"And yes you do have to be good on intrument flying and have good situational awareness."

errm, and have just entered cloud inadvertantly amongst hills below MSA.

The fact is it can and does happen. Example I flew IFR to Inverness. Front lay west to East with a block of CB with few gaps. Chose a gap visually to go through and landed at inverness.
Aircraft had no weather radar. Decided looking at the sat images that flying low level along loch ness to clear the weather to the west was my better option then turning and flying over the isles past the IOM and to WAL.
Initially stayed over the loch at 1000 ft agl. but lowering cloud and visibility made me change my mind and climb above the MSA with a rough ride but knowing I would clear weather to the west.

With due respect pilots do get into situations for one reason or other to think otherwise is not realistic or are comments made by fair weather flyers.

The clip that started this thread showed a huge mistake which could have been a disaster. Its all very well to say pilots shouldnt do this or that but they do and I thought that is what we were talking about.

Pace

Agree - people can and do end up in these predicaments - my take was: how realistic is for such to have then demonstrate excellent IR skills and good situational awareness when the moment before they went inadvertant IMC in the hills below MSA. And quite possibly having a bad judgement day on so many levels prior to that!

Numptie to sky-god in a flash, just like expected to recover an inadvertant spin

(btw going IMC was never in the plan, or part of a plan B, is my assumption wrt inadvertant IMC).

Good point about accuracy of measurements:ok:. Not only are the static and dynamic pressure instruments at risk of increased error in unusual attitudes and at the extremes of their performance range but the observation by the pilot is constrained by the need to safely fly the aircraft while making the observations. I had a yoke mounted Garmin GPS 96 running during the flight. I have downloaded the information it recorded to provide a check of the observations while flying the stall and mushing down and have put some graphs of the data on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2025023&id=1118091118&l=b2b72910cc

I used Garmin MapSource to display the track and profile of the route I flew. From this I was able to identify one of the stalls in the data set. I copied just the data for the stall and clime out into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to graph out the height against time. This was to allow me identify a section of the stalled descent that is clearly where the aircraft is mushing down so I could get a measurement of the rate it was descending.

The measurement section I chose starts at 16:05:17 with the aircraft at 3467 feet and finishes at 16:06:23 with the aircraft at 2705 feet. The rate of decent was therefore 693 feet per minute. A simple linear regression line through the data shows it to be a stable descent along a straight line since the R-squared is 0.94. Which I interpret to mean that only about 6% of the variation in this data was due to a deviation from the linear trend line.

Before 16:05:17 my interpretation of the graph is that the aircraft is losing lift and entering the stall mushing. The section in the descent after 16:06:23 is likely to be where stall recovery has been initiated and the aircraft is being reconfigured to clime out.

The ground speed variation during the descent was not stable as can be seen from the very low R-squared value. It is likely that this is simply reflecting the prevailing wind conditions. I carried out the stall into wind over a reservoir in Essex just south of Colchester on the 25th Oct. The weather at the time was clear but windy. A nearby local private automated weather station in Colchester reports reading 270 degrees 5 to 10 Knots at the time of the flight http://www.jbest.net/weather/weatherSearch.aspx?fd=25%2f10%2f2009

I have included graphs of the landing and roll out at the end of the flight to provide a basis for a rough comparison for this aircraft between the descent rate and ground speed for the stalled configuration and a conventional landing. Since the aircraft was flown down final with 30 degrees of flap at 65 Knots indicated air speed the ground speed shows a head wind was present of around 10 Knots.

Climbing IMC in Valleys
 

There a number of Canadian approaches where the missed approach requires a shuttle climb, i.e. a climb in a hold.

The hold is of course based upon a holding fix or two which allows you to use your ADF, VOR, DME or GPS to stay well clear of the rocks.

With some of these airports you have to use the missed approach to leave in IMC.

The entire approach is flight tested in VFR to ensure correct signal reception.

Having looked at approach design criteria, it scares me to hear people advocating tight spiral climbs. 15 kt. of wind and several circles later where are you going to be:eek:

ratherBeFlying

To be in solid cloud for whatever reason unsure of position surrounded by hills or mountains would be very scary.

So what would you do in that situation if a tight spiral climb scares you so much? would you climb straight ahead hoping you can out climb the mountains? would you make a 180 remembering you still have to make a turn where the hill slopes put you closer? or would you cross everything and hope there was no bang? solution please.

Yes I have flown IFR departures where a spiral climb is required to 10000 feet before setting course. Doesnt that hint at something to you??

Pace

With a decent GPS, you will know where you are.

Without a GPS, you should not be in IMC anyway (21st century)

Pace,
Very true. But we know getting into those situations is wrong and preventable.

If you were to be presented with your Inverness scenario again, what would you do, same again or something else?

Droopystop

exactly the same as it was the correct call for the conditions. IFR airways in the freezing level with all the embedded CBs and NO radar was not an option.

That left IFR below airways batting through CBs but not in the freezing level or VFR along loch ness towards clear weather to the west.

The option there was was to take plan B and fly IFR below CAS which was what I took when VFR was no longer safely possible.

I was always taught never do anything in flying without an out as that becomes a game of russian roulette and that I never play.

The difference was I knew exactly where I was but still spiralled up before setting course.

10540 talks of GPS ? all well and good if you have a unit with terrain etc. Not so good with a King 90B or even worse!

there are those who have to fly (within reason) and those who dont.

I am afraid that with all the armchair pilot discussions pilots do get into a mess real world and unsure of position, in cloud surrounded by hills/ mountains.

A tight spiral climb would be my option. Other pilots can do what they want thats their choice.

Pace

Some people on here obviously not actually operated SEP in big mountains, all this talk of hammerheads and tight spiral climbs etc etc.

If you fly in a big mountain environment you do not enter solid IMC ever when VFR, and who ever said they maybe head down writing when it happens has no clue. You spend all your time flying tight up against the side of the valley wall checking behind you and down other valleys as they pass to make sure you can turn around before entering this crap. It is so important to check the weather is not blowing in behind you and cutting off your exit, no head down at any time apart from a quick glance at the instruments.

It worries me that so many people are chatting about what they think they would do if they got into IMC in the mts instead what they would do to never get into IMC in the mts. You can fly under solid overcast with a good level of safety, but you must must must keep your escape route available at all times. I spent a couple of years in the Southern Alps of NZ flying commercially, average height of the peaks is probably around 9000ft complete with weather coming up from Antarctica!

I just wondered if a night in Inverness would have been a better option for a ppl?

Just a thought (whilst i was walking the dog in the pouring rain). Allow me to put my commercial pilot's hat on for a moment.

If I were to be doing a passenger flight and ended up in having to or indeed inadvertently (whatever that means) go IMC below MSA, I could be disciplined. I would have been in direct contravention of the JAR (or whatever they call themselves this month) compliant Company Ops manual. The CAA could potentially have a case for pulling my employers AOC.

In other words, I have to make sure I remain VMC at all times below MSA (except of course when making an instrument approach or in case of emergency). I think I would have a hard case to prove that going IMC in a valley was an emergency. In short I have to be able to go VFR and stay VFR or go IFR the whole way or not go at all.

This of course is a private flyers forum, and I don't think that private flyers have such strict rules for this case. Except of course the rules for entering the Darwin awards.

Droopystop - I agree.

However, the kind of commercial operation which you may be half thinking of does this all the time... scud running at 400ft all the way across the Channel :)

Of course the pilot is the cream of the CAA cream, a class 1 medical every 6 months, etc. and no autopilot because fitting one would cost a fortune and real pilots don't need one :)

I am not suprised that, without pressurisation etc, these flights operate only over the water and not from say the south east to N Wales. Operating over any terrain, their despatch % would be pretty poor.

DroopySnoot and Bla Bla Bla

My last post on this. Firstly I am an ATP and have thousands of hours in multi piston aircraft in all weather, all over Scotland in summer winter day and Night. I am also a Captain on Citation Jets.

Go back to the beginning of the thread and read what started it.

It was an aircraft clip flying in cloud which hit bushes on a hill side.

The thread is not about avoiding the situation it was about what to do if someone ever gets in a situation IN cloud unsure of position surrounded by hills.

I have made a suggestion which was to keep the aircraft as close to one spot as possible until enough hight had been aquired to get clearance over the terrain.

I hope you never get in that situation or anyone else as it is a dire situation to be in with no 100% safe options.

Mumble as much as you want but please offer some alternatives to what we were talking about as I would love to know what you would do????

Pace

I can think of at least one SID which you are below MSA with 11000 peaks around, and the SID says "climb direct <VOR> if not at MSA by <VOR> hold and climb until at MSA"...

Pace,

Sorry, I didn't think this was getting personal.

What would I do? Never ever go IMC in a valley. That is my point. There is, as you say, no 100% assured way out. Therefore you make absolutely sure you don't go in. To try to pretend there is general plan for getting out of such a situation is folly (and not a little frightening coming from an ATPL). An escape plan has to be time, place and type specific and may not work. If there is something to learn from this thread, its don't go there in first place.

If we are going to play top trumps, I have 1000 hours SAR experience in Scotland, plus thousands of heavy twin rotary time, almost all IFR at or below 3000'.


AL,

SIDs don't count - they are afterall designed to get you from the ground to MSA in whatever the weather, and I am sure the case you mention ensures terrain separation.

IO540,

I wasn't really thinking of any sort of operator other than thinking what I have to comply with. I have no experience of fixedwing ops manuals, but I am pretty certain that IMC below MSA is a no no (JAR OPS requirement) and VFR weather conditions are well defined. If the customer only hires a VFR plane, then he gets what he pays for and if the weather is not VFR, then captain has to say no and the customer has to live with that. I guess I am very lucky working for a company that respects a captain's decision not to go on the grounds of safety. In fact we are expected to cancel a flight if it's not safe or not legal. If that isn't the case elsewhere, then the CAA isn't doing it's job of protecting the passengers.

Droopy

No not playing top trumps. Yes I totally agree with you that avoiding that situation has to be no 1 priority.

Having said that we have to be realistic and realise that there are hundreds of lives that have been lost in aviation because a pilot has done something he should not have done or has got into a situation he should not be in.

I still hold that if anyone is stupid enough to find themselves lost and in cloud below hills/mountains for whatever reason then unless they are flying a fighter jet which they can point skywards and go up like a rocket their best way out is to contain the aircraft as close to one spot and climb to a safe altitude.
Whether thats in a holding pattern or spiral (I would go for a spiral with slightly increased bank until above the MSA.
What are the alternatives? climb in any direction with your legs crossed?

Avoid YES but sadly we have to be realistic to peoples failings too. As we know most accidents are pilot ERROR and it would be great if they were taught to and avoided those errors but they dont.

Pace

The discussion is interesting but perhaps I can bring it back toward the private flying arena?

99% of private pilots do not have an instrument qualification - so promising as a climb to MSA appears it is simply not a viable option fofr the vast majority of private pilots.

From my point of view (1000 hrs of VFR flying which I have paid for!) climbing - be it along a glen or in a sprial is unlikely to have a high potential of success. My aircraft is not a great instrument platform - if it were a C172 or cherrytree then it wouldd make more sense - but it still leaves a transit off some 50 miles and then a descent - potentially all IMC, possibly with ice and certainly with turbulence.

So my options are a 'canyon turn' or if the route behind me has closed, a forced landing. The latter is a last resort to avoid the IMC option.

Was it 178 seconds they quoted some years ago regarding the time the average VFR only pilot had before disorientation set in after entry into IMC?

Myself, I will be doing the same as gasax, but I have no intention of having to do so in the first place! *knock on wood*

The CAA stated (2008, I was present at the presentation) that about 23k IMC Ratings have been issued since c. 1970. OK, a lot of these will have been issued as honorary to CAA CPLs etc, but there are only about 20k PPLs in the UK with valid medicals, and since many of these are self evidently pilots who have been flying since WW2 :) (the early attrition rate in GA is massive and as a result most of those flying have been at it for yonks) I think that a lot more than 1% have at some stage held the IMCR. How many I can't guess (5% to 20% maybe) and most will be lapsed but that doesn't mean they cannot hold a plane the right way up. Also, the training sufficient to do the most basic instrument flight doesn't take long - far far less than getting the IMCR.

That was a famous magazine article from many years ago, in the USA, but I don't think that result was meaningful in this respect. They picked pilots who really had absolutely zero IMC time (IIRC, one of them had ~ 2000hrs TT, which sounds incredible) and they did a subtle instrument failure on them.

Obviously I agree one should not do IMC if not instrument flight capable, but I do think it takes far less to do it and get away with it (the alternative being death, basically) in order to get out of IMC, than most would think.

Probably more like 40-50% of US "private" flyer's (i.e. those flying for fun, regardless of licence type) have an IR, and a good proportion of UK private flyer's have an IMC rating as a minimum.

This video was made in the USA, and these idiots were flying a more than capable aeroplane in IMC so I'd assume one held and instrument qualification and that they just didn't / couldn't get an IFR clearance. Which brings one more point - rules. If I was in that situation, screw the rules, I'd just climb, even if it meant busting airspace.

178 seconds is effectively referring to "no gyro" - or someone who has no idea how to interpret them. I'd imagine a PPL who has a working AI would probably stand a better chance of survival above MSA than scud running in valleys at 100 kts.

Never let rules get in the way of saving your life.

Take whatever action you need, then if you have a free moment, squawk emergency, put out a mayday or whatever works, but don't sit around worrying about broken rules.

Pace,

I respect your flying experience but I'm afraid Scotland although very rough terrain it is not really a big mountain environment, however it does have plenty of !!!! weather, used to live, fly and climb there. As someone said earlier flying IFR in a mountain region does not count for bugger all in terms of mountain flying experience.

Come to NZ and you can see what it is like to have huge mountains towering above you with weather that traps you in seconds and down drafts that the local ATR 72's struggle to deal with.

I know you think I am straying from the point but having actually operated in those conditions in bloody huge mountains allot it is quite simply about not getting into it rather than how to get out of it.

And as you said you wanted know what I would do well here it is, I would turn around before in happened. If it was an extremely crappy day I would drink coffee on the ground and roll my eye's at anyone apart from the local helicopter rescue guys who took off into it.

If some of you are interested in mountain flying the best book I found was: Flying the Mountains by Fletcher Anderson.

Pace, I don't want to get into a tit for tat as Pprune always goes this way. happy flying.:ok:

Bla Bla Bla

The stupid thing is that we usually hold the same opinions with the ones that we are arguing with maybe just not clear with each other and coming from slightly different angles ;)

I too have flown a lot over mountains in destinations around the Alps and Pyrennies and landed business jets at locations like St Moritz, Lugano, Chambery, LJLJ (Can never spell Lubliajana :ugh: as well as ferrying around big chunks of the world.

The point here is we are not really talking about 10000 plus mountains but being below any piece of cumulus granitus which can equally do total damage if its sticking in a cloud at 1500 feet as at 15000 feet.

Infact the higher the mountains the more important it becomes to spiral up vertically should anyone ever be in the unlikely and unfortunate position of being in cloud, out of sight of the ground and unsure of position amidst high terrain.

How would a PPL ever get into that situation? unbelievable but it does happen!

Pace

Pilot X is in an old bird and is not current on IMC flying so this is what he should do based on the scenario given.....

1 - Plan a VFR only flight with landing alternatives and VFR escape routes for the flight

2 - Definitely not press on hoping that weather is localised but have a clear strategy in mind for deteriorating weather and viz

3 - Execute plan B as soon as it look necessary

4 - Bear in mind that a precautionary landing (albeit with limited choices) may be preferable to dying by hitting the side of the valley

He / She should keep it VFR only and have sensible minima in mind which are more conservative than normal low level flying.:ok:

Easy! - My log book has it spelt B - R - N - I - K.

IMC Rating
 

How many PPLs who qualify for an IMC rating do enough instrument flying to keep current? (I don't mean keep the IMC legal - I mean regular instrument flying to avoid rust). I let mine lapse years ago, although then I had a share in an instrument capable aircraft, as I realised I was not going to fly instrument frequently enough.

I can only concur. Of all the private pilots I know not one has a current IMC, three (out of the 10) definitely had an IMC at some time, but let it lapse years ago.

I doubt any of us would be up to a tight spiral climb and thirty minute transit with potentially an IFR arrival. I'd like to think I could manage - but then I'd also like to think I'm handsome, rich and irresistable - then I wake up!!!

Someone who has become uncurrent but has done Instrument training is unlikely to die "within 175 seconds" when flying into a cloud, unless they also have a gyro failure. With a working AI basic attitude instrument flying is not rocket science and if one set cruise power and just concentrated on the AI then likely one would survive.

Fair point. But now throw in the factors of map reading, ascertaining the MSA, possibly scrambling for a frequency, and sheer terror of fear of possibly hitting cumulo-granite, and see what happens to the scan then.

This is where a decent big-screen (not one of the little x96 Garmins) GPS comes in. You can see where you are clearly at all times, and can concentrate on the instrument scan.

Gasax

Shucks you have ruined it for me ;) I was sure you were the guy who played the Captain surrounded by the unlikely to be Virgin Airstewardesses (Cabin crew) on that Virgin TV ad? :E

As a tip to those who are out of practice or who cannot fly enough on instruments to keep current Microsoft Flight Simulator or one of the other instrument flying programmes for sale are an excellent tool to keep you up to speed. You can even practice tight spiral climbs :E

Pace

Now there's an excellent idea, Pace. Everybody who contributed to this thread do a bit of spiral ascending on a computer. I used to have an IR, infrequently refreshed, and a courtesy IMC to go with it but nobody would let me play in the airspace so I said to heck with it and stay VFR.

And go mountain scraping in gliders in Wales (Talgarth). I could tell you some interesting stories about flying into terrain up there, never mind just flying into IMC. Friend of mine managed to land his K6 on the only bit of furze that wasn't studded with rocks, took half the gliding club and the local mountain rescue chaps all next weekend to trek it down in bits.

Qualified as a very good landing because he was able to fly it again.....

Mary

I think we could both tell each other interesting stories about those areas ;) I even know some of the sheep by name :O

Pace

Now, now, Pace, that may need some explanation.......:E


couldn't resist.....

172

Not into sheep ;) other than eating them but there are plenty who are up around there.

Where do you think the term shaggy sheep comes from :E

Pace

UK PPL instructors tend to know the sheep down below by their first names - that's why they rarely venture past the nearest crease on their maps :)

That must have cost more than a few pints!!

Quick update on the topic : The FAA is NOT going to further investigate this matter.

I have information that I cannot release that this video might not be completely what everybody think it is.