The International Cessna^® 170 Association

I had a good bfr with Enrique Troconis of Artic’s Air Academy of Palmer, (Alaska) 746-2290.

How about sharing the advice on getting out of the clouds with all of us.

I had a good bfr with Enrique Troconis of Artic’s Air Academy of Palmer, (Alaska) 746-2290.

I split this off from it's original location because I think a discussion could go two ways. Discussion was not the intent of the original thread but a listing.

The first direction this might take is 'old dogs learning new tricks". As many here know I'm a MedEvac pilot with about 7000 hours total time. I rarely have had to complete a annual flight review myself because I've meet the requirement other ways. Several times a year I get to accomplish a check ride with a check airmen. But most of my flying is accomplished without another rated pilot in the aircraft or with a friend with less experience who figures I know more than them. So it is always interesting to watch and learn from others and while it doesn't happen every check ride, or every Sunday morning breakfast run, every now and then I still learn something from another pilot. If you stop learning or stop being receptive to the possibility, you better get out of the cockpit.


The second direction this might take is actually flying inadvertent into IMC conditions. Let me start this my saying my job requires I fly in conditions conducive to flying into IMC and not intending to. I actually could never understand how a pilot could fly inadvertently into IMC conditions until the one time it did happen to me. For the most part pilots who find themselves in a cloud when they didn't want to be, knew well in advance that possibility existed. Hopefully they were prepared for the consequences and to be honest there really isn't in my estimation a best answer for how to get out of the predicament. There are just to many variables. Your attitude, altitude, overall weather situation, your equipment, your capability at the time.

So well before you get near a cloud you should be improving your capability and one way is to understand your equipment and how to use it. You should always understand the overall weather situation i.e. is this the only puffy cloud you managed to fly into or did you just fly out of the only clearing in an otherwise overcast sky. Check your attitude if need be check your altitude and improve both if necessary. Unless necessary don't do anything fast or quick. Stability is the key. Then you must decide should you just fly through the one puffy cloud or do you need to or can you climb out of the over cast or maybe the best solution is a 180 turn IF you know that will take you back to VMC.

The very BEST way to deal with inadvertent flight into IMC is to strictly observe the FARs. It is very simple.
Stay 500 feet below, 1000 feet above, and 2000 feet horizontally from clouds, and you will never have the deadly problem. Doh.

Oh, you say you are instrument rated/qualified? Then in that case you might take advantage of special VFR or VFR in uncontrolled airspace when you can still avoid inadvertent flight into IMC by strictly observing the FARs:
Remain clear of clouds. This will likely require a tiny bit of planning, usually involving things like checking weather and not steering towards weather one cannot see sufficiently-beyond to discern a clear course around clouds.

If you imagine yourself getting into trouble regardless of these rules.... get an instrument rating!

Oops. You got into a cloud anyway?
Well...you DID check weather, right? And therefore you know that VFR conditions exist beyond this inadvertent entry into a clump of cloud, right? (If not...then you shouldn't have gone this direction anyway.)
So...now you're in them and VFR is still straight ahead (or you wouldn't have pointed yourself in this direction)...now is NOT the time to start banking and turning-around as a pilot inexperienced with instrument flight. The best alternative is to continue in the present direction until exiting clouds.

Ooops. The present direction (in the clouds) will take you into rising-terrain?
Why did you point yourself in this direction? (Doh.) If you don't climb you will probably die when you hit the terrain. Doh.
So climb until VFR and then select a new course.

The point I'm making is.... YOU have control of whether or not you will ever get into this situation before you ever get out of bed in the mornings.

(Get an instrument rating. It'll be fun. After-all... aren't you a pilot because you like to fly? So what's wrong with learning while you do it? Even if you never complete the course and obtain the rating, you will learn how to save yourself when you do the dumb thing, that I promise you will swear to yourself you'll never do again. Ever!)

Quit being a "half" pilot. Learn how to fly instruments. (And watch your insurance rates go down.)

George

I love your suttle personality .........

Some people may take offense to being call a "half" pilot,but I know you well enough to know where you were headed with that comment . I do know several "half butt" pilots that DO have their IFR rating, and will never get in the plane again with them. I will give the fact that "any" proper training "should" make you a better pilot.

W.

W.J.Langholz wrote:George

I love your suttle personality .........

Some people may take offense to being call a "half" pilot,but I know you well enough to know where you were headed with that comment . I do know several "half butt" pilots that DO have their IFR rating, and will never get in the plane again with them. I will give the fact that "any" proper training "should" make you a better pilot.

W.

Yeah... I wondered if I didn't come on a bit too strong in that msg. My intent was not to degrade anyone's skillset.
I was hoping to motivate folks a bit.... but... my PRIMARY intent was to use a bit of sarcasm to point out the obvious: WE are in command of our destiny when we jump in these machines. "Inadvertent" implies: (from the dictionary):

1. unintentional: such as an inadvertent insult.
2. not attentive; heedless, of, pertaining to, or characterized by lack of attention,
3. careless

None of those definitions belong in the cockpit, and it seems silly to imply it is an accidental thing that can happen to ANY pilot who flies...and therefore there should be some special technique or manuever must be taught/learned to deal with this crafty predator of pilots which lurks out there waiting to snare us.

Also, I meant to point out that ...Any pilot who is so out of control of his progress as to inadvertently enter a cloud... is also not very likely to have the skillset to get out of it safely by undertaking a manuever he was already afraid to employ to completely avoid the cloud in the First Place.... that tricky manuever called a "turn". If he couldn't do that aerobatic manuever while VFR... how in the world is he gonna accomplish it safely when he can't see and hasn't instrument skills gained by taking instrument training.

OK. I'll quit and step back down off the soapbox, now. There IS a distinct possibility of entering clouds inadvertently at night. There you are flying along on a long nightime cross-country and before you know it...the visibility is getting kinda fuzzy...and as you remark to yourself about it, suddently there is NO visibility.
If you've flown into an overcast it's a simple matter to descend....after-all....flying at night, you aren't flying LOW are you?
(Not talking about MedEvac. Those guys are half-crazy, as we all know they have death-wishes all the time.)

Pay attention at night, and keep abreast of weather. Look for dark patches of stars that dissappear (indicating clouds) or farm-houses that appear/dis-appear, indicating clouds below... or landmarks that are beginning to look out-of-focus (indicating developing ground-fog.) When that happens, steer towards clear weather, turn back now... or plan to alter course for an airport before ground fog develops widespread due to cooling temps and leaves you without options.

Don't be afraid to call ATC and admit you're in the clouds and need help to VFR conditions. Don't become distracted worrying about what official reactions might be... that sort of thing is greatly exaggerated. They'll help you out, and all you have to do is cooperate and file a NASA "blue form".

(Get some training towards an instrument rating.)
Here, ..In case anybody needs this...

George I'm with you. Believe me. I hesitate to tell someone who didn't seem to have the ability to avoid flying into a cloud in the first place, to make a 180 turn and exit the IMC.

Before the one occurrence of IIMC that happened to me I was much more critical. In my case I was flying gamblers from NYC to Atlantic City in at dusk on a very very hazy day with multiple low broken layers. As I approached Trump Casino what I thought was haze was actually a lower cloud than most the others. As I realized it I entered it and initiated a climb I said out loud for all my passengers to hear "Oh Sheit". And we were out and on top of more lower broken clouds that fast. It did get very quiet in the helicopter and I had to explain to my passengers that we were not in any trouble, just now I had to divert to get gas before dropping them at the casino as we couldn't carry enough fuel to circumnavigate the clouds make the drop and still get to the airport for fuel.

So it can happen to pilots. Even pilots who take precautions and are following the FARs. In this case under 135 I needed a 300 ft ceiling and 1/2 mile visibility (500-1 at night) and I was in uncontrolled airspace clear of clouds till that second I wasn't. I do find it hard to believe someone following the FARs could go IIMC in Class E over 700 or 1200 ft if they have proper cloud clearance.

Another thing I always find amazing when I give a annual flight review is many of the pilots have instruments, auto pilots and certified IFR GPS installations but don't know exactly how to use them, in fact they aren't even sure they work.

See there you go George ......(tongue in cheek now, ok are you ready)

I kind of like the "Bush" style kinder gentler side of you, very nice.

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Do you miss me yet

Now on the serious side... points well taken and thank you, never stop learning a new pilot skill

W.

You can choose, but that does come with experience. Its easy to sit in your arm chair. Based on experience you can come up with what one, ought to do. But again, that is been gained from experience.....often quoted "I have been there, and this is what you should do or could do.". Just having and instrument rating isn't the only answer.. read the reports. By the way the Medivac Pilot is out there tying to save your , Butt.

Green Bean there is little substitute for experience and more varied experience should help make the choice a better one.

True, actually getting an instrument ticket is not the end all. But it is a good start. Actually lots of basic instrument training in actual IMC is a good start. Whether you know the IFR regulations and how to manipulate the IFR system won't be that important to saving you but if you go IIMC. I think all to often recovery from IIMC is glossed over with the explanation one should make a 180 turn and exit the IMC. MUCH much harder done than said even for an experienced IFR pilot who was not on instruments but now has to quickly transfer to them and get oriented. I for example would not make a 180 turn if IIMC occurs to me because I know that could be a difficult maneuver while I transition to the instruments.

As for the comment a medEvac pilot is out there trying to save your butt. To be perfectly honest if saving your butt becomes his focus, he's in danger of hurting a lot more. We are not of course talking about a MedEVAC Pilot on the battle field. This is a totally different animal.

A medevac pilots job off the battlefield is not any different really than an airline pilot. We safely carry passengers and crew from point A to point B. You may make the argument the risk is higher because of where we fly but the job is the same. A byproduct of our flight verses an airline pilot is we occasionally help save a life. Saving a life is not and never has been my thought when I depart. Carrying my crew, passengers and ME safely from point A to B and back again and going home after shift is.

W.J.Langholz wrote:See there you go George ......(tongue in cheek now, ok are you ready)

I kind of like the "Bush" style kinder gentler side of you, very nice.

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Do you miss me yet

Now on the serious side... points well taken and thank you, never stop learning a new pilot skill

W.

(in equal time)

So you've abandoned your base, Dubya, and gotten a rich-man's aeroplane for yourself.
Is this going to wreck things for the rest of us?
Will we put the blame on the next guy to manage your 170? Will we have to pay for your new affluence?

Green Bean wrote:You can choose, but that does come with experience. Its easy to sit in your arm chair. Based on experience you can come up with what one, ought to do. But again, that is been gained from experience.....often quoted "I have been there, and this is what you should do or could do.". Just having and instrument rating isn't the only answer.. read the reports. By the way the Medivac Pilot is out there tying to save your , Butt.

"Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from surviving bad judgement."

This quote is attributed to Will Rogers who died along with famous aviator Wiley Post in Post's floatplane.
It was largely because Post was attempting to fly in weather for which he was ill-equipped..... to do something exceeding his previous experience. (Due to deteriorating wx unfavorable to finding landing sites useable by a land-plane, he had modified his landplane using floats which were not approved for that model aircraft, which made his flight carrying Rogers to Alaska, experimental.)
The excessively large floats made the airplane nose-heavy and a faltering engine on the subsequent takeoff caused the airplane to nose over and submerge the cabin. Because Post knew the airplane would be nose-heavy in such a predicament, he had seated Rogers far-aft toward the tail, which may have prevented Rogers from being able to exit the airplane even if the crash were survivable. And admittedly talented pilot fell victim to get-there-itis... attempting a flight for which he should have known to avoid.

I was not sitting in an "arm chair" when I offered my previous comments. Disregard them if you think you have better methods.

I've survived many foolish flights made in younger days. I don't do those things anymore. Does that mean I should simply let others go about making the same mistakes so they can hopefully be as lucky as I?

Get some instrument training. Not because it'll make the weather always agreeable for your flying activities.... but because it'll make you a lot smarter about recognizing and rejecting idiotic choices..... and it will vastly improve your chances of survival if things go wrong.

Or don't. Ensure your life remains at risk to things like ... clouds. Run scud. Stay scared.

(..instead of being able to takeoff and climb up to a blue and sunny sky above an undercast and smoothly enjoy the view towards your destination.... or if a VFR flight gets "iffy"... get a clearance to your destination ... or for a precautionary landing at a nearby airport.

Well lets try this again. To try and make a positive reason to get and use an Instrument Rating, I have added a few statistics and numbers, (from the reports that I mentioned earlier). For the past 10 years the number of instrument rated pilots to total number of US Pilots is about 60%. +/- 3%. That's a little over 300,000 pilots that are Instrument rated, but that includes about 270,000 pilot that are Airline Transport Pilots or Commercial Pilots .. So that doesn't give a high number with instrument rated Private Pilots. Since the 80's the total number of all pilots has decreased over 28% from a high of over 827,000 pilots.

It would be interesting to know what percent of the Members of the Cessna 170 Association have an Instrument Rating, and those that could or can use it in their own airplane, meeting the required FAR's to file an IFR Flight plan. I use to have be an issued Instrument Card that was Blue and had a hole punched in the card. On the bottom of the card it said " HOLD CARD TO THE SKY AND IF IT MATCHES THE COLOR OF THE SKY, FILE IFR. "

The follow is and article that has a lot of good reason to have an Instrument Rating. What do the statistics indicate?

GOING IFR: WHAT IT TAKES
In the early 1980's, the Instrument Rating had a minimum flight time requirement of 200 hours. Then in 1986, the FAA reduced the total time required for IFR to 125. Today, and since 1997, there is no minimum total flight time requirement -- as long as a Private Pilot meets the IFR training requirements, they can take the Instrument Practical Test. These changing flight time requirements are important when comparing accident rates between Private, Instrument Rated pilots and those without an 'IFR rating.' For the sake of comparison, we'll look at a range of 100 to 149 flight hours as the first range where it is possible to have an IFR rating.

STATISTICALLY SPEAKING...
When Private Pilots with an IFR rating are compared, head-to-head, with Private Pilots without an IFR rating -- the IFR pilots have fewer accidents at every level of pilot experience. In other words, Private Pilots with no IFR rating who have accumulated between 150 and 199 flight hours, for example, have more accidents than Instrument Rated Private Pilots with the same total number of flight hours.

From 1983 to 2000, Pilots with less than 1,000 total flight hours:

There were 2,501 fatal accidents involving Student and Non-Instrument rated Private Pilots.
There were 365 fatal accidents involving Instrument Rated Private Pilots.

...TO SPEAKING OF STATISTICS
But wait -- Is that a fair comparison? There are significantly more non-instrument rated Private Pilots. It makes sense that we should expect more accidents from a larger population, right? Yes, but when we take these accident numbers and then compare them with the number of pilots in each pool we get information that is even more intriguing:

From 1983 to 2000, Pilots with less than 1,000 total flight hours:

1 out of every 120 non-instrument rated pilots was involved in a fatal accident.
1 out of every 150 instrument rated pilots was involved in a fatal accident.

These accidents took place in both IFR and VFR conditions for each group. These numbers clearly indicate that Instrument Rated Private Pilots had fewer fatal accidents.

A STEP FURTHER
The same evidence in favor of adding on an IFR rating held true for non-fatal accidents over the same time period.

From 1983 to 2000, Private Pilots with from 150 and 1,000 flight hours

This group suffered 3,060 non-fatal accidents involving injury.
Of these accidents, 85.4% were non-instrument rated Private Pilots
Only 14.6% of the accidents happened to IFR pilots.

Again, IFR equals fewer accidents.

FOLLOWING THE TREND
In 1990, only 17.1% of all Private Pilots were instrument rated, but through the 90's more pilots were becoming instrument rated than ever before. In 1998, the number of Instrument Rated Private Pilots had climbed to 21.8%. The statistics over this same time frame show that these IFR rated pilots were also involved in fewer accidents. Plus, over the same time period, General Aviation accidents declined, on the whole -- I don't think that that was a coincidence. I think there are fewer General Aviation accidents because there are more General Aviation pilots who have earned an Instrument Rating.

BOTTOM LINE:
Inexperience can be a killer, and the 'Catch 22' question remains: The more experience you have, the safer you are ... but how do you gain experience, safely? The answer is not just to accumulate flight time, but to accumulate quality flight time. Adding an Instrument Rating can do just that, because to become an Instrument Pilot you must also gain precision skills and grow system-savvy. The IFR rating adds 'seasoning' to a Private Pilot faster than anything else. The numbers point to only one conclusion -- if you're a Private Pilot, it's time to add the instrument rating.

George

Your analogy of using a 170 vs a 206 is a "poor" one, A mostly original 170 could be valued higher than a working stiffs 206.

However my analogy would be "Having and airplane or Not having and airplane"

I came from a large family full of love, clean clothes, and never went hungry. When my folks past away, there was just enough to give them a decent burial. No "Silver Spoon" here. When my wife and I got married we did not have 2 dimes to rub together. I'm not a highly educated person...no initials behind my name, but with my wife working a full time job, and myself working 2 jobs most of my adult life has allowed us to buy certain things one of which is a simple U-206 but certainly doesn't not indicated being rich.

It does indicate that if a person wants to get up in the morning and WORK, instead of looking for handouts, you may someday be able to buy an airplane does that mean you are "obligated" to share that airplane with those who choose not to work......I think not.

If you know of anyone looking for a job that can get up in the morning on a regular basis and can pass the "Cup Test" let me know, the company I work for has over 50 full-time openings....come join us and "Share the Wealth" and EARN yourself and airplane

o.k. now I'm off MY soap box


W.