The one I heard was that on a dark night if the engine stopped to glide towards a dark area.

As you come closer to the ground put on the landing lights !!! If you like what you see leave them on! If you don't like what you see turn them back off again :E

Having a few engine problems albeit I must admit in twins i cannot say I have a massive confidence in piston engines.

I really do like to approach anything I do with outs a plan B another door if one closes. To do something risky with no other get out doors is Russian roulette.

If you know that accept it and still take the risk then that risk is acceptable to you! But do we hav ethe right to accept risk for others especially our Kids.

i have flown piston singles at night over long stretches of water over fog banks or solid cloud with very low cloud bases but it makes me uncomfortable to do so because I know if the engine quits I have no outs and am in the lap of the Gods

Now give me a Cirrus and I might change that view because the chute gives me the lacking out :ok:
As for the CAA regulations a lot is steeped in history and there is no ryme or reason to some of the legislation!
Apart from the engine failure scenario on a dark night it made no sense to me why the night rating was not rolled into the IMCR or the IMCR a requirement for a night rating CAA madness ???

Pace

Why is it so difficult for some pilots to execute a 180 degree return?

Because they want to get home....

Mary that is one aspect but there are more

Maybe they think things will improve if they hold on a bit?
maybe they see it as defeatism to go back
Maybe they are not good instrument pilots and having got into IMC conditions take all their brain power to keep straight and level?
a turn back is not always a guarantee that you will meet the conditions you left ?
Maybe even vanity comes into it " Jack in the plane ahead has got through why can't you?"
The challenge??
but yes get home itis is a major element in not turning back

Pace

It might, but if you work out the proportion of Europe covered by substations it seems to me unlikely.

Why not glide over the middle of a dark bit then pull the chute? Best of both worlds.

the poor chap may have considered a turn back to the IOW but the weather down here on Saturday afternoon was vile in extremis with squalls and 45 mph gusts along the coast from Dorset to Hants/IOW.
we do not know if he had an IR but just a look out of the window that day and any private flyer surely would have not gone anywhere...

i drove past Bournemouth airport in the afternoon and the viz was hopeless
if you were in a VFR situation flying a small plane it would be horrid

just watched 2 interesting programs this week
one about the Hampden that went down on Dartmoor returning from bombing submarine pens and the eagle rock HRH duke of Kent sunderland crash - both in 1942
both poor viz and low level flight

Rog

we do not know so many things about this crash! What was so urgent about the trip that the pilot even got out of bed to fly on such a day especially with his family? Surely not a sight seeing trip?

We don't know what brought him down? was he flying IMC/ IFR rules and was forced down by some other problem?

Did he think he was better more capable than he was? What was his mindset?

its strange I was on a trip just before christmas me and the co pilot were on the ground for a couple of days in the french Alps and my co pilot wanted to Ski
A lack of low level snow meant a high resort which only had reds or blacks.

my co pilot asked if I was up to skiing reds or blacks?" Yea Yea of course I am bar the fact that I only took up skiing 10 years ago and had not skied for 4 years.
So yes I got down with wide turns and occasional stops some intentional others not :ugh:while seeing my co pilot drop almost vertically down the slopes arriving at the bottom by the time I had got a 1/3 rd down :ugh: but yes technically I was skiing reds and blacks.

Amongst pilots especially private pilots there is a huge variance in ability and sadly many have less ability than they claim or believe.

There will always be pilots who can manage conditions like that even in a piston single and then there are those who think they can and then those who get into those conditions inadvertently or allow themselves to be put into conditions like that by some outside pressures.

Why this pilot was flying that day who knows? there are still too many questions to be answered but the outcome is very sad

Pace

It was a Permit aircraft, so his options were limited

We'll know more about his contacts with ATC and/or Popham when the AAIB report is issued

robin and pace
thanks all for the replies

just to add that apart from the location of the crash Popham field has no reference to this accident
afaik the airfield was officially closed that day and he was not heading for a diversion there nor spoke to them (according to pophams FB site)

Capn Bug Smasher,

We purchased two Alpha 200 helmets from SES. The RAF helmets are too heavy and the field of view of an Alpha is better.

Are you serious, that you are wearing Nomex and bone domes in a spam can? Or is this some sort of warbird?

I'm guessing from his profile, aerobatics in a Bulldog?

G

Robin
 

it is interesting that you say "It was a permit aircraft so his options were limited"

it is not the first time I have seen aircraft dammaged by following "rules" be they local or misunderstood bits of the ANO, fortunatly all the inccidents that I have seen have just resulted in bent metal and no injury to the occupants.

It is my view that the captain of an aircraft can take any action he/she sees fit to assure the safety of the aircraft and its occupants, the bottom line is that if I painted myself into a very low cloudbase situation I would climb above the MSA and get radar vectors to some place that I could safely get the aircraft on the ground irrispective of the certification status of the aircraft, if the aircraft was not capable of IMC flight I would pick the best field I could find and land in it.

There are parts of the ANO that permit the breaking of any of the rules if life is in danger.

In aviation the only action that matters is the one that gets you back on the ground safely.

I would far rather explain my actions to the CAA than St Peter.

Yes.

I got caught in an unforecast descending cloudbase, reducing visibility, and commencing rain within a couple of miles of where this happened, around 10 years ago - in a permit aircraft.

I landed in a field, got a taxi home after apologising to the farmer, and later removed the aeroplane by road. I dropped one bolt de-rigging and lost it, which I had to replace at the cost of about £10.


Admittedly I had rather better short field capability than a Pioneer 400, but that option is available to all of us, and used far too rarely.

None of which should be taken as any assumption that I know what happened to this Pioneer.

G

A&C

Completely agree

There have been a few noteworthy occasions when sticking to the rules would have led to my demise. Not sure how thick the cloud was last week or whether the pilot felt able to go up, but if his choice was to stay low in the murk, then he was lining up a few more of the holes in the cheese

I agree 100% with A and Es post above! Some permit aircraft are very well equipt for instrument flight and at some point the pilot is better climbing to MSA and getting an SRA or PAR into somewhere or at worst vectors towards better weather where a safe descent can be made.

G makes a good point on controlled off airport landings! I can remember a great story of two pilots one German the other English flying over France when bad weather forced them to land in a field and wait for the weather to clear through.

they were enemies but both landed in the same field and shared cigarettes together as well as chatting to each other.

After the weather cleared they both took off again in different directions as friends.

G part of the problem is surely that off field landings are not encouraged or taught and probably not even contemplated as an option by most pilots when doing that and taking to a field might be the best option available

Pace

Field landings...all in the gliding sylabus.

All the same, the weather on the Sunday was dreadful, terrible viz, we were local flying, but had to keep a sharp lookout on the fog that kept encroaching on the airfield and beat a hasty retreat when it got too interesting.

Mary its part of the glider pilots brain set to land off airfield but nothing which is really taught or encouraged to do by the power pilot!

Yet it could be a life saver.

The clubs obviously don't want a bent or collapsed nose wheel by encouraging pilots to land in what could be a muddy pothole strewn field at the first sign of being unsure of position or deteriorating weather.

They worry about the damage and costs of getting an aircraft removed from too short a field but in certain circumstances it could indeed be the best option!
in fact it could be an option which saves lives

Pace

It was a standard exercise in the PPL syllabus when I was taught.

Never practised it since mind.

Lot of truth in that which is why I keep banging on about going solo in a glider as part of the PPL course. Even go xc in one.

Yes, I know the practicalites etc etc but I reckon it instills confidence in not having an engine. An engine failure as long as it's not say 100' above a housing estate would be no sweat whatsoever to me or I dare say any glider pilot. Every landing I've ever done as a glider pilot has been with an engine failure and every cable break has been an EFATO.

I know this falls generally on deaf ears but I'm convinced it could save lives.

Field landings
 

If you learn to fly with me you will practice forced landings with power and as long as we are not going to infringe the 500ft rule the aircraft will get close enough to the ground that the student will be in no doubt a landing would be sucsessful.

If training is not realistc it is not worth doing.