I WOULD NEVER DO THIS, but ya see, I've got this friend....

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ussyorktown
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I WOULD NEVER DO THIS, but ya see, I've got this friend....

Post by ussyorktown »

His light sport has a Garmin 696 in it. It is IFR weather with cloud cover at about 1,000 feet but it clears up at 3,000 feet.
He has a light sport pilot license. He figures that he can get using the Garmin and climb through the clouds and break out at 3,000 feet or so and fly to an airport 100 miles away, using the Garmin.
Then he would line up, using the Garmin, and then would get on the beam to the airport's runway by using the OBS mode.
Fly into the clouds, below the clouds using OBS and then land at destination as he would break out about 1000 feet above the airport about 2 miles away.

Is he gonna kill himself? If he crashes and dies can I ethically take his Bruce airplane cover or would that be bad karma?
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zaitcev
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Post by zaitcev »

I would have a couple of concerns.

First concern is separation, even with the GA traffic being about half of what it used to be in 1990s.

I actually had a funny experience on March 2nd, when I tried to sqeeze under the weather between the a mountain and a restricted area. At one moment the clouds broke and I saw a twin maybe 300 ft higher breaking the cloud, crossing my course, and ducking into another cloud. We were well separated, but I'm not quite sure that it was by design. The radar coverage around here is quite spotty below 10k.

I understand your friend is going to get FF, but they are likely to drop you right in the moment he needs it most.

The second concern is redundancy. Just last month a Comanche broke up in flight in a death spiral in Texas. He was flying VFR at night and ran into BLDU, lost sight of the ground. He pressed on and then his artificial horizon packed it in. He was on FF and reported turning back. Not being instrument rated, he failed a turnback on partial panel and oversped the airpalne, with 3 dead.

You heard about Murphy's Law, right?

By the way, I don't know if that 696 is configured as PFD with accelerometers. I flew some GPSes that imitate flight instruments, and they were basically unusable for flight in IMC. Too much lag. I would enter a PIO in a minute using those "instruments". It was pure suicide.

In the LSA that I fly, the 696 is only usable as a moving map. We have Dynon PFD for instrumentation. But I don't really know, maybe some 696s have differences.

If I am taking an LSA into illegal jaunt into clouds, I'm going to make damn sure that it has redundant systems. Not necesserily standby vacuum like in Champ, but at least 2 strictly separated electrical buses with their own batteries, and that all that is tested.
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Post by Jim Stewart »

The greater tragedy would be if he hit a honest IFR aircraft in the clouds.

Tell your friend his idea sucks.
PP-ASEL, Flight Design CTSW owner.
jnmeade
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Post by jnmeade »

Both illegal and risky. Certainly not something he should be talking about, or sometime he'll get turned in. In our example, it should not be too hard to prove that he was flying without ground reference and based on that they could make a case that he must have made an IFR departure and approach.
stevenr
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Post by stevenr »

Very foolish. How is he controlling the plane in the clouds? With the AP?
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dstclair
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Post by dstclair »

Bad idea for all the reasons cited and more. The NTSB database is full of fatal accidents of VFR PP's who attempted the same thing -- and they had a minimal amount of hood training. For example: http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief ... 1040&key=1

This aircraft had much better avionics than a 696 but, in the end, it's the pilot that needs the training. In this case, the pilot killed most of his family and a close friend. The friend's family sued the pilot's estate and bankrupted the surviving adult children of the deceased pilot.
dave
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deltafox
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Post by deltafox »

Have you ever had a case of "the leans"? It takes every ounce of will power to believe the instruments when your whole body is telling you something different. It just seems so easy to punch through a layer. Deceptive.
Dave
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zaitcev
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Post by zaitcev »

On the other hand, a guy I know flew into a cloud at night in an Ercoupe without an artificial horizon. He then made a 180 using his T&B and DG.

Myself, I intended not to become one of the idiots who fly into VFR into VMC, but on the same March 2 flight, I managed to do just that, a few miles down the road from the meeting with the twin. I already determined that the weather worsened ahead, so I executed a prudent 180, but apparently was too preoccupied when turning and so climbed right into the clouds. But once I lost the sight of the ground, I was unable to descend back, because I was over a rough terrain. I had no choice but to continue on instruments for a few miles, using GPS for terrain clearance.

Given these and other experiences, I am absolutely for flying an LSA equipped with "pseudo-IFR" panel, electric A/G, and so on, because they really do save your bacon. But busting clouds with precip and ice on purpose is not for me, no way.
nbjeeptj
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Post by nbjeeptj »

I was told that I could as a sport pilot not fly where I had no reference to the ground and that would include flying over a overcast or even a broken sky. My instructor did think that going above a scattered or few sky would be ok as most any time I could still see the ground.
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bryancobb
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Broken or Overcast

Post by bryancobb »

Flying above a broken or overcast cloud cover is commonly referred to as "VFR On Top."

Flying above a scattered or few cloud cover is NOT VFR On Top. It's just plain old VFR.

A private pilot can fly VFR on top. A SPORT Pilot can only fly plain old VFR.

ANY PILOT IN A CLOUD NEEEEDS SOME KIND OF GYRO TO KEEP FROM GETTING UPSIDE DOWN IN A HURRY! NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER GET IN A CLOUD WITHOUT GYROS!!!"

My IFR Friend (PIC) and I took off one beautiful morning toward a clear blue cloudless sky. The problem was, our home airport is right beside a small river. There was a 100ft thick layer of dense fog, caused by the river, that covered about a 3 mile diameter circle around the airport.

We could barely see the centerline in front of the nose. He did basically a zero/zero takeoff, knowing that the fog was very confined and only 100ft thick.

My face was inside, his was outside. At 5 ft he began to bank the wings, I twisted the yoke hard against him to try to level them to the A.I. He banked more. When we broke out of the top at 100 AGL, we were in a 45 degree bank and 90 degrees off course.

Moral of the story...entering a cloud (or fog) without being a current IFR pilot iz STOOPID!
Bryan Cobb
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jnmeade
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Post by jnmeade »

nbjeeptj wrote:I was told that I could as a sport pilot not fly where I had no reference to the ground and that would include flying over a overcast or even a broken sky. My instructor did think that going above a scattered or few sky would be ok as most any time I could still see the ground.
At the risk of being didactic, I think we should be precise on issues such as this so we all know the regs. Here is what the FAR says:
"(13) Without visual reference to the surface."
It doesn't talk about scattered or broken. We can assume overcast is solid so that is out. If there is an interpretation that broken means no visual reference, then I need to know that and would be glad to see the specific reference, ruling or interpretation. If we can't find that, then it would seem that broken is not prohibited (we're not talking about common sense here, we're talking about what is legal).
Can you or someone help me as I'd very much like to have a concrete resolution on this questions.
KSCessnaDriver
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Re: Broken or Overcast

Post by KSCessnaDriver »

bryancobb wrote:ANY PILOT IN A CLOUD NEEEEDS SOME KIND OF GYRO TO KEEP FROM GETTING UPSIDE DOWN IN A HURRY! NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER GET IN A CLOUD WITHOUT GYROS!!!"
I wouldn't go quite that far. I could put you in what I fly everyday for a living and there is no way you could physically get it upside down. But, only having rudder and elevator helps that.
KSCessnaDriver (ATP MEL, Commerical LTA-Airship/SEL, Private SES, CFI/CFII)
LSA's flown: Remos G3, Flight Design CTSW, Aeronca L-16, Jabiru J170
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bryancobb
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HaHa

Post by bryancobb »

I'm ignorant! Can a Blimp fly IFR?

Let me rephrase what I incorectly said

"NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER GET IN A CLOUD WITHOUT GYROS!!! UNLESS YOU ARE FLYING A LTA (BLIMP/AIRSHIP)"[/b]
Bryan Cobb
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bryancobb
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Ceiling

Post by bryancobb »

JNMEADE,

A "CEILING" is defined as the bottom of a layer of clouds that is called out as "BROKEN OR OVERCAST."

Flying above a "ceiling" is, by definition, VFR ON-TOP , a privilege that is only given to Private Pilots and above, with an instrument rating.

Now there's a term, VFR OVER-THE-TOP, where a non IFR rated pilot makes a climb in clear air, to clear air above a low cloud layer, and then descends to their destination, again, in clear air. To legally do this, you must be able to descend in VFR if the engine were to quit.

Although the FAR's don't specifically prohibit Sport Pilots from flying above the clouds, It is NEVER good judgement, and would most likely qualify as RECKLESS, if the cloud layer is thick enough for the FAA Weather People to say it's a CEILING (Broken/Overcast). Let's leave "Flying on top of a ceiling" for Private/Instrument pilots.
Bryan Cobb
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drseti
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Post by drseti »

I think we can all agree that, without a medical and proper rating, currency, and equipment, no pilot can fly in the clouds, right? Well, the problem about flying over a broken layer is that it can become a solid undercast without warning, and then you need to get down. So, instead of arguing the letter of the law, consider its purpose - to keep you from ending up in IMC without IFR rating, clearance, currency, or proper equipment. End of story.
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