epiphany

If you believed the weather forecaster you would never get in the dam machine and fly anywhere. How many times in your professional life have you not flown due to the forecast and the weather has been cavok and vice versa? I am afriad today the weatherman is bordering on incompentent, you only have to look at Sky news weather versus BBC weather versus ITV weather not unusual to get 3 different answers, then look at the aviation one and get a 4th answer.As to fog and closing the hanger door, what are you on about ? Fog can happily form in the bottom of a valley, doesnt stop you flying over it and still be in sight of surface etc etc
This guy made a perfectly sensible decision, none of us were there, no one was hurt. Quite frankly The CAA have / should have better things to look at.
By the way The CAA does not include all playing fields as congested areas, they lost a case years ago by claiming that a golf course was a congested area

Epiphany;
"Not a meteorologist, just a professional helicopter pilot" ... or neither! :eek:
Surely if you saw fog forming 500m away you would realise that it was already fog!
:p


Here's one for you Epiph,, if you were wanting to travel in the other direction from where the fog was 'forming', which had 10k+ vis and your route and destination were clear and forecasted to remain so, would you go?
(The hypothetical return trip is the next day where the weather is forecast to be 8/8 BLU)

I would agree about many golf courses, they are often very open and outside a congested area; but the 1,000 foot rule still applies when getting to and from them. I land on them quite often and make a decision whether to apply for a CAA permission or not at the planning stage. But this is not a golf course, it's a school playing field in a town (in Wombourne, just outside the Halfpenny Green ATZ).

Yes Silsoe. Incredible to believe I know but 35 years flying and 10,000 hours as a professional helicopter pilot and not one accident. Been to lots though as a HEMS pilot and seen the sights, smells and indignity of a violent death. That is what p*isses me off so much about apologists on this forum who always defend and find excuses for irresponsible pilots - be it flying VFR in IMC, landing in unauthorised sites or attempting aerobatics etc, etc.

Rarely a week goes by that we do not hear of some helicopter accident and read the accompanying condolences and grieving that go with them. There is always a reason for an accident and many of them are caused by irresponsible flying of one form or another or poor airmanship and judgement.

Yet, when someone (like weatherman) highlights an incident that he believes was irresponsible flying people instantly leap to the defence of the pilot. You say that weatherman does not know the facts - well neither do you but at least he witnessed it. The difference between irresponsible flying and a fatal accident are just one link in the chain. What would have been the result if there had been wires across that field?

Exactly. Which is why I quoted it. But it wasn't me who was attempting to take off in those conditions - it was nigelh - who then calls me arrogant and questions MY professionalism.

So let me get this right, according to a few of you, when the forecasts available when you set off on your trip tell you that your destination is highly likely to be covered in freezing fog (low visibility and icing conditions), there's just a teeny tiny chance that at an airport 22 miles to the East of your destination will start clearing 15 mins before you are due to arrive. And one 25 miles to the West will be socked in all day. Given the above it's OK to think 'what do weathermen know, the idiots'. Wow, that's some big balls you guys have.

At least the pilot got it down OK, but he should not have been there in the first place. A real case of 'pressonitis' if ever there was one. Fortunately this one had a safe ending.

Some real hard feelings here, especially as none of us know what actually happened. None of us here know 'the facts'.
We don't know anything from the pre-flt planning stage to the landing at the school. We especially dont know the bits inbetween.

Unfortunately, despite being there, Simon (the metman) doesn't tell us much of the whole story. All he has told us is that it was a bit foggy where he was, the 5 hour earlier TAF wasn't very nice and how he marshalled the ac into a field that turned out to be a school playground. Very reliable!

Clearly, as the thread is titled the way it is, some here are more than happy to hang someone out to dry, before knowing the facts. It's not a matter of defending the pilot, but being awake and savouring the coffee essence.

Despite me telling you that to the East the weather was fine and others highlighting that the later TAF was 9999 FEW030 and the METAR was VRB02KT 8000 NSC , you seem to prefer the words of a 'Weatherman' out walking his dog!
Looking at the info at the bottom of the original post, could it be Simon Keeling, Midlands Today TV weather presenter?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/midlandstoday/content/articles/2006/12/26/simon_keeling_feature.shtml
Short of a Christmas pressie? You can always buy his book!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sailors-Book-Weather-Simon-Keeling/dp/0470998032/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1292235437&sr=1-1
He may well be a very good weatherman, but we must still remember about eye witness reliability!



And by the sounds of it, never caught out by the weather, never had to turn around, never had to go around, never had to divert, never started to walk out to the ac and do a 360 to walk back straight back into the planning/crewroom! :suspect:

One of Epiphs earlier prune quips to keep y'all going; "Climbing into cloud won't kill you." :eek:
http://www.pprune.org/rotorheads/368646-what-would-you-do-why.html#post4837519


206jock
Maybe, just maybe, we just don't know yet...do we!

206 jock,, here lies the nub of the problem the weatherman ! On numerous occassions the weatherman gets it horibbly wrong, I have got to the point of looking out the window, something that seems to escape The Met Office ( bear in mind I live 10 miles from them and you wouldnt believe the inaccuracies!)Yes you have to look at the met but see how often a 214 and 215 differ from the metars and tafs. With this in mind I would certainly elect to go and see,if there is conflicting information. Obviously if the weather is showing crap all day with no sign of a clearance anywhere that is different.
Bear in mind the metman is guessing from a computer model ( depends which one the met office is using though!)
Also bear in mind viz is almost impossible to determine on the ground when looking straight up to a white/grey sky, when looking down to a green/dark background viz is much much better.

Hey Silsoe, if you are going to selectively quote me then do it in context. I was referring to IFR pilots in IFR helicopters who have the option of converting scud running to a mode of flight that is less likely to result in CFIT - not VFR pilots in VFR helicopters. I climb into cloud most days and it hasn't killed me yet.

You are beginning to sound desperate and incoherent Silsoe. Yes, I have turned around, yes I have gone around, yes I have diverted, yes I have walked back into the crew room. I have even cancelled the odd flight after reading a TAF. Which is precisely why I am still sitting here writing this and not dead and buried along with my unfortunate passengers.

This is what i love about anonymous forums !!! Some of us hide behind secret names and others are quite visible ....the secret ones tend to be the more agressive for some reason ....
Where i live if you waited for perfect forecasts AND perfect out of the window you would very rarely fly .......today for instance i am sitting on the top of the hill blue sky 999 but once again about 1/2 k down the hill it is dense fog ....all the valleys are full . In Epiphany world i shut the hangar door and dont fly ...why ? It is a beautiful crisp sunny day out there , just keep more than 200m away from the fog and you will have a great day !! I would never advocate flying into a known area of fog but if it was forecast to clear during my flight i may well give it a go ....pushing a bit too far and having to land in it is not good airmanship i agree but it can and does happen to everyone sooner or later ....as for it being a playing field that wouldnt bother me one bit and shouldnt bother you either . What are you going to say if it transpires that the pilot has 20,000 hrs and no accident ....??

Now we really are speculating! I reckon a pilot with that much flying experience would have chosen to divert to Birmingham Airport instead.

Btw, Sid. Don't forget you are speaking from the view point of someone flying in an operation which exempts you from Rule 5. Most others (myself included) aren't.

Oh - you are THAT nigelh? Well I am that Epiphany. This is an anonymous forum so get used to it. I have no idea who you are and don't wish to.

I will state my point once more for clarity and then exit this increasingly depressing thread. If a pilot is flying VFR from A to B then both A, B, AND everywhere along the route should be VFR. If not then you don't go. I don't need to quote any publications as it is common dog.

There are TAF's, enroute forecasts and METARS published on a regular basis to enable pilots to make these decisions. It seems that some of you are happy to ignore them. Well if you do and you find yourself in IMC with no way out other than landing in some field IN FOG then you should take the consequences.

I'm sure you will find sympathetic readers here on Rotorheads.

If you do a 360 Silsoe - don't you end up going in the same direction as you started? Surely a 180 to go to the crewroom!

I'll get my coat.

Aaah, yes, well spotted 101, glad someone was taking notice.
:O

Before you go Epiphany, can you answer my earlier question;

If you were wanting to travel in the other direction from where the fog was 'forming' (500m away), which had 10k+ vis and your route and destination were clear and forecasted to remain so, would you go?
(The hypothetical return trip is the next day where the weather is forecast to be 8/8 BLU)

or answer me this;

Epiphany;
:confused: VFR/VMC :confused:

Does that then also apply if there is some valley fog along the way?
The way I read it is that you are saying that you wouldn't go full stop. Couldn't you fly over the valleys or simply go round them??
Is there a difference between flying over those fog filled valleys and a mass of water, like a river, lake or channel?

For those that it is not common dog to;
http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/64/VFR_Guide_03_09.pdf

Come on Sid. If there is a layer of fog in a valley then it is pilots discretion whether he/she chooses to overfly it. If you are in a single and the donk stops you are going to have to auto into the fog - your call.

It is called airmanship or judgement and each of us has our own interpretation of that. Merry Christmas. ;)

Of course it is, but you tell us you wouldn't even lift in the first place!
And the first question!

Excellent,

Epiphany leads us on with;
Gets the desired reaction;
and when realises he's on the back foot;
Yet only 2 hours later, he returns for more.
:D:ok:

Here's an interesting one, what does in sight of the surface actually mean? You can fly over a fog filled valley and not see the surface, but you can see the surface of the hills either side, legal or not ? I suppose you can argue could you autorotate to the "in sight of surface patch", bit it doesnt say that !
If you can see down through most of the fog is that in sight of the surface or not !

Hughes

The ANO specifies what 'Surface in Sight' means and from memory it says something about being able to control the attitude of the aircraft with reference to the surface - or words to that effect. VeeAny......? You'll have the appropraite reg to hand don't you?

JJ