In wave, in blue hole at cloud level, hole closes, in IMC, then what?

ok, i read Kemp's article, and although I'm hardly a proficient partial panel instrument pilot, here's what I know:

without a turn coordinator, you can tell which way you are turning using the whiskey compass. it'll get tossed around quite a bit, but it if you're turning, it'll be turning. the usually compass errors apply, but you can use one of them to your advantage: if you can turn to a heading of SOUTH, the compass will lead turns because of magnetic dip, and it increases its usefulness and sensitivity. North is the worst heading.

for pitch, the primary instrument should be airspeed, because in lift or sink the ALT won't tell you anything useful


On Wednesday, April 15, 2015 at 8:49:08 AM UTC-4, Bob Pasker wrote:
there's also this:

http://www.pacificsoaring.org/westwi...2_WestWind.pdf
"Into the Bowels of Darkness "

On Wednesday, April 15, 2015 at 7:25:30 AM UTC-6, Bob Pasker wrote:
ok, i read Kemp's article, and although I'm hardly a proficient partial panel instrument pilot, here's what I know:

without a turn coordinator, you can tell which way you are turning using the whiskey compass. it'll get tossed around quite a bit, but it if you're turning, it'll be turning. the usually compass errors apply, but you can use one of them to your advantage: if you can turn to a heading of SOUTH, the compass will lead turns because of magnetic dip, and it increases its usefulness and sensitivity. North is the worst heading.

for pitch, the primary instrument should be airspeed, because in lift or sink the ALT won't tell you anything useful


On Wednesday, April 15, 2015 at 8:49:08 AM UTC-4, Bob Pasker wrote:
there's also this:

http://www.pacificsoaring.org/westwi...2_WestWind.pdf
"Into the Bowels of Darkness "

The magnetic compass south leading error is real and in perfect conditions a highly skilled partial panel pilot can keep the wings level using it. However, it's like balancing a stick on your finger. It can be done for a while but when one loses it, it's gone and you can't recover. Like most other ideas in this thread, it's a last ditch desperation move when all better options are gone.

I've been instrument rated for over 40 years and, at one time, was
highly proficient at partial panel.

I have a non-gyro, instant-on turn indicator in my panel which may help.

I have no illusions of pulling off what Kempton did without the same
luck that he had that day.

I'm proficient in the use of my parachute and hope the loading will be
light or negative when it's time to use it.

On 4/15/2015 7:53 AM, Bill D wrote:
On Wednesday, April 15, 2015 at 7:25:30 AM UTC-6, Bob Pasker wrote:
ok, i read Kemp's article, and although I'm hardly a proficient partial panel instrument pilot, here's what I know:

without a turn coordinator, you can tell which way you are turning using the whiskey compass. it'll get tossed around quite a bit, but it if you're turning, it'll be turning. the usually compass errors apply, but you can use one of them to your advantage: if you can turn to a heading of SOUTH, the compass will lead turns because of magnetic dip, and it increases its usefulness and sensitivity. North is the worst heading.

for pitch, the primary instrument should be airspeed, because in lift or sink the ALT won't tell you anything useful


On Wednesday, April 15, 2015 at 8:49:08 AM UTC-4, Bob Pasker wrote:
there's also this:

http://www.pacificsoaring.org/westwi...2_WestWind.pdf
"Into the Bowels of Darkness"
The magnetic compass south leading error is real and in perfect conditions a highly skilled partial panel pilot can keep the wings level using it. However, it's like balancing a stick on your finger. It can be done for a while but when one loses it, it's gone and you can't recover. Like most other ideas in this thread, it's a last ditch desperation move when all better options are gone.

--
Dan Marotta

agreed!

with you and with Dan Marotta

On Wednesday, April 15, 2015 at 9:53:08 AM UTC-4, Bill D wrote:
The magnetic compass south leading error is real and in perfect conditions a highly skilled partial panel pilot can keep the wings level using it. However, it's like balancing a stick on your finger. It can be done for a while but when one loses it, it's gone and you can't recover. Like most other ideas in this thread, it's a last ditch desperation move when all better options are gone.

On Wednesday, 15 April 2015 16:25:30 UTC+3, Bob Pasker wrote:
ok, i read Kemp's article, and although I'm hardly a proficient partial panel instrument pilot, here's what I know:

without a turn coordinator, you can tell which way you are turning using the whiskey compass. it'll get tossed around quite a bit, but it if you're turning, it'll be turning.

Depends on compass obviously, but as a rule, no it doesn't.

Unless you frequently win the lottery, I wouldn't count on having the kind of luck Kemp had that day. I cheated death one day in an Aeronca Champ, real low maybe 200 feet over the ocean scud running then suddenly into the soup . . . 180 no gyro turn, roll to what I thought might be straight. Wait . .. then finally into the clear with only a little nose down.

I was current on instruments but didn't have any. It was smooth air, or would have been worse. Scared? Yup, very. I have a truetrack in the glider and will install a Butterfly.

On Wednesday, April 15, 2015 at 6:49:48 PM UTC-4, bumper wrote:
I cheated death one day in an Aeronca Champ, real low maybe 200 feet over the ocean scud running then suddenly into the soup . . .

I've been reading up on VMC -- IMC and 'horizon disappears' gets mentioned, for example over the ocean... and even before you enter the soup, you become disorientated.

I'm pretty sure that the horizon has disappeared on me in flight (other than the common case of landing in a valley below close-in hills/mountains.) How pernicious is the disappearing horizon? Is it a matter of you're okay, until you're not okay? What are the 'gotchas'?

And getting back to the original scenario... I'm turning in the blue hole and when I face the downwind cloud, there is nothing but cloud in my visual field. And how about when diving through the cloud deck, down through a blue hole. Am I'm falsely confident to think that I have had a firm grasp of where up and down are relative to my wings?

On 4/15/2015 7:31 PM, son_of_flubber wrote:
Snip...
And getting back to the original scenario... I'm turning in the blue hole
and when I face the downwind cloud, there is nothing but cloud in my visual
field. And how about when diving through the cloud deck, down through a
blue hole. Am I'm falsely confident to think that I have had a firm grasp
of where up and down are relative to my wings?

Hmmm... Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the scenario/question, but if any pilot
in an airborne cockpit imagines that in the absence of an established visual
horizon they can continue to have any real idea of where up and down are
relative to ANYthing, they're also likely imagine there's no evil in the
world. The point I'm trying to make is there's sound, long-known, reasons an
instrument rating is a separate rating. Any glider pilot entering IMC and also
lacking the requisite instruments and training in a ship incapable of
hands-off flight while still remaining well below maneuvering speed (and there
aren't many such gliders out there), is guaranteed one of two outcomes: 1) the
luck to re-establish a visual horizon before 2) occurs; or 2) (very soon after
entering IMC) ship structural failure (spiral dive/overstress).

Unintended flight into IMC is seriously bad news to Joe Unprepared Pilot's
near-term future health. In my book, the concept of "the benign glider spiral"
- which has received much print exposure, including from at least one highly
experienced, paid, triple diamond, test pilot (Einar Enevoldsen) - isn't
anything I'd be willing to bet MY life on. I think of it as an intellectually
and quite possibly "plaything-interesting," attribute which has some small
possibility of saving my bacon (by buying me some time) if I'm so bold or so
unfortunate as to unintentionally go IMC. Short of being able to test fly
every flavor of glider mentioned by others in this thread as having some
amount of "benign spiral ability" (ranging from "none" to "lots") to convince
oneself the posters are accurate in their shared information, all one can
reasonably do is infer from others experiences. I infer "the benign spiral" is
a pretty thin hook from which to hang my life.

Yeah, Kempton Izuno "got away with" his mistake (which I'll bet many glider
pilots have made, me included, but I had "the good sense" to make mine in a
ship with large deflection landing flaps, and so didn't experience Kempton's
adrenaline rush). Don't be fooled by the fact he was aided by keeping his wits
about him, because only luck enabled him to blunder to the visual edge of his
cloud before his time ran out. Ask him if he'd wish to encounter the same
scenario in the same exact ship again.

Bob W.

On Thursday, April 16, 2015 at 1:32:00 PM UTC+12, son_of_flubber wrote:
On Wednesday, April 15, 2015 at 6:49:48 PM UTC-4, bumper wrote:
I cheated death one day in an Aeronca Champ, real low maybe 200 feet over the ocean scud running then suddenly into the soup . . .

I've been reading up on VMC -- IMC and 'horizon disappears' gets mentioned, for example over the ocean... and even before you enter the soup, you become disorientated.

I'm pretty sure that the horizon has disappeared on me in flight (other than the common case of landing in a valley below close-in hills/mountains.) How pernicious is the disappearing horizon? Is it a matter of you're okay, until you're not okay? What are the 'gotchas'?

And getting back to the original scenario... I'm turning in the blue hole and when I face the downwind cloud, there is nothing but cloud in my visual field. And how about when diving through the cloud deck, down through a blue hole. Am I'm falsely confident to think that I have had a firm grasp of where up and down are relative to my wings?

I've never found an actual literal horizon to be important e.g. flying in mountain valleys presents no problem for orientation or speed control.

What is important (for me anyway) is to have some visible fixed and immobile point that is sufficiently far away that its short term movement in the canopy is as a result of changes in the glider's attitude, and not the glider's movement. Or, to reverse that, if it's not moving in the canopy then you're keeping a constant attitude and heading.

I've done some night IMC flying on freight runs in a Cessna Caravan (and GAF Nomad, incidentally) as an unofficial copilot. I found that I had no trouble with IMC flying as long as I could see either wisps of cloud going past us, or at least one star, or at least one farmhouse light. Even if you're seeing those things unconsciously, out of the corner of your eye, when you think you're *actually* looking at the instruments. When you don't have any of those things it's suddenly much much harder.

"I'm proficient in the use of my parachute and hope the loading will be
light or negative when it's time to use it."

Many responders,including the OP who at least considers it, have eluded to using the 'chute to escape as a last ditch effort. True, it is but jumping in smooth air has its issues just as complicated as going IMC. With a few assumptions and generalities there is a lot to consider.

Jumping in a wave situation has its own unique set of problems. I made a cursory look at the decent rate for a typical emergency chute and most are about 5m/s which is what the OP stated as the climb rate in wave. You won't descend until you move into an area of lesser lift. Find the sweet spot and you might go up. What altitude is it when you jump? W/o a jump bottle there is a good chance for LOC. if I recall correctly, in freefall, the loss of altitude is about 10,000/minute. Do you have the ability to not pull the cord for 90 seconds, in IMC, with no skydiving experience? What about temps? -20 to -30F are pretty common at altitude and are you prepared to hang in the harness and not freeze to death assuming the windchill of a 100+ mph freefall doesn't get you first? Surviving also assumes your 'chute remains functional descending through the rotor should you find it.

Just food for thought on hitting the silk.