What Not To Do??
 

Some revision with an instructor the other day, having not flown for months.

I knew he wanted to do some stalls and suchlike, so I went up to a nice safe height.

Then he pulled the throttle.

Fair enough, I knew we were going to do some PFLs as well, I'd actually asked for some after all! I remarked that this was the first time that my main problem on a PFL was actually finding a suitable gap through which to glide down through the clouds ... to which the reply was along the lines of "your problem mate, it was your decision to come up here in the first place". (The forecast, and METAR, "few" was a tad on the optimistic side.)

So ... a hint:

(1) If you know you're going up with an instructor to do PFLs you might find it easier if you remain below even a "few" cloud layer.

But ... on the other hand (as we discussed) I'd have been up there, above those clouds, perfectly legal VMC, if I'd been on a cross country trip somewhere on my own, and there's no law of nature that says that engines only fail when you've gone up to do PFLs.

So ... perhaps the hint really is:

(2) When you're above a "few" layer do keep planning which gap you're going through into which field.

Which of course I should have known already.

And possibly one for instructors:

(3) Get them above a "few" clouds before pulling the throttle once in a while, otherwise the first time they encouter this issue might be for real.

Good post!

I think that this is the reasoning for the 1000 feet vertical separation from cloud rule!

If you really did loose your enigine above "Few" cloud would you really look for agap to come down through?

If your nav planning was good you should be able to come down through it with out hitting something high (unless your over the Brecon beacons or the pennines)..I know it is not legal if you don't have IMC or IR but hey it is better than stalling whilst trying to eek it out to a gap.

I would much rather set best glide and fly myself through the cloud than stall and have to recover through them.

Tin hat on!

In that case engine failure means loss of suction operated gyros , so you would be descending through IMC with no Attitude indicator or Direction indicator. Your partial panel flying on the turn and slip had better be good.....

gcolyer - if that really happened and I knew that the cloud didn't go all the way to the ground, I'd prefer to pull the stick back, hoof in some rudder and spin through the overcast layer until I could see the ground then recover. My fwd distance would be minimal, my descent rate not silly high and as I intentionally entered the spin I'd know exactly what to do to recover from it.

I'm sure that this was recovery was taught to military aviators between the two world wars.

Crikey! The amount of time I could spend learning how to spin in IMC and recover, then do a sucessfull PFL - may be I could have done an IMC rating instead and honed my partial panel skills! Or may be I shoouldn't be getting myself in to a position where I have to make this choice?

You know, I should be able to do that, too, but right now the mere thought of it gives me the willies.

Gert, Sounds like a worthwhile hour spent with the instructor. So, don't leave us in suspense! What did you do?

Pitts2112

I got to try that some day. Sounds like fun.

Oh, it wasn't that bad, it's just that when the instructor pulls the throttle you naturally start looking round for the best field, and I found myself looking for the best hole, it was a bit of a culture shock that's all. So, by the time I was actually looking for the best field I was 1500' or so lower down; hardly a big deal over East Anglia, but it meant I'd done all my restart checks before picking a field, not the way round I'd been used to doing it.

I think the points to take away from this very good thread are:-

1) Assess on the ground the weather conditions to see if you can fly your flight in your single engine (for example) safely should an engine fail at certain points along the route. If a point on the route whereby should the engine fail you'd be rowing hard to find a suitable location to land then maybe one should revise the decision to fly or re route.

2) If you fly VFR ones concern is always what happens if it fails now - where do I go. The same applies on top of any cloud layer. You don't want to be in the position 1000ft above cloud looking for holes.

3) Currency on partial panel IF flying is always a good thing to have.

CP

I think the concerns are the same if you are VFR or IFR :)