The weather doesn't Give a fuck what you are "rated".       Ever drive somewhere and encounter unexpected weather?     Well, it's like that, except it happens 4 times faster, and in 3 dimensions.  

Anybody flying at night can be IMC at any time.

A rich guy, VFR "pilot" in a well equipped airplane is like a Chimp with an AK 47.      Sure, there's a chance he won't kill anybody, but don't count on it.

I can see that...there was a nasty storm moving in on a flight lesson once, but VFR pilots actual fly into that stuff? I guess that's someone's ego writing checks their skills can't cash.

I just watched a dentist take a T206 into indefinite ceilings, and 1/4 mile visibility with freezing fog.

Legal as the day is long.

was he IFR?

I'm sure he was rated.

Proficiency, who knows? He's got a nice a/p and GPS.

But 135 multiengine jets were sitting on the ground, if that tells you anything.

I reread what you wrote. and yeah, that guy is nuts. I thought you said there was just fog and he was trying to just get above the layer on an IFR flight plan.

If the jets are not going, that should tell you something.

Why?  severe ice or shitty ops specs?

When I hauled checks we had 1400 rvr mins for takeoff (I have no idea who or how that came up with that)  All the other check haulers would blast off and we would have to wait.  Philly tower "Grasshopper 313 what vis do you need for takeoff?"  Grasshopper 313 "1400 rvr"  Philly tower "What do you know it just went up to 1400 RVR, cleared for immediate takeoff"  Grasshopper 313 "LOL, thanks"

In the late 1980s, there was a guy that decided he wanted to learn to fly, so he bought a Lance.  Judging by what was crammed into the panel, you would have thought he was a Bonanza owner.  This was before GPS, and LORANs were still fairly new in planes, but he had (if my memory isn't off) the latest LORAN linked to his autopilot, so all he needed to do to navigate, was program the LORAN and know what altitude was safe.

When he was getting close to being ready to take his check ride for his private, his Lance went down for maintenance, and a cracked tube was found in the engine mount.  Rather than sit around and wait for his plane to be fixed, he got checked out in a Cherokee 140 rental, at the airport I was working at.  His instructor flew with him long enough for him to get used to the Cherokee, then decided he was ready for the check ride.  

He had to fly to another airport for the check ride and it was scheduled in the morning, so he took the Cherokee to his home field (a short hop from where I worked), the afternoon before his check ride.  His instructor didn't want to get up early and drive to the airport, just to sign him off for the cross country flight to his appointment, so they went over his flight plan that afternoon, and the instructor signed him off for the cross country.

Morning rolled around, and I showed up to open up the FBO.  I looked out toward the runway, and couldn't even see a glow from the lights.  "Oh well, I guess he isn't going to be making his appointment in that Cherokee, today."  I went through the usual steps of unlocking doors and turning stuff on, getting the coffee pot going, then sat down to wonder just how long I was going to be sitting there, alone, with nothing to do.  After a bit, I heard somebody on the Unicom.  It was the first time the radio had made any noise since I had got there, and instead of the usual transmissions, it was something along the lines of "Hey Bob, you there?", so my morning suddenly got interesting.

'Bob' turned out to be the guy that normally opened the FBO at the Lance owner's home airport (same Unicom frequency as the airport I worked at).  He answered the call, with some confusion, and the conversation quickly gave the story of what had been going on before Bob and I had opened our respective FBOs.  The student pilot had gotten to the airport extra early (didn't want to be late for his appointment), saw the fog, and assumed it was just the usual morning fog off of the lake.  Thinking he could just take off and climb above the fog to the predicted (the day before) VFR conditions, he went ahead and did just that.

...and when he got to the point that all he could see was a narrow circle of ground below him, and nothing but grayish white in all other directions, he realized he had a problem.

The Cherokee had dual NAV/COMs and a transponder.  That was it.  I don't think his home airport had any equipment for an instrument approach, and by the time he realized he was in trouble, he was too lost to just turn around and go back.  So he wandered around, hoping he would stumble onto a runway, and finally tried calling the guy at his home field, once it was late enough that he was sure to have opened up the FBO.

It was an interesting morning.  He eventually got talked into Nashville, thanks to a very patient controller that had to shift his jet traffic over to somebody else and devote all his attention to trying to save one idiot.  The FAA was waiting for him, when he landed.  After they had a talk with him, they had an even longer talk with his instructor.  

A few weeks later, the guy passed his rescheduled check ride.  I suspect that if his luck had somehow held, and he had somehow managed to make his way to his first check ride, that morning, the examiner would have failed him on the spot, for making a cross country when the entire area was IFR with the ceiling on the ground.

My GF worked one-on-one with this guy on a project (he was handling the Danny's Car Wash bankruptcy) for a couple days while she was finishing up law school in 2012. My GF is a pretty blonde, and was 26 at the time. This was prior to marrying his new wife he killed.

Anyway, after the project was finished and she was no longer working with him, he started texting her non-stop for a couple days. Tried to get her on a date, offered to take her in his plane to Cabo or some shit. I never saw their text thread but she told me he was in a full-court press, and was obviously very egotistical. She was not swayed by him but like any young impressionable girl I could tell she was somewhat intrigued by his money and ego. I told her to tell him to fuck off and she did.

When I saw this story in the news I said to her "Look at this....had you chosen to ditch me to run off with this asshole you'd probably be the one in pieces up on that mountain instead of that other woman. I saved your life!"

The airport doesn't have a transmissometer so -1/4/INDEF means that you can't use your reduced visibility T/O OPSPEC, and there literally wasn't a suitable T/O alternate within 300 miles. I'm not arguing the guy isn't legal. But he's certainly not prudent.

Everywhere I've worked had 6/6/6 takeoff mins but it wasn't terribly useful if you're in BFE and the ASOS doesn't report RVR. Even then, it's hard to claim adequate visual reference if you can barely see taxi signs at taxi speed.

Then there is the problem of SID, AFM or APG limitiations when you do that.

I love part 91 for that reason.  No suitable t/o alternate for 300 miles.....wow that is BFE

You cannot rely completely on reported observations. This is especially true at night. You don't have reporting stations in the swamps and you are more likely to get visible moisture over them. If the ceilings are reported to be 3500ft, you may find yourself in IMC at 1000ft, and at night you won't see it. If you're in smooth air (day or night) between two cloud layers, it's possible for the top layer to descend down onto the bottom and box you into IMC.

imho an instrument rating is necessary to safely operate even as a vfr pilot.  The 3 hours mandated by the regs is not nearly enough to keep you safe.

Weather was shit for over the last 10 days from the Front Range to Illinois, north of DSM to TUL. Our flight was going MKC to somewhere out in western KS. We were carrying a DEN alternate.

I see, that sucks.....I guess that's why everyone says to get your IFR ticket and stay proficient.

Is SIM time just as good as time in an actual airplane for IMC training?

Yes and no.  The sim doesn't give you the "seat of the pants feel" where your body lies to you and tells you things are happening that aren't.    It does give you the technique of scanning your instruments, reading them, and correcting the aircraft.  When I was a flight instructor I could immediately tell the student that used MS flight sim as soon as I put them under the hood.  They performed much better.   Sim time definitely has value.

Nothing beats an actual airplane in actual IMC.

Oh ok, what about a RedBird? There is one close to me and it's like $75 an hour.

I figured that...it's not like a sim is going to crash for real. At least you hope that's not possible.

I don't know anything about redbird.  that is after my instructor days.

I got ya.

RedBirds are good for teaching a scan and basic instrument procedures. However, as mentioned above they're not an adequate substitute for the real thing.

I agree.  I've always thought that an IFR rating should be required for a pilot to fly XC.

This is very true.  When doing my IFR training I got vertigo the first time I went into IMC.  Luckily I had my instructor with me so it wasn't as scary as it could have been.   I was able to hold it together and the vertigo passed but if I was solo it would have been intense.   This was after I had built up a fair amount of hood time.  Nothing beats the real thing.

The Canadians require an instrument rating for VFR night operations, IIRC.

That makes a lot of sense....where I train if you fly off of Rwy 18, as soon as you gain some altitude, the only thing you are looking at is marsh and the GOM. Not much horizon on a dark night I'd imagine.

Come on now this isn't GD, we still like freedom. People have to know their own limits.
Flight Instructor job to lay out all the ways flying can kill you and leave it  at that.

I think it's an "Instrument-Lite" rating or, as the Brits call it, an "IMC rating".

It allows you to do an IMC climb or descent to VMC conditions.

I wonder what was going on through the pilot's head. Maybe his autopilot had gotten him through this sort of weather before. If he was picking up ice and wasn't aware, his controls likely felt vastly different than he was used to. Your stall speed goes up. I remember reading an accident report from an M20J who had left, I believe, Montana after waiting for days to clear before thinking he'd found a hole in the weather. He was in IMC and reported shortly before killing himself and, I believe, this three sons that he was in a "severe mountain wave." This may have been a misinterpretation of an airframe loaded up with ice and possibly in a stall.

I didn't say it should be a rule I just said it makes sense

That's a sad story, flying in the mountains, if you do get into icing conditions, what are your options?

Turn on the prop deice and cycle the boots.

A fight instructors job is to fly with you 40-60 hours and keep you from killing the instructor.  If you don't kill him in that time frame and pass a check ride, you get a license.

A student's job is to make the flight instructor nervous, prematurely gray, and prone to muttering.

If a flight instructor makes the statement "you're doing pretty good, you haven't scared me, yet", the student should take that as verbal notice that he needs to step up his game.

It's funny you say that because I grew up on MS flight simulator and others.  On my first flight my instructor decided to do some hood time.  I knocked out .6 without a problem and never really had any issues until we got to unusual attitude recovery much later on and even that wasn't bad.  Nice to know I wasn't wasting my time for all of those hours.  

That's going to work really good in a 172.

VFR at night here is effectively IMC.

In a 172, the POH says to start crapping your pants.  

I pulled onto a runway in some small southern airport some place years ago just as a cloudless front hit and the winds started gusting to 50 knots direct cross wind.

We cancelled the takeoff clearance and cleared the runway to contact dispatch.

A cessna 182 said he was ready for takeoff. Tower called the winds gusting to 50 and that the airliner on the other side of the runway declined to take off due to the 50 knot crosswind.

The cessna said it would not be a problem and that he was ready for takeoff. Tower cleared him for takeoff.

We watched as he ran up the power, released brakes, went about 150 feet down the runway and then went hard 90 left into the grass with the prop hitting the ground at full power and the nose gear collapsed.

I have never laughed so hard in my life.

And there was another, but too short for us, runway that would have been a direct headwind.

The explanation is that some people are just fucking stupid.

Loos like this happened 3 jan. Earliest I could find advisory for GPS testing in that area is 6 Jan.


there is currently a NOTAM about GPS innacuracies ( due to military testing ) in the western part of the US that he did not read, and he was relying on bogus GPS data and flew into a mountain.


Selected NOTAMs
The following NOTAM list was selected by the user from a previous request. This list may not reflect all active NOTAMs for any of the below locations.
Data Current as of: Thu, 26 Jan 2017 13:14:00 UTC
ZAB   ALBUQUERQUE (ARTCC),NM.
!GPS 01/092 (KZAB A0026/17) ZAB NAV (YPG GPS 17-02) GPS (INCLUDING WAAS, GBAS, AND ADS-B) MAY NOT BE AVBL WI A 329NM RADIUS CENTERED AT 331328N1134850W (BZA 043048) FL400-UNL DECREASING IN AREA WITH A DECREASE IN ALT DEFINED AS: 287NM RADIUS AT FL250, 216NM RADIUS AT 10000FT, 189NM RADIUS AT 4000FT AGL, 168NM RADIUS AT 50FT AGL. DLY 1900-2230 1701261900-1701282230
!GPS 01/085 (KZAB A0023/17) ZAB NAV (NTTR GPS 17-01) GPS (INCLUDING WAAS, GBAS, AND ADS-B) MAY NOT BE AVBL WI A 535NM RADIUS CENTERED AT 371957N1160221W (BTY 033047) FL400-UNL DECREASING IN AREA WITH A DECREASE IN ALT DEFINED AS: 488NM RADIUS AT FL250, 450NM RADIUS AT 10000FT, 403NM RADIUS AT 4000FT AGL, 377NM RADIUS AT 50FT AGL. 1701270530-1701270800

GPS INTERFERENCE TESTING FLIGHT ADVISORY

The FAA has released a Flight Advisory regarding GPS interference testing centered at 321715N 0794146W or the Charleston (CHS) VORTAC 164 degree radial at 40NM. GPS signals may be unreliable or unavailable at the following times over the coming weeks:
January 18: 1700Z–2200Z
January 24: 1200Z–1700Z
January 27: 1300Z–1800Z
Each event may last the entire period. Aircrews are encouraged to report anomalies and request ATC assistance if required.
The affected area encompasses a 293 NM radius and covers the states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and portions of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Florida. Altitudes will vary from 50 feet to unlimited during test times.
ALPA recommends pilots check NOTAMs frequently for possible changes prior to operations in the area. NOTAMs will be published at least 24 hours in advance of any GPS tests.

I'd say that's true in 80% of North America west of the Mississippi.

They've been doing GPS testing in that range for the last two years. We got vectored around it until I pointed out that we were a /A aircraft.

The "A" stands for Antique.

I never flew at night until I got an instrument rating.  IMO, unless you have a full moon and clear skies, there really isn't a horizon.

We got into some icing today, I kept looking for the boots, but couldn't find any.




It was just a little ice though, so no worries..(ps, ice is always a worry, even in a capiable airplane.)

This was after about 5 minutes of  being in the clouds on approach today.  I wouldn't want to drive around very long in conditions like this.

As I said earlier, I almost always lose the horizon and find myself going into nothingness during civil twilight with the sun behind me. There's too much light pollution to make out the ground, the stars and the horizon ahead of you.

And get a climb to 29,000 RFN.

Yep climb to get out of ice they say.
Yep in a NA piston sounds like a good idea, luckily never got in bad ice.

Fly long enough in the northern Rockies or Tetons and you'll find some icing that will  be instructive.