Instrument rating??

Michael,

I take a pretty dim view of single engine IFR over mountains, or with
ceilings of less than 1000 ft


Serious question: What's the basis of that dim view (apart from the
need to rationalize having a twin g)? I just don't see it reflected
in accident numbers, but maybe I am missing something.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

"Steven Barnes" wrote
I did a night circle to land with my instructor about a month ago (vfr,
under the hood). I can honestly say, I didn't like it. Learned alot, though.
He had always talked about how dangerous it can be and after doing one, even
if it was only simulated, was a big eye opener. Things just look all kinds
of wrong. :-)

Tell me, did you like power-on stalls the first time you did them?
Spins? Canyon turns? Landing on very short obstructed strips?

In my opinion, circling maneuvers are not unacceptably dangerous, but
to a greater extent than normal flying they are quite unforgiving of
poor technique. In other words, there is more opportunity to screw up
and less opportunity to correct the screwups. Some people choose not
to do them, and this is their right - but it does reduce the utility
of the rating.

Like any other maneuver, this one can be taught. It's not something
that can be taught on paper - it requires a combination of ground and
flight training. The airlines don't do it.

The reason airlines don't do it is simple - when they moved all their
training to simulators rather than the real airplane - which, despite
anything they tell you, was for reasons of cost more than anything -
they eliminated from their operation anything that could not
effectively be trained in a sim of that era. Sims of that era did not
provide adequate visual and somatic cues for training in circling
approaches.

So I guess my bottom line is this - with proper training, the maneuver
will go from looking very wrong to just looking demanding. I hate to
say your training was improper, but tell me this:

Did you discuss how to select a runway and a circling pattern in
advance?
Did you discuss go-ahead points - meaning a point beyond which even if
you saw the runway you couldn't effectively land on it?
Did you discuss how instrument and visual references are combined to
accomplish the maneuver?

Just as a benchmark, I consider 45 minutes of ground training about
the minimum before going up for the first circling approach - and that
assumes the student has already read the regs and understands about
categories of aircraft, circling vs. straight-in mins, allowable
distance from the runway, etc. It's 45 minutes of just discussing how
to perform the maneuver.

Michael

Thomas Borchert wrote
I take a pretty dim view of single engine IFR over mountains, or with
ceilings of less than 1000 ft

Serious question: What's the basis of that dim view (apart from the
need to rationalize having a twin g)? I just don't see it reflected
in accident numbers, but maybe I am missing something.

I think what you're missing is that most people are just not doing
these things much, so they're not showing up in the accident
statistics much.

Only about one sixth of private pilots are instrument rated to begin
with. The majority of those are not current. The majority of those
who are technically current are not proficient, and have personal
minimums on the order of 800-2. A large chunk of those who are
proficient have similar personal minimums anyway - because they're
flying singles.

I don't know ANYONE who flies single engine low IFR (or IFR over
mountains) a lot. The people I know who do a lot of that kind of
flying all have twins. Once in a while you find someone with a
complex single doing it, but that kind of operator usually has
everything redundant but the engine - gyros and their power sources,
electrical, radios, etc. And the one engine he has, he REALLY takes
care of.

So the bottom line is that you should not expect to see a lot of
accidents where engine or system failure brings someone down - just a
few. And there have been a few.

Statistical risk asessment doesn't work too well when you've
intentionally placed yourself in a very small group.

Michael

Just to throw my 2 cents in.

Odds are you can do that kind of flying and get away with it. Maybe for a long time. You might never have a gyro fail or the fan
stop.

But when or if it happens, do you want to be that guy that ends up in the news? Purely your choice.

Early this winter we lost one somewhere in Lake Michigan at night. He had made that trip a lot of times.

Personally, the older I get, the better I like my odds to be and the more outs I want.

Mike Z


"Michael" wrote in message om...
Thomas Borchert wrote
I take a pretty dim view of single engine IFR over mountains, or with
ceilings of less than 1000 ft

Serious question: What's the basis of that dim view (apart from the
need to rationalize having a twin g)? I just don't see it reflected
in accident numbers, but maybe I am missing something.

I think what you're missing is that most people are just not doing
these things much, so they're not showing up in the accident
statistics much.

Only about one sixth of private pilots are instrument rated to begin
with. The majority of those are not current. The majority of those
who are technically current are not proficient, and have personal
minimums on the order of 800-2. A large chunk of those who are
proficient have similar personal minimums anyway - because they're
flying singles.

I don't know ANYONE who flies single engine low IFR (or IFR over
mountains) a lot. The people I know who do a lot of that kind of
flying all have twins. Once in a while you find someone with a
complex single doing it, but that kind of operator usually has
everything redundant but the engine - gyros and their power sources,
electrical, radios, etc. And the one engine he has, he REALLY takes
care of.

So the bottom line is that you should not expect to see a lot of
accidents where engine or system failure brings someone down - just a
few. And there have been a few.

Statistical risk asessment doesn't work too well when you've
intentionally placed yourself in a very small group.

Michael

"Michael" wrote in message
om...
"Steven Barnes" wrote
I did a night circle to land with my instructor about a month ago
(vfr,
under the hood). I can honestly say, I didn't like it. Learned alot,
though.
He had always talked about how dangerous it can be and after doing
one, even
if it was only simulated, was a big eye opener. Things just look all
kinds
of wrong. :-)

Tell me, did you like power-on stalls the first time you did them?
Spins? Canyon turns? Landing on very short obstructed strips?

In my opinion, circling maneuvers are not unacceptably dangerous, but
to a greater extent than normal flying they are quite unforgiving of
poor technique. In other words, there is more opportunity to screw up
and less opportunity to correct the screwups. Some people choose not
to do them, and this is their right - but it does reduce the utility
of the rating.

Like any other maneuver, this one can be taught. It's not something
that can be taught on paper - it requires a combination of ground and
flight training. The airlines don't do it.

The reason airlines don't do it is simple - when they moved all their
training to simulators rather than the real airplane - which, despite
anything they tell you, was for reasons of cost more than anything -
they eliminated from their operation anything that could not
effectively be trained in a sim of that era. Sims of that era did not
provide adequate visual and somatic cues for training in circling
approaches.

So I guess my bottom line is this - with proper training, the maneuver
will go from looking very wrong to just looking demanding. I hate to
say your training was improper, but tell me this:

Did you discuss how to select a runway and a circling pattern in
advance?
Did you discuss go-ahead points - meaning a point beyond which even if
you saw the runway you couldn't effectively land on it?
Did you discuss how instrument and visual references are combined to
accomplish the maneuver?

Just as a benchmark, I consider 45 minutes of ground training about
the minimum before going up for the first circling approach - and that
assumes the student has already read the regs and understands about
categories of aircraft, circling vs. straight-in mins, allowable
distance from the runway, etc. It's 45 minutes of just discussing how
to perform the maneuver.

Michael

Once I finally got the hang of centering the ball (sorta) power on stalls
didn't scare me as much. I let a wing drop quite a bit in a 172 in early
stall training. Scared me good. Now it's not as bad. Doing them in our
club's 182 was interesting...

We hadn't really planned on doing circle approaches that day. The airport
we went to only has one VOR approach, and the wind happend to require a
circle (funny how that one night he actually made me land instead of
miss...).

"All kinds of wrong" = not what I'm used to. Nice 1000' foot patterns.
Made me fly an entire pattern at an altitude I'm only used to being at when
I'm base turning final. Not wrong, I realize. Just different. I can see how
if you haven't planned ahead & have some good situational awareness about
the pattern, you can get in the wrong place very quickly.

On 12 Mar 2004 07:38:38 -0800, (Michael) wrote:

Thomas Borchert wrote
I take a pretty dim view of single engine IFR over mountains, or with
ceilings of less than 1000 ft

Serious question: What's the basis of that dim view (apart from the
need to rationalize having a twin g)? I just don't see it reflected
in accident numbers, but maybe I am missing something.

I think what you're missing is that most people are just not doing
these things much, so they're not showing up in the accident
statistics much.

Only about one sixth of private pilots are instrument rated to begin
with. The majority of those are not current. The majority of those
who are technically current are not proficient, and have personal
minimums on the order of 800-2. A large chunk of those who are
proficient have similar personal minimums anyway - because they're
flying singles.

I don't know ANYONE who flies single engine low IFR (or IFR over
mountains) a lot. The people I know who do a lot of that kind of

When I was flying a lot and staying proficient, I flew single engine
IFR right down to minimums on a regular basis and had no problem with
it.

flying all have twins. Once in a while you find someone with a
complex single doing it, but that kind of operator usually has
everything redundant but the engine - gyros and their power sources,
electrical, radios, etc. And the one engine he has, he REALLY takes
care of.

I did/do although I no longer fly enough to stay proficient at that
level and pretty much stay out of the soup.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

(Michael) wrote in message . com...

(Snowbird) wrote
We fly a simple, fixed-gear, fixed-prop plane which is slightly
faster than its 180 HP fixed gear cousins -- but it's no Mooney/
Bonanza/Comanche/Viking.

Actually, your simple fixed gear plane is faster than similarly
powered planes with retractable gear - it will outrun a 180 hp Arrow
or C-172 RG. It will almost stay with a C-model Mooney. I've given a
reasonable amount of instrument dual in a Tiger (much of it in IMC)
and I must say that while it's not exactly in the
Mooney/Bonanza/Comanche/Viking, it's not comparable to a Cherokee or
C-172 either. It has enough speed and enough range that people do use
them for serious travel, and it's not particularly comfortable at low
speeds.

True. And IMO it's not comparable to a Cherokee or C172 in terms
of ease of handling. But the point is, I don't think it's so clear
that the IR doesn't make a difference until you get into the
"complex speedster" class. It's not complex, and the top speed
isn't *that* much different. (Much though we fans would like to
believe it is *g*)

What's different? I finished my IR last fall.

Maybe. Or maybe the loss rate on that model has been low. Or maybe
you haven't been flying enough hours in the past few years.

Well, one reason I think I make a good data point is that we've
pretty much flown the same hrs each year since our daughter was
born -- 100 to 150 split between us, more or less equally, and
when we renew our insurance in late Feb. we usually haven't flown
that much in the last 90 days either. We definately fall into a
common pattern of "get current in late winter/early spring, fly
a lot all summer and fall, barely exercise the engine in winter".

I've heard a similar story from a fellow owner with a Piper Warrior,
which is even slower, and from the chap across the shadeports with a
Piper Archer.

I find that amazing - this is directly contrary to what I've seen
locally.

I can't comment on what you've seen, only on what I've seen locally,
which is that the IR *does* make a difference on insurance to pilots
with 500-1000 hrs flying nominally IFR-capable planes.

Well, leaving out a C-140, I will suggest that a TriPacer or Stinson
108 is just as instrument capable as a Warrior in terms of speed,
range, and redundancy.

Not as they are commonly equipped they aren't. At least the Stinson
108s; I know, that's what we were shopping for before DH got fired
and we raised our budget *g*.

If you put in a vacuum pump rather than venturi vacuum, a modern
6 pack, and modern nav/com/txpdr/GS there's no reason why it wouldn't
be just as capable. OTOH, the FAA doesn't make it easy to do so.

So most of those I've seen *aren't* so equipped, thus they aren't
as capable. OTOH, most Warriors I've seen have a modern sixpack,
two radios and an ADF at the least.

*shrug*
Sydney

(Snowbird) wrote
True. And IMO it's not comparable to a Cherokee or C172 in terms
of ease of handling.

I concur. It's somewhere halfway between Cherokee and Bonanza.

But the point is, I don't think it's so clear
that the IR doesn't make a difference until you get into the
"complex speedster" class. It's not complex, and the top speed
isn't *that* much different. (Much though we fans would like to
believe it is *g*)

Well, hold on a sec. In my experience, the Cherokees cruise 115, the
Tigers 135, and the Bonanzas 155-180 depending on year and engine.
And there's no question that an IR is almost a requirement (in terms
of insurance) on even an older Bonanza. The complexity is, IMO,
irrelevant. The point is - does the plane have the speed and range?
Everything else is a matter of how you equip it. Just as a reference,
the Tiger I instructed in had dual coms (one with nav/GS), KNS-80 with
GS, ADF, audio panel with marker beacons, autopilot, Strikefinder,
backup vacuum, and an external (handheld) GPS with internal battery
backup.

Well, one reason I think I make a good data point is that we've
pretty much flown the same hrs each year since our daughter was
born -- 100 to 150 split between us, more or less equally, and
when we renew our insurance in late Feb. we usually haven't flown
that much in the last 90 days either. We definately fall into a
common pattern of "get current in late winter/early spring, fly
a lot all summer and fall, barely exercise the engine in winter".

Maybe that's the key. Recent time also matters. On the other hand,
that doesn't make much sense - after all, I would think little recent
experience would be bad for IFR flight.

Not as they are commonly equipped they aren't. At least the Stinson
108s; I know, that's what we were shopping for before DH got fired
and we raised our budget *g*.

If you put in a vacuum pump rather than venturi vacuum, a modern
6 pack, and modern nav/com/txpdr/GS there's no reason why it wouldn't
be just as capable. OTOH, the FAA doesn't make it easy to do so.

First comment - I've flown IFR with venturi vacuum. As far as I'm
concerned, there's only a slight liability in terms of spinning up the
gyros, and a major advantage in that a venturi won't fail
catastrophically the way a dry pump will.

Second comment - most of these planes do have the 6 necessary
instruments. While a non-standard arrangement is a liability if the
plane is a rental, an owner flying his own plane soon gets used to it.
I've flown IFR in 2 different planes with nonstandard layouts, and
don't consider it an issue.

Your last point is valid - most of these planes DON'T have a
reasonable IFR stack, and most C-172's and Cherokees do. The FAA
doesn't make installing a radio stack any more difficult in a Stinson
than in a Cherokee, but installing a stack isn't trivial (BTDT).
Those pilots I know who own these older planes and are IFR rated tend
to have an IFR stack, and those who are not tend not to.

Bottom line - I don't think the radio stack is the issue. However, I
suspect that the people who gravitate towards these older planes tend
to be, on the whole, fairly competent scud runners. On the other
hand, I think the people who have more modern training gravitate
towards the more modern planes. That may make all the difference.

Michael

In article , Michael wrote:
First comment - I've flown IFR with venturi vacuum. As far as I'm
concerned, there's only a slight liability in terms of spinning up the
gyros, and a major advantage in that a venturi won't fail
catastrophically the way a dry pump will.

Any icing and it will - they tend to be very susceptible to it. I have
inadvertently encountered icing conditions on a couple of occasions, so
I don't think it's entirely reasonable to say it will never happen.

On the other hand, the aircraft on which you tend to find venturis are
usually slow, stable and easy to fly with just needle/ball/airspeed so
it ain't half the liability of your vacuum pump going bang on a slick
Bonanza which likes to fishtail a bit in turbulence (making the needle
or TC a bit more challenging to use. My partial panel procedure for the
S-35 Bonanza was that when the needle was doing a good impression of a
metronome, you were wings-level). I occasionally did night hood work in
the C140 just in case, and it really wasn't difficult to fly that class
of plane by needle/ball/airspeed. (I did contemplate putting in a DG/AI
in the panel during the 'Enhanced' Class B days when they looked like
they'd be a permanent feature so I could legally file IFR)

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

Dylan Smith wrote
Any icing and it will - they tend to be very susceptible to it.

First off, it takes time to ice up a venturi - dry vacuum pumps just
go bang and shear the drive coupling.

Second, much depends on where you mount them. The hot tip (so to
speak) is to place them just behind the exhaust.

On the other hand, the aircraft on which you tend to find venturis are
usually slow, stable and easy to fly with just needle/ball/airspeed

Absolutely true.

Michael