Whether posting on a forum or flying aircraft, you will make errors of judgement. The important thing is to learn from them.

I was wrong
 

Skyhawk: I was going to post a reply to your question before you asked it. You beat me to it.

<takes deep breath> I made a judgement about a guy coping with a situation that I've never had to cope with myself. I shouldn't have done that and I'm sorry to him and to anyone else who thinks they might have been similarly judged by extension. The main thing is that he got in ok and there was nothing to really upset anyone. It's clear that experience puts a completely different slant on a situation whose bald facts are seen in a two-second window.

I also didn't appreciate how, by raising the issue here, I might have stirred the very hornet's nest I was talking about! Very naive of me. Thanks to EKKL and BRL for pointing that out. :)

I have learned from this. Not a pleasant experience- akin to being 'flogged around the fleet' if you're into your naval history!

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll find a nice little corner to curl up in for a while.......

Kev.

Indeed, Kevmusic. How dare you suggest that one of our fine piloting community could behave improperly ? After all, whilst we have all (apparently) been caught out by weather which has either been wrongly forecast or which has deteriorated rapidly and unexpectedly, none of us would ever deliberately break Rule 5 for a few seconds, would we ?

Oh no ....

Lighten up, people, and get of his back. Kevmusic might well have got this wrong, but then again, unless the guy in question puts his hands up, none of you have any more accurate information, do you ?

FF (who had to divert himself just a few days ago!) :ok:

OK so the "making an approach to land" was tongue in cheek. But I think I'm correct than one is absolved of rule 5 in order to keep the aeroplne safe?


or did I make that up!

I've made the same error. Front moved in several hours early I turned round over Beachy Head and diverted to Lydd.. personaly I'd rather fly 200ft over Strood than divert to Lydd lol

It is a rather dire place to get stuck you have to admit. Mind you as it is London Ashford Airport it should only be a short taxi ride into the City......

£35 to Hastings station Bose!!

Looking at my plate (and I haven’t been to Rochester for a while) I would have thought Strood was a very likely position to find an aircraft joining for a landing at Rochester, and if it wasn’t for a straight in approach potentially for a number of other joins.

The problem with a thread such as this is there are some all to ready to flame. We don’t know exactly what the pilot was doing, how low he really was, whether he had been caught out by the weather or had set off when he should have known full well it was going to deteriorate. While speculation is interesting - that is all it is. Moreover, there is a lesson in that it is often the NIMBY that will take a similar stance whilst devoid of all the facts.

For what it is worth I was flying at around that time not too far away and the weather did exactly what the forecast said, and was pretty much as forecast all day. It wasn’t a day to be flying VFR without some time to your name, but otherwise it was fine. I am not sure what the wall of inbound clag was, there was a pronounced inversion at 3,000 feet all day with an overcast between 2,000 and 3,000 which moved west on a fast stream of about 30 knots. (Beautiful above as it happened particularly if west bound).

So kevmusic don’t worry you may be perfectly correct that the pilot had got it horribly wrong and was extracting himself from some weather he had no business to be in, equally he may have know exactly what he was doing and was happily visual for a join and well accustomed to a bit of low level flying if required to arrive safely at his destination.

In short we just don’t know! (at least from what you tell us)

the pilot you speak of is I. Kevmusic, apologies for being so low, but there was a very good reasonfor it, namely that I thought I was suffering from decompression sickness owing to having been scuba diving the day before. Had felt a numb and tingling sensation in my fingers as I was climbing and therefore turned back and came in at the lowest height possible in order to counteract the DCS. TUrned out when I got back that Id only had pins and needles, lol!

Did you get yourself checked by a doctor afterwards, just to be on the safe side?

For future reference.... You can't get a bend at normal VFR altitudes that would appear or worsen as a result of the flight. If you had a bend it would have appeared at the surface. The pressure differential of between 6m and the surface is greater than the differential of surface to 18,000 feet. Diving on air the bend would have occurred in the 10m to surface ascent and would have presented itself within a short while of surfacing. If you had been diving helium the bend would have incurred in water at the point where the greates tissue unloading occured, generally in the 50-30m range.

A bend that "appears" several hours after surfacing is a bend that was already there and the diver was in denial......

Bose-X,

I know absolutely nothing about this...

...However I recall reading somewhere that there is a recommended minimum time between Diving and Flying, 24hrs or similar? From what you have said above this would appear to be an unnecessary precaution - what is correct?
:confused:
Regards, SD..

Why doesn't someone who knows how to do it, post the TAF and actuals from the time of the flight. Then we will know if he got 'caught out' by the weather or he should have stayed down for a beer.............:)

Recommended intervals are based on recommendations from litagous aware diving certification agencies. It is much easier to make a blanket statement that covers your arse than try and explain the much more subtle rules around DCS. The 24hr rule comes from the assumption that even a diver in denial will admit to having a bend and seek treatment during this time. Having had a number of bends in my time and written numerous, articles, books and course materials on advanced mix gas diving and reabreather diving over the last 20 years I have had the honour to consort with some of the most knowledgable diving physiologists on the planet. Their view is that the 24hr guidlines are perfect as a blanket cover.

I merely pointed out the facts from a physiology standpoint. The choice of observing 24hrs or not is down to the individual. I have flown home both in my aircraft and commercially within hours of deep mixed gas dives. It is a risk assessment based on my knowledge of diving physics and physiology.

Bose may be right, but this looks more interesting;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bends

Kirstey "But I think I'm correct than one is absolved of rule 5 in order to keep the aeroplne safe?


or did I make that up!"

You are quite correct but if you do breach rule 5 in such circumstances you must inform the CAA in writing as soon as is reasonably practicable after the breach.

The reason for this is obviously to ensure that its not used as an excuse after the CAA have started investigating a low flying complaint.

Baboon Boy, thanks for your input here and glad that you made it down safely. :) For the sake of the wolves in this thread, there was also a bank of in-rolling low cloud, right? Or was it far enough away not to bother you? Or was it the alcoholic haze from my pre-prandial glass or two?

An instance of irony has been mentioned before in this thread. Well, here's another one: I love watching low-flying aircraft! It's no problem to me.

Ditto, and what's even more ironic -- I live not more than a few miles of this incident in a rural area. We're perfectly used to many PFLs being done in the surrounding fields and I find them fascinating to watch :-)

So are you not a very good diver then? Get the impression you often surface like a Polaris missile...? ;)

Does 'normal VFR' mean the typical 2,400 or below O2 levels (say FL120). It is many years since my diving theory (and unlike you I don't do it for a living) but I seem to remember the guideline being somewhere between 5000 and 8500 ft. Even more from memory, I think it was D diver and OK to 8,000 - so OK on a commercial airliner unless it decompreses.

Appologies for the thread drift

I recall from my recent 'Human Performance Limitations' exam that the guidance concerning flying after breathing compressed air during diving is that you should not fly within 12 hours of the dive. If you have dived deeper than 30 feet, you should wait 24 hours.

The above is taken from a well known book for Microlight pilots.

Also, same book....

Barotrauma

Within the body itself gases can build up through eating rich or spicy types of food and drinking beer. If the gases so produced cannot escape through the normal channels of mouth or rear then considerable pain and even fainting can result. If you are going to fly high - watch your diet.

However, it doesn't mention the risk of others fainting if the gases are able to escape:eek: