight the above which is the law because;

Some people seem to think otherwise which is a sad indication that the very thing we are discussing are deaths due to not paying attention to the above.

Perhaps there will always be a core of people who will not learn.

Regards,

DFC

[DFC]

Scooter Boy,

You said;

I have seen an old cherokee land in OVC 0100 at a non instrument airfield (in very hilly terrain) and take off with 4 big blokes in it into OVC 0050 and winds 25G35 after (believe it or not rather ironically) attending a funeral.

The "captain" was no more than 21 years old - I think the plane was at least 20 years older than him.

and later you said that you would not accuse such a pilot of illegal flying.

The above post seems to indicate that you think that the flight was reckless and dangerous which is illegal.

Seems that you would be willing to discuss the matter with an old guy at the bar but not if you knew that old guy was from the CAA eh?

Regards,

DFC

[421C]

OK let me try and make this as simple as possible.

You are not making it simple, you are dragging the debate out by shifting your argument around to avoid answering the points made in reply to you. In my prior post I said

"I understand your point to be that it is illegal to depart on a VFR flight from A to B unless VMC is forecast for the entire flight."

Am I right that this is your point? If so, it isn't true.

Nevertheless, I will try and answer your most recent points.

In your Glasgow to Southampton example, you have chosen the most extreme case - one in which there is little or no uncertainty about the weather, and in which plainly a VFR flight is not going to get to Southampton. Nevertheless, I do not believe it is illegal to depart Glasgow on a VFR flight (if in VMC) aiming to fly VFR to Southampton as long as you
(a) you plan for the forecast weather - which, in this case, means plan on not getting very far enroute and needing to return
(b) ensure you maintain VMC and can maintain for a safe return

Clearly such a flight would be pointless and inefficient. You carefully use the phrase "ok" in

Are you seriously telling me that it is OK to depart for Southampton?

If by "ok" you mean "legal" then yes, I believe it is legal to depart in VMC on such a flight.

However, you then say

If you do then by your own admission you have departed on a VFR flight that will not be VFR which is illegal.

Which is nonsense. Where does it say that a VFR flight must have a weather forecast that says "it will be VFR" in order for it to be legal? You must depart in and maintain VMC to be legal, but, after departure, VMC is evaluated as an in-flight condition - not a determination before a flight has even departed that it is illegal in principle because IMC is forecast enroute or at the intended destination.

Weather forecasts are inherently unpredictable and imprecise. The "legal point" you have invented would be unworkable and unreasonable in almost any scenario other than one of certainty of IMC along any possible route and level. The sensible thing, given this uncertainty, is how aviation law actually works
- you have to get the weather forecasts and determine what kind of conditions you may encoutner
- you have to maintain VMC in flight
- you have to ensure adequate fuel reserves to land safely maintaining VMC
This means it is legal to depart and see if a VFR flight can be completed in the actual conditions that prevail, as long as VMC and adequate fuel reserves can be met.

I am not debating what is wise, or ok, or prudent etc. You wrote "illegal" in the last quote above from your post, and that is all I am debating.

a) is simple a lack of knowledge / practice / training.

b) Is plain stupid and illegal.

Before you tell us again why it is illegal, and since you are so vociferous on the subject, please show us the legal reference. You say Bookworm needs more training (probably I do to). Fine, imagine we do and want to learn VFR aviation law and flight planning the DFC way. Where is the reference that will educate us? I don't even need an ANO paragraph, even a line in a flight training book or publication that says "it is illegal to depart on a VFR flight unless VFR is forecast for the entire intended route".

You won't, because there is no such reference.

If you want to make points about good practice in VFR flight planning and the risks of inadvertent VFR into IMC flight (or even worse, deliberate VFR into IMC) then please do. There are very many important points to be made. I suspect I probably would agree with them. But they don't need the added confusion you create by making up aviation laws. Sorry, this provokes the forum debater in me.

[bookworm]

You are not making it simple, you are dragging the debate out by shifting your argument around to avoid answering the points made in reply to you.

For some reason I'm reminded of the elephant joke. (Tom Nichols has been kind enough to write it into a WWW page from which I extract this part.)

A Soviet joke of mid-1970s vintage, aimed at Leonid Brezhnev's legendary state of denial about the condition of the USSR and his inability to accept responsibility for it, told of an elephant hunt. After a summit, Brezhnev, Gerald Ford, and other world leaders take a break and go on a safari, where they manage to catch a live elephant. They make up an elaborate schedule for guarding the beast, but when Brezhnev's turn comes he gets drunk and falls asleep, and the elephant trots away. The next morning, when asked about their catch, Brezhnev guilelessly says, "What elephant?" Astonished, Ford then grills him: didn't we agree to hunt an elephant? Yes, Brezhnev says, we did indeed. Didn't we catch one? Oh yes, we did, a fine one. And didn't we agree to guard it? Of course, we all did. "So," Ford fumes, "where's the elephant, damn it?" Brezhnev nods thoughtfully for a moment and asks, "What elephant?"

[DFC]

"I understand your point to be that it is illegal to depart on a VFR flight from A to B unless VMC is forecast for the entire flight."

No.

I said that it is illegal (and stupid) to depart on a VFR flight from A to B when you have determined by reference to a combination of actual and forecast weather information available to you that IMC conditions will or are likely to exist along the planned route.

The Rules of the Air are your reference for that.

The important issue is that you have to determine (you are pilot in command after all) what to do based on both actual and forecast conditions. Thus your argument about forecasts being not accurate enough falls down because you have tyo check actual conditions also.

The Rules of the air are quite specific in that they do permit you to depart (to have a look see) if you can not obtain the weather information pre-flight.

----------

When reading commnets about the accuracy of forecasts, I wonder if you are being confused by the idea of who determines if IMC exists. It is the PIC that makes the determination. It is not the met-office forecaster - they simply provide the information. The PIC uses the information available to decide. Forecasts these days rarely fall outside the prescribed limits of accuracy and when they do they are amended.

Are you guys saying that you can't make that decision? or are you saying that you are go minded despite the information showing that this is not a good plan and you sometimes get lucky and other times have to turn back but you will always go anyway and only turn back when you have to?

What did they teach you during PPL training?

Would an instructor ever let a student off on a crosscountry if they determined that IMC existed on the route? Would the instructor say - ah just take an extra hour's fuel and have a look and see?

The problem I have with this is that you see nothing wrong with what was done on the flight from Exeter to Blackpool right up until the point where the flight went IMC. You say that it is OK to depart Exeter on a flight planned in accordance with the requirements for a VFR flight but to a destination that is IMC and is forecast to remain so.

----------

IFR pilots kept killing themselves or nearly so by having a "look see" on approaches when the weather was well below limits. Then we had the approach ban - that will stop them from pushing the limits..........but it didn't so we have the approach ban and the absolute minima system to catch those that ignore the approach ban.

To me this simply says that many pilots will never learn.

Regards,

DFC

[gasax]

Two long threads.....

A lot of passionately stated opinions. I'm wondering why I'm posting...

Bose X - yep legally the correct analysis. PIC is responsible. Who is/was the PIC - well in this case it is not clear cut from my viewpoint. With low hours I certainly did not have the 'authority' to question let alone contradict CFIs and the like.
To an extent that is the problem with the whole semi-militaristic approach that flight training has. And I cannot help but comment on DFC's the 'rules' approach - blindness personified.

If pilots are taught to make good decisions then the vast majority of 'the law' is completely irrelevant - which may upset DFC but would hopefully mean we would not have incidents like this to discuss.

It is a side issue but I'm increasingly concerned by the A to B thinking that so many posters exhibit. I' m a vanilla PPL, no IMC or IR. I tour VFR and I take pot luck on the weather. The idea of A to B is a desired result, flying to a schedule or absolute end point is fine for IRs and bluntly a vain hope otherwise.

I have no doubt that Mr Walker was strongly influenced by the CFI and his companians. They all it seems had this idea that regardless of the conditions all this would be possible. That, events have shown was apallingly bad decision making. To an extent I'm still baffled by those decisions. Mr Walker I can see would defer to his more experienced companians - but what were they on? How on earth did they think this plan would work?

To an extent that brings it all down to the very small group - the four who set out, the CFI and ??
A lot of the suggestions from posters - PPLs authorised by CFIs? Obviously will not work - look what happened here! The rules say XYZ so you can only do XYZ when some other condition prevails - never going to work. How many of us break the speed limits? - all of us! - because we assess what is genuinely required and when it is not required we break those blind and dumb rules. It's part of being human.

The answer is not rules or authorisations. It's learning decision making and how not to get pushed into a corner. I'd like to think that from this incident many pilots would learn those lessons.

[DFC]

If pilots are taught to make good decisions then the vast majority of 'the law' is completely irrelevant - which may upset DFC but would hopefully mean we would not have incidents like this to discuss.

Not at all. If we could rely on pilots to comply with the minimum standards then we would not need laws to try to force them to. i.e. If you could rely on drivers driving at 70mph or less on a motorway then your would not need a legal speed limit and traffic cops - but unfortunately you can't.

It is a side issue but I'm increasingly concerned by the A to B thinking that so many posters exhibit. I' m a vanilla PPL, no IMC or IR. I tour VFR and I take pot luck on the weather. The idea of A to B is a desired result, flying to a schedule or absolute end point is fine for IRs and bluntly a vain hope otherwise.

I hope that you don't really mean that. You are saying that you depart without knowing that you will be able to land safely again at a destination or that the weather will be VMC and depart without having a clue as to what the minimum fuel requirement is????

Even if you depart A to wander aimlessly round the southern UK for an hour or two and then land at A you have a departure, destination and route / area combined with time to give you a minimum fuel requirement. You may not do the sums to the nearest litre but I bet you decide how much fuel you will use, how much reserve you want and make sure you have this or more in the aircraft. Without a departure, route and destination you can not even decide how much fuel you need never mind what the weather is going to be like.

You might mid-flight change your mind and decide to land at X. But that decision will be based on a new plan taking into account fuel, weather, PPR, wife complaining about you being late back etc etc.

Perhaps you are making many of the decisions without realising, however;

I bet you will not go flying aimlessly round the UK if the forecast and actuals say that much is IMC and the rest will be within the next few hours!

I also bet that if you take off from A on a bimble round the countryside and return to A before the approaching front arives, you will not mid-flight decide to land at z airfield for a cup of tea if you think that the weather will overtake you and you will be socked in.

Well I hope not.

Regards,

DFC

[421C]

I said that it is illegal (and stupid) to depart on a VFR flight from A to B when you have determined by reference to a combination of actual and forecast weather information available to you that IMC conditions will or are likely to exist along the planned route.

The Rules of the Air are your reference for that.

I'll keeping asking for it until you either stop claiming the "illegal" bit or until you actually provide the reference.

"immediately before an aircraft flies the commander of the aircraft shall examine the current reports and forecasts of the weather conditions on the proposed flight path, in order to determine whether Instrument Meteorological Conditions prevail, or are likely to prevail, during any part of the flight."
is the law, and is eminently sensible. However, it is not the law you clearly want it to be or believe it is, because it does not say that it is illegal to "depart on a VFR flight from A to B when you have determined by reference to a combination of actual and forecast weather information available to you that IMC conditions will or are likely to exist along the planned route."

The important issue is that you have to determine (you are pilot in command after all) what to do based on both actual and forecast conditions.

Of course, we are not arguing over this. We are only debating whether it is illegal, having determined as PIC that some IMC is likely enroute, to depart on a VFR flight on a "stay VMC, maintain adequate fuel reserves, see how it turns out" basis.

Thus your argument about forecasts being not accurate enough falls down because you have tyo check actual conditions also.

No DFC, your point is that you may not depart on such a flight. At the time of departure, the actual reports may be hours before you reach the enroute or destination point in question, hence the uncertainty of forecasts is relevant.

The Rules of the air are quite specific in that they do permit you to depart (to have a look see) if you can not obtain the weather information pre-flight.

Agreed. But please show me where they say you may not depart if you can obtain the weather information preflight and it indicates IMC enroute or at destination. It only says you have to determine whether IMC is/is likely to prevail - not that you may not depart if this is the case.

Are you guys saying that you can't make that decision?

No. We are saying that if you make the decsion, based on the forecast/actual weather, that IMC is likely to be encountered enroute it does not make it illegal to depart VFR. I've repeated what we are saying often enough that you don't need to conjecture other things we might be saying.

....or are you saying that you are go minded despite the information showing that this is not a good plan and you sometimes get lucky and other times have to turn back but you will always go anyway and only turn back when you have to?

I am saying it is not illegal and that you are wrong to claim it is illegal. There may be circumstances in which it is stupid and dangerous, and circumstances in which a VFR "give it a try" flight, despite forecasts that suggest it won't be successful, may be safe as long as the contingencies are planned properly. But we are no debating that. We are debating your made-up claim about the legality.

What did they teach you during PPL training?

They taught me aviation law. Where did they teach you to make up your own aviation law?

Would an instructor ever let a student off on a crosscountry if they determined that IMC existed on the route? Would the instructor say - ah just take an extra hour's fuel and have a look and see?

How is that relevant to your claim on what conditions make a VFR departure illegal? We are not debating what an instructor would or should do, because that isn't what you claimed. We are debating the aviation law that governs VFR departures. Telling me things that would be wrong, even though permitted by aviation law, doesn't support your claims about aviation law.

The problem I have with this is that you see nothing wrong with what was done on the flight from Exeter to Blackpool right up until the point where the flight went IMC. You say that it is OK to depart Exeter on a flight planned in accordance with the requirements for a VFR flight but to a destination that is IMC and is forecast to remain so.

I didn't say anything about what I thought was or wasn't "wrong" on this flight, or what I thought was or wasn't "ok". If you had expressed your views in terms of what was "wrong" or "ok", we wouldn't be having this debate. However, you have said it is illegal to depart on a VFR flight to a destination that has forecast IMC, and I have said there is no such legal prohibition on a VFR departure as long as you stay VMC and have fuel reserves to stay VMC and land safely.

DFC, you can make up as many examples of good or bad things as you like. We are not debating what is good or bad or wrong or ok. We are debating your claim about the legal prohibition on a VFR departure.

IFR pilots kept killing themselves or nearly so by having a "look see" on approaches when the weather was well below limits. Then we had the approach ban - that will stop them from pushing the limits..........but it didn't so we have the approach ban and the absolute minima system to catch those that ignore the approach ban.

True. But the existence of the approach ban in aviaiton law does not support the existence of the VFR departure ban you claim. Quite the opposite - we are all familiar with this explicit prohibition of when a pilot may not legally attempt a "look and see" and we are not familiar with an analogous legal prohibition of VFR departure on a "look and see" basis, because it doesn't exist.

The reason we don't have (except in DFC's legal imagination) a prohibition on "look and see" VFR flight is that it would be impractical and impossible or excessively restrictive. The approach ban is based on the very determinsitic circumstances of an actual visibility report. A similar level of determinism can not practically apply to determining whether a VFR flight departure is legal in DFC's sense, which is why (I guess) it doesn't exist.

By the way, what is "the absolute minima system to catch those that ignore the approach ban"?

[mad_jock]

As usual DFC has a ball hair of being correct with some obscure bit of crap which is no doudt contadicted in another bit of publication.

To be fair I think a few have the rules wrong with the approach ban.

There are a few exceptions where you can ignore it.

Anyone want to have a guess were its perfectly legal to have a shot when the tower is saying it RVR 100m and O001? The fact that they might go in a sulk and park the birdy in the middle of the runway doesn't count.

[Whirlybird]

Anyone want to have a guess were its perfectly legal to have a shot when the tower is saying it RVR 100m and O001?

In a helicopter, for starters.

[rojread]

Irrespective of whether the w/x at B (or in Andrew Walker's case, Exeter), was within limits, I am still trying to get my head round him being allowed to take off into conditions that were below minima for a normal VFR circuit. Added to which the aircraft was well below IFR capability.

Did the ATC duty controller at Blackpool have no say in the matter or was the pilot iactually informed of cloudbase RVR etc?

[mad_jock]

Have a look at the differences between airports with controlled airspace and those that don't.

And also the difference between runways with a published Instrument approach and those that don't.

[foxtrot-oscar]

I think that lots of us ( and the AAIB) are being very unfair on young Andrew Walker. Try to cast your mind back to the stage of training he was at, he had yet to leave the nest -as it were- and was still hiring aircraft from the company that taught him how to fly. I remember when I was at that stage, I attempted to depart Biggin to Blackbush on a quite marginal day. As I was taxing out the tower asked me to change to company frequency and the company told me to abandon the idea of departing in the prevailing weather. Later, once I had left the nest and started owning a share and making my own decisions, I wouldn’t even countenance trying to take off in the conditions that applied that day.

Here is a young lad, -told by the school he trained at- that it is okay to go, a minder would be there with him and he must have assumed the minder to be a qualified instructor otherwise the flight would be illegal and this school that had taught him every thing he knows about aviation would surely never condone anything illegal. It is quite clear to me that he thought he was there as a PUT capacity, and there but for the grace of God go a lot of us.

[DFC]

I can hear the argument with the CAA now;

-"You are planning to fly from A to B"

-"Yes"

-"But the actual and forecast weather incicate that it will be IMC on that flight"

-"I know"

-"You can not legally do that unless you have an IR or IMC"

-"I know"

-"So You are not going to fly from A to B then?"

-"Yes I am - I am going to remain VMC at all times"

-"How can you do that in IMC?"

-"I am going to fly in VMC until I have to turn back"

-"OK so your are departing flying down the road turning round and flying back" Yes that is OK because that planned route is VMC.

OK that is a different plan then. Never plan to fly in IMC unless you are qualified and the aircraft appropriate.

Regards,

DFC

[S-Works]

LOL, he keeps on wriggling but won't answer the question.....

[Supersport]

LOL, he keeps on wriggling but won't answer the question.....

He's certainly trying his best! Don't think any amount of wriggling will get him out of this hole...

Come on DFC... admit defeat!

Come on say it... say it out loud hahaha.

[Lurking123]

DFC, for once you've hit the nail on the head. The CAA wouldn't give two hoots until you broke a rule/regulation (Well, maybe some kind gentleman in the GA side of the house would put a salutary message in Gasil). They may well have a look at the ANO and ponder for a while, but unless you did something that contravened the ANO, they would gleefully let you go on your way. Anyway, I've had a look at the ANO and can't find your reference source.

However, it is very important to differentiate between the rules and common sense. Getting back to the Blackpool crash, there doesn't seem to have been bucket loads of common sense being used that day. I think we can all agree about that.

PS. In HPL parlance, I think there is some "Excessive self-esteem" kicking around. Not good.

[Whirlybird]

-"You are planning to fly from A to B"

-"Yes"

-"But the actual and forecast weather indicate that it will be IMC on that flight"

-"I know"

-"You can not legally do that unless you have an IR or IMC"

-"I know"

-"So You are not going to fly from A to B then?"

-"Yes I am - I am going to remain VMC at all times"

"How?"

"Because I'm psychic, and I have a strong feeling that the weather will change, and the forecast will be wrong.

"And if there isn't?"

"Then - and only then - I'll change my plans".

Stupid and unrealistic? Very probably. Pilot is missing a screw or two? Maybe. But illegal? NO!!!!!

Unless, as so many of us have requested, DFC, you tell us precisely where this is stated to be against the law.

[bookworm]

-"You are planning to fly from A to B"

-"Yes"

-"But the actual and forecast weather indicate that it will be below AOM at the destination"

-"I know"

-"You can not legally land there"

-"I know"

-"So You are not going to fly from A to B then?"

-"Yes I am - I am going to remain 1000 ft above the destination unless at least the minimum RVR for the approach is reported"

-"How can you do that if the weather is below minima"

-"I am going to fly there and I'm going to divert to C or D if the RVR is below minimum"

-"OK so your are departing flying to B, then flying to C or D to make an approach" Yes that is OK because C and D are above alternate minima.

Is that a "different plan" from flying from A to B, DFC? If you think so, I think you might need to send a lot of AOC-holders on your flight planning classes.