VMC into IFR accidents?

[liam548]

I am not disputing the figures, such as a typical VFR PPL pilot will only maintain control for a few minutes but my question is why?

I mean even without an IMC or IR surely the pilot can look at instruments and determine is he climbing/banking etc so how does he end up in a spiral dive so soon? Is it due to the extra factors of actually flying through the cloud rather than just losing sense of his orientation?

Just trying to understand a little better...

Liam

[Fright Level]

Read Chapter One of the FAA Instrument Flying Handbook and study the issues such as spacial disorientation, coriolis illusion, the leans etc and you'll see what traps lay for the unwary/untrained pilot even if they think they know how to interpret standard instruments.

Also, I think you meant VMC into IMC accidents? Changing flight rules shouldn't cause an accident but there is common, in fact widespread, confusion between the terms VFR/IFR and their relation to VMC/IMC conditions.

I've often flown into IMC on a VFR flight and fly VMC on an IFR flight for most of the time.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

Get an instructor and an aeroplane and go fly in cloud, preferably some nice bumpy cumulous, if you can find an instructor willing to sit on his hands with his mouth shut until he has to do something to save your lives. For added fun, do this near the edge of some controlled airspace, or a mountain, or something.

If the instrument training part of your PPL was done with something other than real cloud, eg foggles, you will have no idea what IMC is like - there are just too many visual cues, you aren't really relying on instruments at all.

[vee-tail-1]

G the W
I did just as you suggest in real cloud with bumpy bits. Frightened the bul***t out of me! A really good exercise for someone who thought he could cope.
My ATL has a strictly day VMC panel, and even if it had full instrumentation my lack of a suitable IR would almost certainly result in a bad outcome if inadvertently going IMC.
Has anyone here tried the E-Gyro microhorizon which gives an unconventional led light display? It just might be a life saver for those of us who are not up to speed with instrument flying on conventional instruments.

[gooneydog]

Add to that the "comfort" of realization that If I don't do this right I will die can make a heap of difference

[dont overfil]

Gertrude I wholeheartedly agree with you but there are instructors out there who can't fly in cloud. They've got a bloody CPL but no IMC or IR! How sensible is that?
DO.

[Fuji Abound]

I think this is an excellent question.

The popular myth is that the average PPL will last less than a minute. Reliance is placed on a study that was conducted in the States. The myth is not true, and nor does the study support the myth.

In fact with the instrument training a PPL is meant to receive these days the average current PLL would not do too badly.

However, (and it is a big however) the ability to fly on instruments is all about being able to fly a full sector entirely on instruments, in less than benign conditions and cope with a instrument failure or two.

So, back to your question.

Instrument flying is tiring. Even for old hands it requires a lot of concentration, although it does get a lot easier with practice and an autopilot. I recall a four hour trip that for various reasons was nearly on instruments the whole time entirely hand flying - the aircraft did not have an autopilot - I am happy to admit I was pleased to be on the ground at the end of it.

It is tiring because it involves a high degree of concentration. As with anything involving a great deal of concentration it is easy for your concentration to lapse. It is also easy to find your concentration has been diverted.

Imagine you are flying a heading at a constant altitude and able to concentrate fully on the instruments - well you shouldn’t find that too difficult. Of course that is not how it works in the real world. Instead imagine being asked by AT to fly a number of different headings with perhaps an altitude change or two thrown in, after which they abandon you (perhaps after your route took you through an area of controlled airspace) with the infamous “own nav”. All that planning has just gone out the window and you now have to re-work your course, so there is a bit of map reading to divert your attention, in the middle of which things start to get a bit bumpy, the passenger starts throwing up and the AI fails. The last is fortunately pretty rare but the rest is par for the course. Before you know it your scan has broken down and the aircraft is all over the place, or you have descended below the MSA of the new sector in which you are flying.

This is the exact recipe for a loss of control. It is really easy for it to happen. You might think hey I could recover the aircraft - but recovering in IMC is tough. It is real easy for the aircraft to get out of control very quickly. In fact a few moments eye down on the map or rooting around for the sick bag is enough to find as your eyes go back onto the AI you are in a 45 degree descending bank with the airspeed rapidly increasing.

Then there are the leans. Anyone who has flown on instruments has had them. They are difficult to describe. However, when they set in there is no stronger feeling that you are losing control of the aircraft. You would not believe it is possible. It is.

I have tried to describe why instrument flying is more than flying in a straight line using the AI and DI to keep the aircraft straight and level. I have also tried to describe why it is very easy to loose control after you have had some limited instrument training but think it is adequate and cant understand what all the fuss is about. As others have said, there is nothing quite like trying it out with an instructor - for all the words in the world - but hopefully that will help with your understanding, short of trying it with an instructor for real.

For the avoidance of any doubt it really is one of those occasions where the over done phrase is deadly relevant - dont try this at home - you will almost certainly last more than a few minutes, and if it is an out an out emergency with absolutely no other alternatives the PPL training you received might safe your life, but otherwise it really is a recipe for disaster - it will kill you and anyone else in the aircraft with you. Dont try it.

[papa600]

My instructor took me into cloud during training which is eerie to say the least. He also demonstrated how the senses can be fooled by doing a gentle left bank for 1 minute in cloud then fly straight and level - instruments tell you you are level your brain tells you that you are banking right.

Its obvious how quickly it can all go pear shaped but I agree with liam 548 - the instruments always tell you if you are straight, level, climbing, descending, accellerating, slowing down.

What they don't tell you is what is in front of, below or above you.

[dont overfil]

I did 3 hours instrument training during my PPL some time ago but I think it's only 1 hour now.
DO.

[Mariner9]

Whilst not by any means disagreeing with the usual sentiments of the difficulty/potential dangers of IMC, the fact remains that loss of control in IMC still appears to be a relatively rare event if the monthly AAIB accident reports are anything to go by.

[liam548]

Originally Posted by Fuji Abound

I think this is an excellent question.

The popular myth is that the average PPL will last less than a minute. Reliance is placed on a study that was conducted in the States. The myth is not true, and nor does the study support the myth.

In fact with the instrument training a PPL is meant to receive these days the average current PLL would not do too badly.

However, (and it is a big however) the ability to fly on instruments is all about being able to fly a full sector entirely on instruments, in less than benign conditions and cope with a instrument failure or two.

So, back to your question.

Instrument flying is tiring. Even for old hands it requires a lot of concentration, although it does get a lot easier with practice and an autopilot. I recall a four hour trip that for various reasons was nearly on instruments the whole time entirely hand flying - the aircraft did not have an autopilot - I am happy to admit I was pleased to be on the ground at the end of it.

It is tiring because it involves a high degree of concentration. As with anything involving a great deal of concentration it is easy for your concentration to lapse. It is also easy to find your concentration has been diverted.

Imagine you are flying a heading at a constant altitude and able to concentrate fully on the instruments - well you shouldn’t find that too difficult. Of course that is not how it works in the real world. Instead imagine being asked by AT to fly a number of different headings with perhaps an altitude change or two thrown in, after which they abandon you (perhaps after your route took you through an area of controlled airspace) with the infamous “own nav”. All that planning has just gone out the window and you now have to re-work your course, so there is a bit of map reading to divert your attention, in the middle of which things start to get a bit bumpy, the passenger starts throwing up and the AI fails. The last is fortunately pretty rare but the rest is par for the course. Before you know it your scan has broken down and the aircraft is all over the place, or you have descended below the MSA of the new sector in which you are flying.

This is the exact recipe for a loss of control. It is really easy for it to happen. You might think hey I could recover the aircraft - but recovering in IMC is tough. It is real easy for the aircraft to get out of control very quickly. In fact a few moments eye down on the map or rooting around for the sick bag is enough to find as your eyes go back onto the AI you are in a 45 degree descending bank with the airspeed rapidly increasing.

Then there are the leans. Anyone who has flown on instruments has had them. They are difficult to describe. However, when they set in there is no stronger feeling that you are losing control of the aircraft. You would not believe it is possible. It is.

I have tried to describe why instrument flying is more than flying in a straight line using the AI and DI to keep the aircraft straight and level. I have also tried to describe why it is very easy to loose control after you have had some limited instrument training but think it is adequate and cant understand what all the fuss is about. As others have said, there is nothing quite like trying it out with an instructor - for all the words in the world - but hopefully that will help with your understanding, short of trying it with an instructor for real.

For the avoidance of any doubt it really is one of those occasions where the over done phrase is deadly relevant - dont try this at home - you will almost certainly last more than a few minutes, and if it is an out an out emergency with absolutely no other alternatives the PPL training you received might safe your life, but otherwise it really is a recipe for disaster - it will kill you and anyone else in the aircraft with you. Dont try it.

yes that explanation is useful thank you. I just read some posts on the internet that read like automatically after entering cloud PPL holders with no IMC or IR suddenly lose all control with no chance of sorting it out. Clearly this is not the case it probably takes one or two other factors as well.

I understand better now.

I am keen to do my IR or IMC in the future, that is if the IMC is still aorund, hopefully it will be!!

Liam

[SNS3Guppy]

Liam,

One of the single most challenging, and potentially dangerous things one can do is fly single pilot IFR. There's really no other duty in aviation that requires as much concentration or effort, or has as much potential for loss of control.

One of the most dangeroub bits of advice that can be thrown about is that IMC flight is no big deal. It is. Not just navigating from A to B, not just handling inflight abnormalities such as a partial panel situation (loss of some instruments), but routine, simple, plain-jane maintaining control of the airplane.

The few hours spent teaching reference to instrument flight "under the hood" using a view-limiting device isn't adequate to prepare someone to fly IMC, and it's designed to give rudimentary introduction in the event a situation is allowed to develop in which flight by reference to instruments is required. Such a situation without ample proper training should be considered an emergency...and the truth is that inadvertant flight into IMC continues to be a regular source of fatalities.

There are many reasons for this. Everyone experiences illousions that do not occur nearly as readily during flight under a hood. I experience a sensation of continually rolling to the left. Some people experience other things. I just got done with recurrent simulator training, and even in there I watched professional after professional have challenging moments doing simple things such as maintaining altitude, heading, or flying a basic approach. These are folks flying IFR in the system every day using varying degrees of automation...but in an operation where everyone handflies every takeoff and climb and every descent and arrival. Still there were challenges.

Don't let anybody kid you or fool you about inadvertant flight into IMC. It IS a very big deal and continues to be a killer, just like controlled flight into terrain and fuel mismanagement. IMC flight is nothing to be taken lightly.

[mm_flynn]

Originally Posted by Mariner9

Whilst not by any means disagreeing with the usual sentiments of the difficulty/potential dangers of IMC, the fact remains that loss of control in IMC still appears to be a relatively rare event if the monthly AAIB accident reports are anything to go by.

Surprisingly you are correct. Loss of control in IMC by PPLs is not very common (2 fatal accidents in the latest CAA publication). Controlled (Reasonably) Flight Into Terrain on the otherhand is common and remarkably fatal (8 incidents of PPLs doing this in IMC).

[Shunter]

I think one of the biggest problems with VMC pilots flying into cloud is the panic it often incites. The basic training during the PPL is probably sufficient enough for someone to do a 180 and get out of the white stuff. That's about it.

Doing something simple like staying straight and level in cloud for an indefinite period sounds trivial, but to someone who has never learned how to properly scan instruments it will mentally exhaust you very, very quickly.

[Pace]

I agree with the other posters here and also with the post by Fuji. To understand it better I think you have to look at the processes an instrument pilot goes through in instrument training.

On his first sorties with an instructor he may manage to keep control with his full attention on the instruments and the aircraft set up in cruise.

But that takes his full concentration leaving no brain power for any other tasks. Now start loading that already loaded mind and the whole thing falls apart. Try taking your eyes from the instruments and reading and deciphering a map. Or making a radio call, changing nav and radio frequencies, reading plates or operating the aircraft.

In early instrument flying its a bit like riding a bike. As you master one aspect and do not require your full brain power to do so then you find you can start handling other operations until you can fly the aircraft on instruments do the other chores and be miles away thinking about the weekend away with the girlfriend.

It all becomes second nature the autopilot part of your brain takes over the flying while your concious mind thinks about anything but flying

How well or quickly a pilot takes to instrument flying also depends on whether you have a visual brain which can take in a lot going on at once. Whether you have good balance and spatial awareness.

I can remember flying as a safety pilot with a low instrument time pilot ina twin. We flew in **** weather and you could see he was struggling. We made an approach and had to miss. I said go around and he forgot everything he had been taught. He pulled the nose up but did nothing to add power clean up the airframe and just froze.
I had to dive in from the right and take control of what would have been a stall spin situation in IMC.

To some it is a natural exercise to other they have to work harder at it. Not all pilots become good instrument pilots we just have different brains and some suit it better than others.

Panic or freezing is an example of when the mind becomes overloaded and can no longer handle the volume of information. Pilots in that situation cannot even recall their own name and I have seen that example in one such pilot. A bit like a computer Graphics Card that cannot handle the data it freezes.
But the more data thats held in the main computer memory the less work the graphics card has to do.

In the non instrument trained pilot the poor little Graphics card is doing the lot and soon locks up.

Pace

[Airbus Girl]

Trouble is there are 2 types of PPL - those that will fly into IMC because they think they can handle it and those that will ensure they stay clear.

Most PPLers I've flown with (and I've done it myself) will have trouble holding a heading and altitude whilst also reading a map/ talking on the radio. This can be fatal in certain situations.

If anyone here is thinking what would they do if they inadvertently found themselves in cloud I would say:-
1. Be extremely aware of the dangers
2. Maintain straight and level flight, and/or climb to a safe altitude.
3. Get on the radio pronto.
4. Tell ATC you are not instrument qualified and ask if there are any clear levels.
5. Climb out of the cloud (or descend if you are sure it is safe - again, ask ATC for help if you need it)
6. Do not be afraid to use ATC to help you as much as possible - this is what a really smart pilot would do. Ask them for reports of conditions, ask them to find out if there are any holes in the cloud you can descend through or ask them to vector you to a runway that is straight ahead of you, or with small heading changes.
7. If this means landing at a major airport, so be it.

I remember a few years back at Stansted, in really really crap weather, even for us in our big jet, and we heard an aircraft get clearance to land. It then took ages to appear. When it popped out of the cloud at about 50 feet, we were amazed to see a Cherokee!!!!!

But, thinking about it, he did the right thing - big airport, huge runway, excellent radar, ATC help, fairly flat surrounds. They could line him up, give him an SRA approach (heights and headings), and help him get safely on the ground.

If you are in the sh*t then don't be backward in coming forward.....

[IO540]

There are however many degrees of difficulty, in any given situation, according to the available equipment.

Instrument flying takes up a lot of one's brain - no matter how good a pilot one is - because one has to be continuously controlling the plane.

A stable plane v. an unstable one makes a vast difference. The two extremes of my experience are perhaps the TB20 and that piece of junk called a Tomahawk.

Then you have nav equipment. One could teach anybody to fly straight and level and hold altitude on instruments with an intensive scan, in maybe 10-20 minutes, and I have done that with a few passengers. But in practice this is not enough because one has to pay attention to other stuff and this detracts from the instrument scan and messes things up unless one is very quick and organised about it. So, doing this stuff with e.g. a big moving map GPS is far easier than doing it with the old gear.

The reason the IR checkride (FAA or CAA) is hard is because they pile on the workload to the point where there is barely enough time to keep track of where one is. If one had time to play, not one thing in the checkride would be hard in the slightest, assuming one knew how to fly the basic procedures.

And a decent autopilot transforms the whole situation totally.

That's why I don't go for the often quoted view that everybody will die within 123.45 seconds of entering IMC.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

I experience a sensation of continually rolling to the left. Some people experience other things.

In my case it's usually a sensation of straight and level whilst gently turning right. Correct it, look away, and I'm turning right again.

[PompeyPaul]

Amazing

Fuji,

That was probably the best post I ever read on pprune

[steveking]

I'm a PPL on 500 hrs passing nearly 3 years ago. I think I could quite happily keep the aircraft straight and level and follow a track on my GPS in IMC ok, but as for carrying out an approach or coping with a vacuem failure, no thankyou. Sends a shiver down my back thinking about it.

Hats off to the IR/IMC guys, it's a different skill altogether.

Be honest IMC guys how happy would you be in IMC with a VAC failure? I'm not IMC rated so not qualified to say.