Another VFR question
 

Taking into consideration my location, if I takeoff from an airport and then fly via the standard routes through the mountians but the valley floor is obscured by low mist and cloud (which is well below the MSA in anycase) I assume that I'm still flying under VFR conditions as I can still see the ground i.e. the mountains. Is this correct???

I think so. However, where are you going to go when the fan quits?

Try and put it down on a bit of the mountain he can see?

Thats what I love about this place answer a question with a question.... Who cares? He asked if he was legal not sane.

The answer is yes by the definition of law you would be legal if you were clear of cloud and insight of the surface. If you have a non UK issued license you are probably perfectly OK to fly outside of the sight of the surface as well, check for restrictions.

As far as the point on when the fan quits, that is a personal risk assessment. I cross the Alps IFR in an SEP quite often. That is down to my personal acceptance of risk. I know others who won't or who will only do it ME. I wonder how some people work up the courage to get out of bed in the morning...... :rolleyes:

Also dont forget I'll be around 10,000ft which should give me abt 7000ft guilding range (abt 17nm) to find somewhere to put her down if things go wrong...but why is the engine going to quit?

I have a UK JAA PPL license. There are plenty of places to put the plane down (not on the valley floor) if you really had to i.e. one of the many ski slopes.

Exactly, if I thought the engine was going to quit on every flight I would buy a new aircraft. I am however trained and current to deal with the situation in the unlikely event that it should occur. My acceptance of risk around the type of terrain I am prepared to put down in may be different to others.

Warning: The following posts will contain a whole diatribe of how stupid we are (especially if not using a checklist), how engines can fail (along with a long list of AIB reports from around the world) there will be counter arguments about the number of hours flown in SEP against the number of engine failures. There will be comments attacking me personally for being a cowboy for flying an SEP under IFR (even worse for doing it in inhospitable terrain), there will be a post from our favourite desk jockey quoting some irrelevant bit of someone's ANO to justify why we are doing it wrong.

I have probably missed something...... :p

But at the end of the day, we do this for fun, it's a challenge, it expands our envelope, richens our lives and has an element of risk to it. Thats why we do it.

Damn, I knew I would miss something of my going off at a tangent list.....

Your license is your restriction, changing the reg of the aircraft does not change the restrictions on it....

bose-x

Should yr donkey decide to quit exactly over the eastern part of Switerland and you have to do an unplanned landing..... give me a shout and I'll come and meet you for a beer or 3!:E

I think we should just turn this into a discussion of a related topic, while missing the point of the original question .... much as we are doing now ....

Is that entirely true, Bose-X ?

If it were, wouldn't you be able to exercise the rights of an FAA/IR in a G-reg plane ? Or have I got this wrong (wouldn't be surprising :rolleyes:) ?

As for SEP over/through the ALPS, I've also done it a few times and wouldn't hesitate to do it again : majestic doesn't begin to do it justice.

But to be honest, I think I'd prefer a donkey problem somewhere else (read flat, non-rockey) !

FF :ok:

The holder of a UK issued PPL, flying VFR, has to be in sight of the surface (note: there is no requirement to see any part of the surface directly below you; the "surface" could be a mountain sticking up many miles away) unless holding an IMC Rating or an IR in which case he can fly VFR without seeing any surface.

The above is true worldwide, regardless of the aircraft reg being flown.

The privileges which some license gives the pilot of a G-reg are specified in the UK ANO. The ANO (Article 26, IIRC) limits the usefulness of an ICAO (non-JAA) IR to IFR outside controlled airspace i.e. IFR in Class G or F only. This is not very useful; you could fly IFR to Norwich (Class G) but not Bournemouth (Class D). And much of Europe is at least Class E.

If this chap is flying a Swiss-reg plane then the privileges of his UK issued JAA PPL will be according to the Swiss "ANO". I would guess that, Switzerland being a JAA member, he gets the usual VFR privileges, but he still has to see a piece of the surface somewhere.

He is flying in the canyons (most "mountain flying" is done inside canyons, it seems) but this movie (17MB mpeg video) would generate a few comments about the pilot's sanity, I am sure :)

So we are agreed, that even if the valley floor is obscured by cloud / fog but 1) the mountains are visible and 2) you are of course abv the cloud / fog that you are still leagally flying under VFR conditions (even with a UK JAA License.)

FF - flying through the mountains is still something that takes my breath away. Until you have done it, you can never really appreciate it.

If a PPL from another country that allows PPLs the right to fly VFR out of sight of the surface flies a G-reg aircraft in this country (presumably after validating his licence here by whatever route) then is that pilot allowed to fly out of sight of the surface in this country?

Yes. The holder of a French PPL can fly a G-reg VFR out of sight of surface, in UK airspace or anywhere else for that matter. This is because most countries have not added the "in sight of surface" requirement to their private pilot licenses.

Similarly, an FAA PPL holder can fly an N-reg or a G-reg in UK airspace, VFR, without sight of surface.

The UK ANO automatically validates all ICAO PPLs, for flight in a G-reg, worldwide. If that ICAO license does not have the "sight of surface" requirement, then any such license holder can fly a G-reg out of sight of surface.

If he flies an aircraft here that is registered in the country that issued his licence, can he then legally fly out of sight of the surface?

Yes. The "sight of surface" is a license requirement of the UK PPL, only. (I vaguely recall South Africa has a similar requirement but I know of no others in Europe)

Another way of thinking is imagine you're on an early morning flight over the home counties. A few of the gentle valleys have formed mist/fog but you could easily glide to any one of the many parts of land not obscured. Most people would have no problem with that. Same situation for The Hat, except his valleys are deeper, his hills higher.

So he makes his own risk assessment and if he is comfortable with the level of risk takes the flight. Easy!

Good point.

At this time of year our (many) valleys fill with mist towards the end of a nice day. Fortunately there are many nice landing areas on the high ground, just in case.

FYI, IO540 (and others),

The ANO has been amended. It is no longer a VFR requirement to fly 'in sight of the surface'. The requirement is now 'with the surface in sight'. (ANO, Section 2, Schedule 1, Section 5, Visual Flight Rules 27, 28 etc etc.)

And 'With the surface in sight' has now been defined (ANO, Section 1, Part 14 pg 28): 'With the surface in sight' means with the flight crew being able to see sufficient surface features or surface illumination to enable the flight crew to maintain the aircraft in a desired attitude without reference to any flight instrument and 'when the surface is not in sight' shall be construed accordingly.


So, it probably doesn't impact on the mountain/valley fog scenario above but it certainly no longer allows a VFR only pilot to fly above, say, a broken layer with the occasional glimpse of the surface.


HTH

Thank you B73 for the update.

However I do not agree with your interpretation. One can fly above a solid overcast, which (if mainly stratus) will have a flat top surface and will thus be perfectly suitable for wholly visual aircraft control, and if there is a hill or mountain sticking up in the distance, then you are visual with the surface and meet the legal requirement.

The time when the condition

the flight crew being able to see sufficient surface features or surface illumination to enable the flight crew to maintain the aircraft in a desired attitude without reference to any flight instrument

would not be met would be when flying in the common summer haze, especially over the sea, or inside a deep canyon, or perhaps one of the optical illusion cases like flying towards a sloping horizon.

By far the most common "breach" of the "sight of surface" rule has to be flight above a solid layer, and that is perfect for VFR flight.

So, I don't really see what difference the new wording makes.

Now, if they required the sight of enough of the surface to enable navigation, that would be very different ;)

SI 2007/241 (http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2007/20070274.htm) which makes the amendments is clearly talking about modifying the visibility rules for helicopters. It is only the amendment to article 155 giving the definition of "with the surface in sight" that modifies the visibility rules for other aircraft. As the amendment to article 155 is to the notes for interpretation of the act, and this has been changed as the result of substantive change to only those articles of the act relating to helicopters as set out in the SI, it could be argued that the amendment to the interpretation is also only specific to the interpretation of the act as regards to helicopters and not other aircraft. So taking into account the SI which amended the interpretation, the interpretation is open to interpretation. :}

I think I need to go lie down somewhere dark...

(now maybe a real lawyer can tell us what it really means)

No, I didn't think that you would. :ugh:

The amendment to the ANO is clealy applicable to helicopters not fixed wing.

The obvious purpose of the original legislation was in recognition that the "vanilla" CAA PPL has no means of navigating unless he can see enough of the surface to follow visual references.

It has nothing to do with ability to fly on instruments otherwise the restriction would apply to non CAA "vanilla" PPLs where flight above a solid undercast is usually permitted as long as the visibility is better than VMC. Such "foreign" pilots receive no more instrument training (in term of flight in IMC) but receive more training in instrument navigation. This has changed. It would be interesting to know how the instrument component of the UK PPL syllabus differs from the French component or the current FAA component for that matter.

Logically the technical answer to the question for the sake of technical debate would seem to be can the pilot navigate by visual reference alone to the surface that he can see.

There is a perverse logic because presumably if you take off in VMC, continue over an undercast, but navigate towards a know peek you might claim you were always in sight of the surface. :confused:

It is interesting that the thrust of the amendment so far as helicopters is concerned has far more to do with the pilots ability to fly on instruments without reference to the surface. This seems at odds because I would not have thought it was any more or less difficult for a heli pilot to fly in VMC above or below a cloud layer (navigational issues aside).

From memory, the FAA PPL includes VOR navigation, and I distinctly recall some VOR and ADF questions in the FAA PPL written exam which would have been found in the IMC Rating written exam in the UK.

However, the flying situation is different. IMHO there is a lot less call for "VMC on top" flight in the UK than in the USA.

In the UK, it's rarely that one can fly above cloud without being in CAS and usually it;s Class A. I have done it a few times, in Class G, but I don't recall a single instance when I did it (in the UK) without transiting IMC on the way up or down, so I was doing it under the IMCR or FAA IR privileges anyway.

Also, due to the scarcity of instrument approaches here, people prefer to scud run below cloud and accept the increased danger of that, over the risk of getting trapped above a layer and (assuming IMC capability now) having to do a DIY descent through cloud.

In the USA, you can fly up to 18k feet under VFR, in general, and laws of physics being similar all over ;) I bet that US PPLs can do an awful lot of VMC on top flying.

Elsewhere in Europe it's also more doable. I've been around Europe quite a bit under VFR and all the long legs were done VMC on top. One does end up in CAS but it isn't normally Class A and transits in the FL050-150 region are more readily given than in the UK, and are managed by the enroute/airways controllers; here it would be Class A and even if one could fly in it VFR the airways controllers would not offer you a service with a bargepole. If the UK allowed VMC on top flight (and had say Class C up to FL195 or whatever, and Class A above that) it would need to set up a whole new layer of "FIS with radar" controllers like they have in say France. Nobody is going to do that now.

I guess that local regulatory attitudes have developed in line with the local airspace...

IO,

This is interesting : you're saying effectively that another European country could authorise the use of an FAA/PPL/IR in all CAS in aeroplanes of their own national reg ?

Is this actually the case anywhere ?

FF :ok:

I seem to recall Greece allowed it for Greek nationals.

This is interesting : you're saying effectively that another European country could authorise the use of an FAA/PPL/IR in all CAS in aeroplanes of their own national reg ?

Yes.

But, as always, there is a catch ;)

JAA bans its member states from validating ICAO (non-JAA) IRs beyond one year. I have the URL to the JAA document somewhere and will dig it out if you really want it.

So, the CAA's continuous validation is a pretty good deal - even if it is all but useless due to the "OCAS" requirement.

So, JAA have put the boot in, to make sure that none of the new JAA members do what would be a really obvious business opportunity :)

The "bizjet registry countries" e.g. Caymans, and now the IOM, fully accept FAA licensing and certification, but this is not useful to our sort of GA because they impose minimum weight limits e.g. 5700kg.

For what it is worth only if they are a European citizen.

So if you are an American living in France for example they will validate an FAA IR.