Le Chaud Lapin wrote:
On May 18, 4:58 pm, Dudley Henriques wrote:
Like I said gang, it's everybody's personal decision to make. I'm simply
stating here what I'm going to do myself. I'll not be ragging on those
who don't think the way I do on these issues.
I am hopeful however, that Mxsmanic and those who have been his
adversaries will simply read what I've said here and say nothing to each
other about it but rather simply and silently take a few steps backward
and consider re-engaging with each other, each giving a little without
saying or admitting they are giving a little.
Who knows; I'll be giving it a shot anyway.

It is pretty cool to see that 90% of this thread is useable info
coming from experts sharing their opinions. This non-combative type
of exchange helps newbies like myself learn.

I am particularly interested to see what final word is on the trust-
your-instruments argument.

Also, I read somewhere that JFK Junior's plane crashed probably
because he did not trust his intstruments. What's the likelihood of
that?

-Le Chaud Lapin-

I wasn't there of course, but I do know how dangerous the Martha's
vineyard area horizon can be in deepening haze. Flying out over the
ocean at dusk or at night has similar hazards for the unwary VFR pilot.
Sometimes the haze line is at an angle to the actual horizon which may
be hidden. This combination can put a pilot flying VFR in a whole lot of
trouble.

I've always believed that Kennedy fell victim to a false horizon by
somehow starting a turn on a false visual reference then allowing his
nose to get away from him in the haze due to his inexperience causing
him not to realize he needed to transition immediately to instruments.
In this condition and with the nose lowering and the airspeed rising,
Kennedy desperately needed to realize he needed to level the wings and
kill the bank as the lead in to recovering the nose in pitch.
This is the classic graveyard spiral. Not solving for bank and trying to
solve for pitch simply deepened the issue. I'm fairly convinced that by
this time the nose was so low and the spiral tightening so fast he
became fixated on the grayness in front of him that he thought was gray
sky but was in fact gray water.
The rest is history.
Just my read on one potential cause for that accident.


--
Dudley Henriques