On 12 Nov 2006 10:13:41 -0800, "houstondan"
wrote:

rather than hijack a perfectly good arcane science thread; i'll start a
new one 'cause the core question is a darn good one.

hypothetical situation: you're a blue sky vfr flyer and somehow you
wind up in the soup - after having gone 2 hours and 200 miles from your
take-off point , you wake up from a nice little nap and discover you're
inside the milk bottle.

gps(not waas) says nearest airport of any kind is 30 minutes away and
gas-totalizer says the fan stops in 10 minutes.

not mountainous but you ain't in kansas either todo...whatcha gunna
do??

really.

dan

interesting question.
aviate navigate procrastinate communicate

a more interesting one is "how do you unscramble an egg?"
it was one asked by Richard Collins in his book on flying ifr.
answer is that you cant.
your aircraft has got you through your little beddie byes by keeping
its wings level which is exactly what you need to do to continue
flying. trim the darn thing to fly level or climb slightly.
all ifr problems (all things being equal) start when the wings deviate
from level and you get into an acceleration.
keeping the aircraft unscrambled starts with keeping the wings level.

where is the gps telling you that you are located?
keep the aircraft on a level course and ferret out the wac charts.
whats the terrain altitude?
make sure you are flying higher than it :-)

where is the flattest terrain?
are there any areas of population nearby?
you would want to fly towards either if you only have 10 minutes fuel
left. definitely keep away from terrain higher than you.

you've made it this far in your sleep so it cant be hard going :-)
why panic now?
look around you for the darkest sky.
look around you for the lightest sky.
if you can see lighter sky (cloud) the chances are that it is broken
and sunlight is streaming down through a gap. head for it and you may
be able to find a hole and do a steep descending turn down under the
cloud.

if you have had a look and you are still clueless about what to do
then keep flying straight and level. trim the revs for maximum
endurance/minimum fuel flow and hope that you pop out of the cloud
eventually.
all decisions made in the first minute of a stressful situation are
wrong so take your time in making a decision.
dont give up but do try to formulate a plan withing the next 10
minutes :-)

Stealth Pilot (who is really a pilot)