IFR on the Fly

Let's say your 15 miles from your home airport in VMC, not on a flight
plan. You know the area well. On your way, unforecast conditions
(snow) causes visibility to start dropping below 3 miles. Ceilings are
at 1800. You are just below the ceiling. You know the area well enough
to do a contact approach safely, even though the MSA for the area is
3000 ft MSL (2000 ft AGL).

Seems like the right thing to do in such a situation is to call ATC,
tell them your situation (although I am not sure precisely what one
would say), and ask for an on-the-fly IFR contact approach clearance.
It seems like seeking a full IFR approach causes one to go up into the
clouds and risk icing, and so would be a less safe alternative.
Opinions?

-Sami
N2057M, Piper Turbo Arrrow III

O. Sami Saydjari wrote:

Let's say your 15 miles from your home airport in VMC, not on a flight
plan. You know the area well. On your way, unforecast conditions
(snow) causes visibility to start dropping below 3 miles. Ceilings are
at 1800. You are just below the ceiling. You know the area well enough
to do a contact approach safely, even though the MSA for the area is
3000 ft MSL (2000 ft AGL).

Seems like the right thing to do in such a situation is to call ATC,
tell them your situation (although I am not sure precisely what one
would say), and ask for an on-the-fly IFR contact approach clearance.
It seems like seeking a full IFR approach causes one to go up into the
clouds and risk icing, and so would be a less safe alternative.
Opinions?

A few thoughts:

First, what is the MEA or probably more accurate, the controller's MVA
(minimum vectoring altitude) for the area in which you were flying when
visibility dropped? Perhaps you could have requested a pop-up IFR
clearance that kept you below the clouds.

Another option is to request "special VFR." That will keep you VFR but
legally allow you to enter the airport's airspace and land with 1 mile
visibility and clear of clouds.

Of course, there are several class B airports that do not allow special
VFR and requesting it at an airport that does allow it doesn't
necessarily guarantee you will receive it, which leads to the third
option: Do a 180 and find a nearby airport outside the lower
visibility.

--
Peter







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Peter R. wrote:

First, what is the MEA or probably more accurate

Sorry about that. I wasn't reading your post close enough to see that
you mentioned MEA.

I have found that the MVA often is lower than the published MEA, though,
so that question would still be valid.


--
Peter







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I read allot of NTSB reports, you see allot of ATP rated pilots who "know
the area" and cancel IFR only to end up in the NTSB report for crashing.

the SAFE thing to do is to call center/ATC and tell them visibility just
went below VFR minimums and you would like to know if you can get a
instrument clearance from them.
I have done this in the past and had no problems, but you never can tell
untill you ask. the other option would be to call FSS on your radio and file
the IFR flight plan.

your 15 minutes out, so you have only about 12-14 minutes to go.

I took off from north las vegas a couple of months ago for a short hop, when
I turned around and came back, the area was fogged/smogged in and I did not
think I would have the visibility so I called Nellis approach and told them
I did not think I could continue VFR, they asked if I was instrument rated,
I told them yes, they took my information and gave me a clearance. They did
tell me they had some IFR departures and it would be about 10 minutes before
they could handle me and told me to could do some "boxes" or s-turns where I
was, But it went smoothly. I think allot of how it goes depends on the
controller, some controllers are not so, accomdating, and some are really
great.

"O. Sami Saydjari" wrote:

Let's say your 15 miles from your home airport in VMC, not on a flight
plan. You know the area well. On your way, unforecast conditions
(snow) causes visibility to start dropping below 3 miles. Ceilings are
at 1800. You are just below the ceiling. You know the area well enough
to do a contact approach safely, even though the MSA for the area is
3000 ft MSL (2000 ft AGL).

Seems like the right thing to do in such a situation is to call ATC,
tell them your situation (although I am not sure precisely what one
would say), and ask for an on-the-fly IFR contact approach clearance.
It seems like seeking a full IFR approach causes one to go up into the
clouds and risk icing, and so would be a less safe alternative.
Opinions?

-Sami
N2057M, Piper Turbo Arrrow III

On Sun, 14 Mar 2004 10:52:15 -0600, "O. Sami Saydjari"
wrote:

Let's say your 15 miles from your home airport in VMC, not on a flight
plan. You know the area well. On your way, unforecast conditions
(snow) causes visibility to start dropping below 3 miles. Ceilings are
at 1800. You are just below the ceiling. You know the area well enough
to do a contact approach safely, even though the MSA for the area is
3000 ft MSL (2000 ft AGL).

Seems like the right thing to do in such a situation is to call ATC,
tell them your situation (although I am not sure precisely what one
would say), and ask for an on-the-fly IFR contact approach clearance.
It seems like seeking a full IFR approach causes one to go up into the
clouds and risk icing, and so would be a less safe alternative.
Opinions?

-Sami
N2057M, Piper Turbo Arrrow III

We're talking non-emergency situations here.

There's usually little problem in obtaining a pop-up clearance. Once in a
while a controller is too busy; and in those instances you file with FSS
and then call for your clearance.

However, in the situation you put forth, I would disagree about the safety
of a contact approach. If you already have unforecast conditions, how do
you know that the visibility won't drop below that required for a contact
approach? I sure would not be asking for a contact approach under those
circumstances.

If you are worried about icing in the clouds (unlikely with snow, but not
impossible), then your "safe" alternative would be to remain in VMC and
find an airport that is not covered by ice-laden clouds.

And I've been in a similar situation, although not worried about icing. I
was returning to KASH about an hour or two before it was forecast to have
IMC conditions due to snow. Cleared for the VOR 32 approach into KASH. The
FAF was severe clear and, about one minute before crossing the FAF, the
tower was reporting 1 mile visibility in snow. By the time I got to the
MAP, the tower was reporting 0/0 and I could not see anything at MDA. I
executed a missed approach; returned to VMC, and diverted to another
airport.

Had my radios gone out, I still would have had a defined procedure to
follow. (And I did have a generator failure after landing at KLWM).

I've requested and received contact approaches, but I use them in stable
weather conditions, when there is a clear operational advantage. I would
not request a contact approach if the weather is already behaving worse
than forecast.


Ron (EPM) (N5843Q, Mooney M20E) (CP, ASEL, ASES, IA)

"O. Sami Saydjari" wrote in message ...

Seems like the right thing to do in such a situation is to call ATC,
tell them your situation (although I am not sure precisely what one
would say), and ask for an on-the-fly IFR contact approach clearance.

I'd say, "XXX Approach, Learjet 12345 15 west of YYY, 2300 feet,
request local IFR clearance to YYY starting with a contact approach."

It seems like seeking a full IFR approach causes one to go up into the
clouds and risk icing, and so would be a less safe alternative.

Makes sense to me.

Peter R. wrote in message ...
Do a 180 and find a nearby airport outside the lower
visibility.

That might be the right answer for a non-rated PPL, but with 3SM
visibility and 1800ft ceiling, there's no good reason to do that if
you can just get an IFR clearance and continue.

Jeff wrote in message ...
I read allot of NTSB reports, you see allot of ATP rated pilots who "know
the area" and cancel IFR only to end up in the NTSB report for crashing.

Well then, it's a good thing he's not considering doing that, because
he'd certainly crash.

the SAFE thing to do is to call center/ATC and tell them visibility just
went below VFR minimums and you would like to know if you can get a
instrument clearance from them.

Well then, it's a good thing he's asking about doing that!

;-)

In article ,
Ron Rosenfeld wrote:
tower was reporting 1 mile visibility in snow. By the time I got to the
MAP, the tower was reporting 0/0 and I could not see anything at MDA. I
executed a missed approach; returned to VMC, and diverted to another
airport.

Had my radios gone out, I still would have had a defined procedure to
follow. (And I did have a generator failure after landing at KLWM).

You picked an alternate when you got a pop-up clearance for an approach?

--
Ben Jackson

http://www.ben.com/

On Sun, 14 Mar 2004 15:51:32 -0800, Jeff wrote:

I read allot of NTSB reports, you see allot of ATP rated pilots who "know
the area" and cancel IFR only to end up in the NTSB report for crashing.

the SAFE thing to do is to call center/ATC and tell them visibility just
went below VFR minimums and you would like to know if you can get a
instrument clearance from them.
I have done this in the past and had no problems, but you never can tell
untill you ask. the other option would be to call FSS on your radio and file
the IFR flight plan.

snip

I've been shooting practice approaches in just barely legal conditions
when things turned to crap in a hurry.

A quick call.... Ahhh MBS approach, things are going down hill in a
hurry and we are not going to be able to maintain VFR. We'd like to go
IFR and land if possible. We received a wait one while they quickly
handled a couple other planes and came back with a clearance.
Admittedly we could have scudd run for home (which is only 11 miles)
but in this particular case we were already being vectored for the
ILS.

Yes, my car was back at 3BS, but we had an ILS with vectors and
ceilings were well above minimums which are 200 feet. Staying VFR the
11 miles and getting into 3BS was not a sure thing. Yes, we could
have filed, but at that moment it was in doubt whether the VOR had
minimums or not (a tad over 500 feet)

We landed, parked and a couple cups of coffee later were ready for
departure as things were clearing up.

It's been my experience, although some what limited, that ATC is going
to do their darndest to get you on the ground and out of the soup as
soon as they can. They do not want a statistic in their area any
more than you do.

OTOH I was IFR on top of a deck (which was no more than a couple
hundred feet below us most of the time, but above us once in a while-
I was not IFR to on top) when I heard a King Air call in to
Minneapolis Center asking for a pop up. Minneapolis Center was busier
than the proverbial cat on a marble floor and hauling dirt two miles.
They promptly sent them to FSS to file. There was a brief pause and
they replied. About 5 minutes later the King Air was back saying they
could not contact FSS. ATC was clearly not happy (you could hear it
in the controller's voice) as they could have filed on the ground with
a clearance limit. It was also apparent they had climbed on top and
then called, to any one in the area. There were no holes in the
whole area with ceilings at less than 1000 and tops at 7000 to 8000
plus. That time they let them file.


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