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VFR pilot into IMC 3 minute rule

Desert Rat

Well Known Member
I'm not sure at what point in my 30+ years as a CFII I first heard about the 3 minute statistic, but I've heard it more than once and seen it in various articles. At this point, I'm confident I've repeated it myself to private students to emphasize the importance of staying out of IMC until you get an instrument rating (and are proficient!)

Basically, it goes like this:

"There was this study done and they found out if a VFR pilot blundered into IMC, the average time before loss of control is 3 minutes."

Low and behold, this weeks Pilot Workshop tip of the week is about that very thing.

To be 100% clear, I'm not advocating VFR into IMC or anything silly like that. In fact, after reading the article, I find it further cements the concept that the 180 escape maneuver is your best hope if you find yourself in that situation, but you absolutely shouldn't be there in the first place.

Interesting and short read.

https://pilotworkshop.com/tips/can-...dium=email&utm_term=4-1-2020&utm_campaign=tip
 
I've heard that figure and repeated the lesson to students of my own over the years. It's certainly worth reinforcing to a new pilot (or any VFR guy) that a careful 180 on the gauges is a lifesaver.

Here's a link to an article I wrote many years ago about a couple of IMC encounters, the first of which occurred while I was a new VFR pilot back in 1991:

Competence & Confidence
 
How many of you CFIs out there actually let your VFR pilots experience the effects of blundering into IMC?

George
 
FWIW even an IFR rated pilot can get burned just as quickly.

About 7 years ago, I was flying home from helping with harvest. I filed and took off VFR expecting that I might need to file IFR enroute or land somewhere and wait a couple of hours. A line of solid IMC with embedded CB's made it a no brainer to land and wait it out at about the 200KM / half way point. I knew of a recently abandoned airfield and had checked it out from the ground a few days earlier on a different harvest trip, but even at that I thought it wise to do a low inspection pass to check for fence posts and steel rifle targets that the new owner might have placed on or across the runway. ( there were steel targets right beside the runway a few days earlier) It made more sense than using a road. In any case the runway was clear, but the instant I raised my eyes off of the runway inspection I entered solid white cloud and at 50 ft AGL it was a sub optimal situation. I had already rolled left just before the white out as there was a lake on the LH side with no towers or hills. The mini D6 allowed me to stay in a stable turn as I popped back out in the clear on downwind for the tightest / fastest circuit I ever did to get down before the status fog met me on the runway on the landing roll.

It had been clear at 8000 ft right to the ground just moments before, and the approaching white cloud was invisible / imperceptible as my mind was focused on the runway.

In hindsight I should have not even taken off. The first time I ever got burned VFR into IMC in 20 years of flying. I had a few hours of solitude to think about it as the adrenaline subsided.

Filing and flying IFR is relaxing. VFR into IMC is terrifying in a lot of scenarios that are not even remotely close to normal instrument flying procedures.
 
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How many of you CFIs out there actually let your VFR pilots experience the effects of blundering into IMC?

Blundering into IMC, no, but years ago when I was actively instructing, I did used to take pre-checkride PP students out in very marginal conditions (I’d aim for 1200 and 3-4 in haze or fog). I’d fly them out to the practice area and let them flounder around a bit to experience the spatial and geographical disorientation. Very few were able to keep adequate control while using the VORs to navigate back home. Once in awhile, the weather would go down and I’d get a pop-up. Needless to say, that was also a good lesson for them, to see how rapidly conditions can deteriorate even when the ground is still visible a bit directly below.

Nav-wise, this would be much easier these days following the magenta line, but it would still be a valuable experience for a VFR student.
 
I probably won't be popular for saying this but I've always been of the belief that it's way too easy to get a flying ticket especially at the bottom of the flying ladder! Far more instruction should be given and much stricter tests/checks along the way. Instrument training/checking should be visited often.
The safest way to stay alive is be a very well trained and tested pilot right from day one!
Stay safe out there!
 
I probably won't be popular for saying this but I've always been of the belief that it's way too easy to get a flying ticket especially at the bottom of the flying ladder! Far more instruction should be given and much stricter tests/checks along the way. Instrument training/checking should be visited often.
The safest way to stay alive is be a very well trained and tested pilot right from day one!
Stay safe out there!

Admittedly, beliefs are opinions and each person is welcome to their own. A review of accident statistics show accidental flight into IMC in the US as a very small contributor to overall accidents. It is so small that, in my opinion, efforts to fix it in primary training are not fair to the majority of VFR students.

The above accidents are swamped by loss of control and equipment failure. Is loss of control a primary training issue? I do not know. Maybe that is something to discuss.
 
I probably won't be popular for saying this but I've always been of the belief that it's way too easy to get a flying ticket especially at the bottom of the flying ladder! Far more instruction should be given and much stricter tests/checks along the way. Instrument training/checking should be visited often.
The safest way to stay alive is be a very well trained and tested pilot right from day one!
Stay safe out there!

I had the pleasure of receiving my aviation training in the mid 60's at the University of Illinois, Institute of Aviation. The University conducted many studies in flight training, particularly in instrument flight procedures, used by the government such as the 180 degree turn escape maneuver.

The school had a flight simulator department with three post WWII link trainers. The kind that sat on a bellows that allowed the simulator to make limited pitch and roll motions.

The private pilot syllabus included quite a few sessions in the "blue box" to practice a variety of instrument maneuvers under the hood. We would practice maintaining level flight, climb and descent profiles, standard and half standard rate turns, and timed maneuvers. We would fly timed boxed patterns, figure 8's, and the Maltese cross maneuvers. These maneuvers would be plotted by a mechanical bug on a table at the instructor's station. I still have my printouts from those maneuvers in my records. Back then there was no credit for simulator time, it was just part of the syllabus. Only SI time in the aircraft could be logged.

As an aside, Rudy Frasca, of Frasca Aviation, was one of the early pioneers in manufacturing general aviation flight simulator training devices. I worked for Rudy while attending college. He was a wonderful man to work for and had a passion for what he was building. As a tribute to his vision, his company is still in operation today.
 
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Admittedly, beliefs are opinions and each person is welcome to their own. A review of accident statistics show accidental flight into IMC in the US as a very small contributor to overall accidents. It is so small that, in my opinion, efforts to fix it in primary training are not fair to the majority of VFR students.

The above accidents are swamped by loss of control and equipment failure. Is loss of control a primary training issue? I do not know. Maybe that is something to discuss.

'Beliefs and opinions' are what makes the world go round in every field of endeavour. The accidental flights into IMC reports would be small in any country, what actually goes on out there is an entirely different thing, far greater, we just never hear about the 'phew that was close' I'd say loss of control comes under the same umbrella of my original comments. 40 years driving planes for me, lots of different types from LSA to heavy metal, I've flown with them all good and bad, I put most of it down to training from day one!
 
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I had the pleasure of receiving my aviation training in the mid 60's at the University of Illinois, Institute of Aviation. The University conducted many studies in flight training, particularly in instrument flight procedures, used by the government such as the 180 degree turn escape maneuver.

The school had a flight simulator department with three post WWII link trainers. The kind that sat on a bellows that allowed the simulator to make limited pitch and roll motions.

The private pilot syllabus included quite a few sessions in the "blue box" to practice a variety of instrument maneuvers under the hood. We would practice maintaining level flight, climb and descent profiles, standard and half standard rate turns, and timed maneuvers. We would fly timed boxed patterns, figure 8's, and the Maltese cross maneuvers. These maneuvers would be plotted by a mechanical bug on a table at the instructor's station. I still have my printouts from those maneuvers in my records. Back then there was no credit for simulator time, it was just part of the syllabus. Only SI time in the aircraft could be logged.

As an aside, Rudy Frasca, of Frasca Aviation, was one of the early pioneers in manufacturing general aviation flight simulator training devices. I worked for Rudy while attending college. He was a wonderful man to work for and had a passion for what he was building. As a tribute to his vision, his company is still in operation today.

I recall the bellows flying box, did my class 1V (NVFR) training in one of them, was hard work but gave me a great insight to being able to stay alive under very trying conditions!
 
The Private pilot test standard includes the ability to control the aircraft solely by reference to instruments in level flight, climb, descent, turns to a heading, and unusual attitude recovery.

Put another way, inadvertently flying into IMC should not kill anyone who can meet the standard for a Private ticket. The ability to control the aircraft solely by reference to instruments is expected of everyone at the Private level or higher, not just those who added an instrument rating...a "return to VFR" situation, not a death sentence.

Here's the thing; I don't practice enough. Some don't practice at all, as safety campaigns have convinced them the only path is absolute avoidance. That's really sad, given they all had the skills at some point.
 
The Private pilot test standard includes the ability to control the aircraft solely by reference to instruments in level flight, climb, descent, turns to a heading, and unusual attitude recovery.

Put another way, inadvertently flying into IMC should not kill anyone who can meet the standard for a Private ticket. The ability to control the aircraft solely by reference to instruments is expected of everyone at the Private level or higher, not just those who added an instrument rating...a "return to VFR" situation, not a death sentence.

Here's the thing; I don't practice enough. Some don't practice at all, as safety campaigns have convinced them the only path is absolute avoidance. That's really sad, given they all had the skills at some point.

Perhaps some SI time should be part of every Flight Review.
 
I know of a student pilot sent out on an overcast day for her solo flight. She flew into IMC on the way to the practice area. Continued, found the area IMC and flew back to Willow Run and landed. G1000 panel and a PhD student pilot.

The CFI should either be knighted or shot. Knighted for teaching the student so well, or shot for sending them out on this day.

Just hearing about it scared the shiff out of me. She was very excited about the solo endorsement.


Do read the OP link it is not what you might think.
 
I had the pleasure of receiving my aviation training in the mid 60's at the University of Illinois, Institute of Aviation. The University conducted many studies in flight training, particularly in instrument flight procedures, used by the government such as the 180 degree turn escape maneuver.

The school had a flight simulator department with three post WWII link trainers. The kind that sat on a bellows that allowed the simulator to make limited pitch and roll motions.

The private pilot syllabus included quite a few sessions in the "blue box" to practice a variety of instrument maneuvers under the hood. We would practice maintaining level flight, climb and descent profiles, standard and half standard rate turns, and timed maneuvers. We would fly timed boxed patterns, figure 8's, and the Maltese cross maneuvers. These maneuvers would be plotted by a mechanical bug on a table at the instructor's station. I still have my printouts from those maneuvers in my records. Back then there was no credit for simulator time, it was just part of the syllabus. Only SI time in the aircraft could be logged.

As an aside, Rudy Frasca, of Frasca Aviation, was one of the early pioneers in manufacturing general aviation flight simulator training devices. I worked for Rudy while attending college. He was a wonderful man to work for and had a passion for what he was building. As a tribute to his vision, his company is still in operation today.

I got my PPL at U of I in 74 and they were still using the blue box. The syllabus was 32 hrs flight time, 10 hrs observation time and ~5 hrs in the box. I was too big to fit in the back seat of the Cherokee so they had me do my observation rides with instrument students in the Comanche. That probably served me better in the long run. Good program.

I bought my first plane, a Tcraft, and kept it at Rudy's field till I graduated. It was Illini Field back then but renamed to Frasca now.
 
As a CFI (Inst, ME) 30 years, it has been around. There is no rule to it. Some people lose control and crash within seconds of losing visual clues at night or IMC.

https://youtu.be/b7t4IR-3mSo

I learned to fly in the rainy North West. My private pilot check ride was about 1.5 hours and the first half was all under the hood. Right after first takeoff on climb, I was put under hood. I passed. Started on my instrument skills after my private with another pilot, taking turns as safety pilot for each other. By the time I had 125 hours, I had 50 hrs X-C and over 40 hours of instrument hours and dual (15 hrs with CFII) and took my check ride. I have trained at least 15 instrument pilots, and I made sure they had at least 15 hours actual, which was hard to do in the few months of summer.

Did the same with my commercial, started practicing after my Inst rating, took my Commercial with just over 250 hours in log book and then took my CFI right after that. I never needed a flight review for many years as I was adding ratings. Took my ATP with 1600 hours. I ran out of ratings. I am thinking glider or sea plane.
 
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I know of a student pilot sent out on an overcast day for her solo flight. She flew into IMC on the way to the practice area. Continued, found the area IMC and flew back to Willow Run and landed. G1000 panel and a PhD student pilot.

The CFI should either be knighted or shot. Knighted for teaching the student so well, or shot for sending them out on this day.
.

You left out the third possibility: There are a certain number of students who have no intent of following your instructions. Sure, when you tell them that if they encounter adverse wx they should do a 180 and come back, they nod and say ?yes, certainly?. But what they?re thinking is ?As soon as I?m out of sight, I can do whatever I feel like. This cfi is too conservative.? After having had two solo students deliberately disregard my instructions (there?s no question that they understood) I will no longer sign off student pilots for solo flight. The risk is too high.
 
Years ago, either Flying or AOPA ran a story regarding VFR into IMC. Unfortunately I can't find a link to the article as I think it came out pre WWW.

The just of the article was that instrument rated pilots who continued VFR into IMC were equally likely, or more likely, to crash as VFR only pilots.

The just of the article was that VFR pilot tended to do the magic 180 upon first indication of bad weather whereas instrument rated pilots tended to continue and weren't either current and/or didn't have the proper charts. Either way, the results had negative outcomes.

Fly safe and within your current abilities.
 
Inadvertent IMC is a serious challenge to anyone IFR rated or just VFR, experience and task management will rule more than the rating. It’s spooky stuff!

I helped a fellow controller/CFI work a guy (ATC side) who popped in the clouds about 500 AGL on takeoff and flew around for over 2 hours in his C150 before he got ahold of us. Not sure if his radio was broke or he didn’t know how to use it, he’d dialed 800-WX-BRIEF and the flight service specialist transfered him to us via the phone. We issued a discreet code for him to sqwuak and coordinated with other ATC facilities in a 2 hour radius from his departure airport to keep an eye out, No Joy.

This was several years ago, flip phones without GPS or pilot apps and we kept losing the connection and he had to call back. He was pretty confused on our questions about what kind of Navigation his C150 had, VOR-ADF-GPS?? After describing his panel we discerned he had a Nav/Com with an OBS/CDI. It took several tries to get him to input the VOR frequencies into the Nav side of the radio instead of running out of digits on the COM.

We felt a sigh of relief when he said the needle was centered on his OBS with a local VOR tuned in on the NAV, GREAT!!! One more thing, we needed to know if he had a white up triangle, down triangle or the words “To” or “From” on the OBS. I’ll never forget his response........not the word but in letters......O...F...F.

Another controller spoke up about an eradic primary target (no transponder) she’d been observing. After issuing and observing several turns to cardinal headings we knew we’ld finally found him, but low ceilings were everywhere and rough calculations left approximatly 45 mins of fuel. Our side discussions with the meteorologist were not hopeful but pointed him in the direction of the best weather with the most chance of improvement. He had many inadvertent 90+ degree turns, it wasn’t pretty from the radar side and I can’t imagine from the cockpit. Luckily he made it to the airport about 20 minutes later, the weather had improved enough he got it in sight and made a safe landing.

We never found out the whole story, but we did find out it was a student pilot who owned the C150 and had taken off that morning to get some pattern work in. Yes there were mistakes made but my fellow controller/CFI agreed that student pilot deserved an honorary Instrument Rating.
 
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Years ago, either Flying or AOPA ran a story regarding VFR into IMC. Unfortunately I can't find a link to the article as I think it came out pre WWW.

The just of the article was that instrument rated pilots who continued VFR into IMC were equally likely, or more likely, to crash as VFR only pilots.

The just of the article was that VFR pilot tended to do the magic 180 upon first indication of bad weather whereas instrument rated pilots tended to continue and weren't either current and/or didn't have the proper charts. Either way, the results had negative outcomes.

Fly safe and within your current abilities.

That may well be true.

I can say from my experience if VFR and faced with an IMC encounter ahead, I will deploy counter measures, and then contact centre requiring a clearance.

But the over confident out of practise and negligent wanting to avoid detection pilot may well come unstuck.

Lets be honest, a competent pilot deliberately trying to fly outside the IFR system could do it quite safely, but that is not the way we roll.

YMMV
 
Another added reason why so many would end up in IMC (that we will never know) and get away with it is that a LOT of today's light A/C have very flash avionics including very capable coupled A/P's so that alone would temp VFR drivers to go DCT regardless of WX. Many many years ago when I started no light planes had A/P's (well none that we poor people could afford to fly) never lone a GPS! The trouble is as those that are IFR cert would know it's not just the A/C handling in IMC it's a LOT more involved from icing, embedded TS's, severe turb, other traffic, terrain, actions in case of engine failure! Scary stuff!
I'd like a dollar for everytime I'd be in solid IMC (legally) & ATC would say we have traffic at xx at 7000' (my current Alt) unverified!
 
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