If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
|
#1
|
|||
|
|||
pilots only, please - gps or altimeter?
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. Head in the direction of the airport, lean as much as possible, start a best climb speed to gain as much time in the air after the fan stops, then communicate. Hope that your altitude is enough to glide to the airport, glide at best glide speed until close to the ground, then set up for stall plus 5 and wait to come out of the clouds, or to hit the ground, which ever comes first. -- Jim in NC |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
pilots only, please - gps or altimeter?
I'd declare an emergency, ask for vectors for the lowest ground around
hoping the clouds wouldn't be on the deck there. I'd also want to have the engine running when I got close to the ground, I may need some gas to avoid something ugly and gliding at a few knots above stall might not let me get above or around that tree. For sure be sure the door is open before impact. If you have your wits about you, idle cut off and master off would be a good idea but probably both are minor protections. Promise yourself you'll fly the airplane into the ground, don't stall out at 50 feet. I think the statistics are on your side, a lot people survive general avaition crashes. Makes me wonder, will I be clever enough to do all of that? Coming down in the clouds is more likely to happen to someone like me, I do lots of SEL IMC flying. Here's an interesting exercise. Next time you're flying around VFR, look at what you're flying over. If it's Nebraska, you'll probably come down on a field. If you're over the Rockies, you're probably not going to make it. In PA, if you know the characteristic direction of the mountains, flying parallel to them would be a good idea. Those worn down mountains were seriously feared and ate a lot of airplanes in the 40s and 50s. I seem to remember airplanes flying on airways defined by rotating beacons in that era. On Nov 12, 5:41 pm, "Morgans" wrote: 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.Head in the direction of the airport, lean as much as possible, start a best climb speed to gain as much time in the air after the fan stops, then communicate. Hope that your altitude is enough to glide to the airport, glide at best glide speed until close to the ground, then set up for stall plus 5 and wait to come out of the clouds, or to hit the ground, which ever comes first. -- Jim in NC |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
pilots only, please - gps or altimeter?
tony...good thoughts. seems wise to give center or approach or whoever
might have you on radar a chance to send you away from the worst of the bad things "as they know them". the way it's going, that person in center might be in bangladesh and doing credit verification between calls. but i digress... my 396 has terrain awareness and it did warn me off a tower i had not shown proper respect so it's certainly not a useless feature. about sneaky fog and trapped on top; y'all know good and well that it happens all the time that perfectly good pilots happily boogieing on at mach 2 listening to the tunes, enter the accident chain without doing anything real wrong. they've got an hours reserve and once they snap to the fact that their destination is closing in they'll just divert over yonder where it's bound to be better and then......damn. we get sneakey fog around here. big, deep. i know a guy who lost all the local airports coming back from galveston one evening, he did not have enough fuel to outrun it north (and not enough motor anyway). used the gps and the vors and iah approach and anything else he could think of but at then end...as he was decending into the milk toward what he hoped was a runway way below any kind of rational minimum, the last instrument he was watching was the altimeter. and by the way, darwin would have liked him just fine. since any licensed pilot represents the top 3% of the population, even the really bad ones improve the species by breeding. although some do get kind of mean and testy when they get old and can't breed any more. dan Tony wrote: I'd declare an emergency, ask for vectors for the lowest ground around hoping the clouds wouldn't be on the deck there. I'd also want to have the engine running when I got close to the ground, I may need some gas to avoid something ugly and gliding at a few knots above stall might not let me get above or around that tree. For sure be sure the door is open before impact. If you have your wits about you, idle cut off and master off would be a good idea but probably both are minor protections. Promise yourself you'll fly the airplane into the ground, don't stall out at 50 feet. I think the statistics are on your side, a lot people survive general avaition crashes. Makes me wonder, will I be clever enough to do all of that? Coming down in the clouds is more likely to happen to someone like me, I do lots of SEL IMC flying. Here's an interesting exercise. Next time you're flying around VFR, look at what you're flying over. If it's Nebraska, you'll probably come down on a field. If you're over the Rockies, you're probably not going to make it. In PA, if you know the characteristic direction of the mountains, flying parallel to them would be a good idea. Those worn down mountains were seriously feared and ate a lot of airplanes in the 40s and 50s. I seem to remember airplanes flying on airways defined by rotating beacons in that era. On Nov 12, 5:41 pm, "Morgans" wrote: 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.Head in the direction of the airport, lean as much as possible, start a best climb speed to gain as much time in the air after the fan stops, then communicate. Hope that your altitude is enough to glide to the airport, glide at best glide speed until close to the ground, then set up for stall plus 5 and wait to come out of the clouds, or to hit the ground, which ever comes first. -- Jim in NC |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
pilots only, please - gps or altimeter?
Tony wrote: I'd declare an emergency, ask for vectors for the lowest ground around hoping the clouds wouldn't be on the deck there. I'd also want to have the engine running when I got close to the ground, I may need some gas to avoid something ugly and gliding at a few knots above stall might not let me get above or around that tree. I seem to recall a study that said if you manage to glide for at least 45 seconds after shutting down your piston engine, then the cooling reduces your chances of a post-crash fire by over 50%. If true, then if you're low on fuel, your advice is good because you have little to burn anyway. But if your motor is sputtering and the plane is loaded with gas, it seems to argue that we should shut down the engine as early as practical in hopes of avoiding a fire. Hard choice! Kev |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
pilots only, please - gps or altimeter?
I'd think if you're out of fuel -- just the unusable in the tanks,
chances of fire are pretty low. If I knew I wasn't going to get to an airport (like my gauges are that accurate, right?) I would not fly to fuel exhaustion then glide into the ground. I'd want enough fuel so if I did break out or see the ground before impact I'd have enough power to make a choice or two. If nothing else, I'd bring that sucker way back on the power curve and drag it onto the dirt hanging on its prop. That might buy me a few fewer knots of airspeed, and energy goes as speed squared of course. One could always have a tank spring a leak, of course, but a consistant fuel management scheme can make fuel exhaustion a little less likely. My fuel management checklist goes like this. Before startup, switch to the less fuel tank. Start up and start to taxi out on that tank. Now I'm pretty sure that side is sweet. Switch to the takeoff tank, finish the taxi out and run up on that one. Now I'm pretty sure that tank is sweet too. Take off, fly away a little less than half that fuel. Switch tanks. If the new tank had become sour there should be enough left in the take off tank to get me back to where I came from. Otherwise, fly that tank to nearly empty. Then, switch tanks, land and refuel, even if my destination is only 100 miles away. I'll always have at least 25% fuel on board. The Mooney I used to own carried 33 gallons on each side, and could be leaned to sip less than 10 GPH. I just described a 5 plus hour flight. I'd been lucky enough to fly from LA to the northeast coast a couple of times that way with just two en route fuel stops, going mostly at 11,000 feet and riding the wind. Adventures like that are best done solo or with PX who know they have to moderate their water intake. Ziplock bags are a poor substitute for on board toilet facilities! My experience is most times the airplane has a LOT more endurance than the PX (and sometimes, the PIC)! Yeah, I know about keeping hydrated. On Nov 12, 11:12 pm, "Kev" wrote: Tony wrote: I'd declare an emergency, ask for vectors for the lowest ground around hoping the clouds wouldn't be on the deck there. I'd also want to have the engine running when I got close to the ground, I may need some gas to avoid something ugly and gliding at a few knots above stall might not let me get above or around that tree.I seem to recall a study that said if you manage to glide for at least 45 seconds after shutting down your piston engine, then the cooling reduces your chances of a post-crash fire by over 50%. If true, then if you're low on fuel, your advice is good because you have little to burn anyway. But if your motor is sputtering and the plane is loaded with gas, it seems to argue that we should shut down the engine as early as practical in hopes of avoiding a fire. Hard choice! Kev |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
pilots only, please - gps or altimeter?
That's Toto, btw.
Even blue sky vfr flyers have minimal instrument training, at least enough to keep the sucker upright if they can keep their heads screwed on straight. Most of us won't sign the bottom line on the recommendation form if we think the student will scatter themselves (and worse, innocent passengers) across the landscape if they get their tits in the wringer. GPS won't list private or duster strips on their database, so the best you can hope for is an ATC troop that has been on the local job long enough to know the terrain. First rule, don't touch nothin'. Somehow your machine flew itself straight and level into this mess, let it keep on keeping on. Second rule. Come to best glide speed and reduce power to keep the altimeter steady. Third rule. 121.5 and 7700. SOMEbody is going to hear you real soon. If you are not in mountainous territory, there are damned few locations in the country that don't have ATC coverage 3000+ AGL. If you ain't 3000+ AGL, burn a little fuel to get there. Hope to hell the ATC on the other end of the horn has a clue what's flat, long, soft, and cheap to hit (in that order). Jim (who has been there twice, in the mountains, with zero warning, but not in IFR) "houstondan" wrote in message oups.com... 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 |
#7
|
|||
|
|||
pilots only, please - gps or altimeter?
"houstondan" wrote in message oups.com... 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 Sounds like I'm screwed, might as well see if the bad boy can do an aileron roll and loop! First I would shat myself and then come up with a new plan. ------------------------------------------------------------ DW |
#8
|
|||
|
|||
pilots only, please - gps or altimeter?
Houstondan,
I have missed that other thread, so maybe I am missing something, but the obvious answer seems to try and keep the plane upright, descend out of the clouds (if they don't touch the ground) and land at the spot you find there. A GPS might help in locating a flat spot, but your pilot wouldn't have time looking at it anyway because he'd be busy keeping the plane upright. -- Thomas Borchert (EDDH) |
#9
|
|||
|
|||
pilots only, please - gps or altimeter?
"Thomas Borchert" wrote in message ... Houstondan, I have missed that other thread, so maybe I am missing something, but the obvious answer seems to try and keep the plane upright, descend out of the clouds (if they don't touch the ground) and land at the spot you find there. A GPS might help in locating a flat spot, but your pilot wouldn't have time looking at it anyway because he'd be busy keeping the plane upright. Agree totally, in this situation you have to concentrate totally using the basic instruments skills we VFR pilots have. even then statistically our chances are not good. To be stuffing around asking for help on the radio would just about reduce those slim chances to nil. As another poster quoted the old cliche , Aviate, navigate, communicate. But in the situation of the VFR pilot in IMC the aviate should be in bold capitals! Get out of the clouds first, then ask for help if you still need it. terry |
#10
|
|||
|
|||
pilots only, please - gps or altimeter?
On 2006-11-12, houstondan wrote:
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. Firstly, since the thought experiment says you fell asleep at the controls, it's reasonable to assume that the aircraft is either a very stable (and slow) type, or is equipped with an autopilot. First, I'd reduce power to best endurance, to give more time to think. Then, get the chart and compare it to the position the GPS says I'm at. That'll give me a clue where I am, and what obstructions (if any) there are. Then I'd use the GPS to get to an unobstructed point, and try and get below the clouds. If there's time and sufficient mental capacity while flying IFR as a VFR only pilot, call Mayday on 121.5 Once beneath the clouds, look for suitable terrain to make a landing. Given that there's still a little fuel left, there's a chance for at least two or three goes at landing - so the chosen landing spot can be inspected first to make sure there are no deadly obstacles like wires, and to determine the wind direction (which will be a lot easier when you can see the ground, and are no longer in the soup). Then make the appropriate landing attempt depending on the terrain that we have to hand. -- Yes, the Reply-To email address is valid. Oolite-Linux: an Elite tribute: http://oolite-linux.berlios.de |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
AOPA Stall/Spin Study -- Stowell's Review (8,000 words) | Rich Stowell | Aerobatics | 28 | January 2nd 09 02:26 PM |
Washington DC airspace closing for good? | tony roberts | Piloting | 153 | August 11th 05 12:56 AM |
FAA Mandatory Pilot Retirement Rule Challenged | Larry Dighera | Piloting | 0 | March 20th 05 08:56 PM |
The allure of the skies beckons wannabe pilots. | N9NWO | Piloting | 0 | March 8th 05 08:58 PM |
Older Pilots and Safety | Bob Johnson | Soaring | 5 | May 21st 04 01:08 AM |