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The Story of My Fifth Flight

P

prkaye

Well Known Member
Well, this morning I had the scariest flight of my life - due not to any problem with the aircraft nor due to piloting error, but due to a poor judgment of ceiling height before takeoff. Let me preface the story by jumping to the conclusion - a happy ending with a valuable lesson-learned. I thought about keeping this under my hat, but I'm a believer in admitting my mistakes, and pilots should always share stories from which lessons can be learned.

This morning I left Ottawa in my car and the skies were completely clear. As I drove towards Smiths Falls airport a ceiling formed, and there was some very low-level foggy cloud, which could be seen when looking to the distance down the road.

I arrived and spent an hour or so doing various preflight things and chatting with Korrey while I waited for the fog to lift. At about 10:00 am ground visibility was fine and I could see the trees on nearby hills. Above me was a solid layer of gray, but i couldn't discern any of the tell-tale individual cloud details that indicate a very low ceiling. So I decided I should have at least enough height for circuits and could evaluate when airborne.

As I taxiied out I was pleased that my new main gear leg stiffeners seemed to make the plane drive much more solidly (reduced shimmy). The air was the coolest it's been on any of C-FUNC's flights so-far, and she climbed very nicely on takeoff. I was feeling good about all this, when suddenly I found myself surrounded by gray, at about 700 feet AGL. I poked the nose forward but it was too late - my climb rate was high and before I knew it I was totally engulfed. I reduced power and started a medium turn to the right, watching my artificial horizon and airspeed. I hoped I could come out below the clouds and just do a low-level circuit to land. By the time I ducked out under the clouds, though (probably 500-700' AGL) I had lost the runway. I continued to circle, focusing on skimming the bottom of the clouds, keeping airspeed up, while trying to navigate. Now, two problems made the situation more serious. One, I didn't a lot of fuel. I have been doing my test flying on less than half tanks to keep the weight down. So I couldn't just fly around all day waiting for the clouds to clear. So I throttled back, and leaned-out the mixture to reduce fuel consumption (luckily I'm past the really criticial part of the engine break-in). The second problem, I had no GPS.

I didn't know how thick the cloud layer was, so I decided I should continue to skim around at low altitude, not flying in any one direction for too long to avoid getting too far away. I tried calling Ottawa Terminal, but was too low to make radio contact. My preferred general direction would have been West, towards Ottawa, except that the low-level cloud seemed worse to the west, and slightly better to the East. After a few minutes of aviating and thinking, I saw some blue sky peeking through small breaks in the clouds. I could see it wasn't too thick, so I glued my eyes to the instruments, throttled up and climbed through the pea-soup.

Very quickly I emerged on top of the layer and leveled out in cruise at about 2000'AGL. I then contacted Ottawa Terminal. The controller was very helpful and vectored me on a heading direct to Smiths Falls. He also reported there were only few clouds in Ottawa, so that was a backup plan. When he reported I was only 2 miles from Smiths Falls Airport, I saw glimpses of ground beneath the clouds, so I decided to poke down below, evaluate if I had enough visibility, and land at Smiths Falls if possible. If not, I would climb back up and get assistance back to Ottawa (the whole time I was nervous about the fuel, so I had throttled back and leaned out to about 7GPH). When I emerged beneath the clouds at 700'AGL, I was again too low for Terminal radio, but they had some kind of relay operator so I was able to communicate through him. I reported that I was VFR, but did not see the airfield. The relay guy gave me a heading and I looked to the left and saw the runway. The sight of a runway has never been a bigger relief to me. I turned final and landed without incident (except I think I may have a slight shimmy on my nose gear leg, which might require adding a stiffener there too).

In hindsight, I think I did all the right things to bring the flight to a safe conclusion, and I am pleased that C-FUNC proved her worth by getting me home. But I acknowledge that I shouldn't have gotten into this situation to begin with. The main lesson-learned for me is to find a better way of estimating ceiling height before taking off from an airport with no ATIS. My "eyeball" technique clearly isn't reliable. Also, I learned to be *very* careful about the "go up for a circuit to check-out ceilings" approach. I underestimated how easy it is to lose the airport very quickly. A GPS would have probably successfully ended this flight after 10 minutes rather than the 30 minutes of TACH time I logged, but I've been holding off on that purchase until I'm done my 25-hours and am ready for x-country.

For judging ceilings, I wonder if they make some kind of affordable hand-held radar device for this purpose...
 
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glad your flight turned out ok. we don't get much if any fog around here except occaisionally in the winter when it is likely to be completely socked in and no way i'm going to fly. there is also an atis at the local field reporting ceiling and visibility. I'd be a lot more careful in the future regarding that ceiling level
 
Phil, thanks for sharing.

Glad you got it down safely, good decision making on your part when you realized you were in trouble.
 
Thanks

We all do silly things on occassion or get complacent. Hopefully you will pay more attention to the need for extra fuel always, and start keeping at least a handheld GPS in your bag. You just never know.

Good for you for ASKING FOR HELP, and aviating,thinking it through, using the available resources and not panicking. It can happen to any of us so easily.

Thanks for posting, glad it was an education and not an accident report. Blue skies.
 
ceiling height

You can get a simple electronic hygrometer which will give you temp and dewpoint for as little as 50$ US. In my location, the temp-dewpoint spread is a more reliable indication of how low the low layer is than the AWOS. I don't know if a cheap instrument like that would be accurate enough for you to reliably tell the difference between 700 feet and 1400 feet but I would think so as that is about 3 degrees F.

After hearing this I might throw one in the flight bag. Could be handy when deciding when to take off after a nights camping at a remote field.
 
Nice work getting her down safely. You might think this story would reflect badly upon you...but people will remember the STORY not the author. This is the exact kind of story that will KILL complacency....just the kind of story we need from time to time to keep us alive. Thanks for sharing it.

I have been in that "zone" of fear before and reading your story brought me right back into it. Glad it turned out the way it did.
 
In addition to having a local AWOS station I can dial on my phone to get the ceiling info, I'm also fortunate enough to be able to look out my front door and see an 1100' tall TV broadcast tower down the road from my house. If there's a ceiling and it is not significantly way higher than the big antenna tower, then I'm not going flying.
 
Many people have said it before about RV's biggest problem . They can get you into trouble real quick! Glad everything worked out.
 
Thanks for sharing Phil. I was feeling the hair on my neck stand up as I was reading.

I had a similiar type experience coming back from Airventure one year. I just kept saying "Fly the airplane" over and over in my head and it looks like your were thinking the same thing too. Good job.
 
Been there....

Your story is amlost identical to a situation I had a couple years ago, except the issue was smoke and haze from fires in south Georgia. Like you, I decided to just stay in the pattern because of viz, but upon climbing a few hundred feet viz went to zero. I said out loud to myself, "you dumb***" and immediately reduced throttle to arrest the climb and descend. I knew there were no towers in the airport vicinity and flew a low close pattern at about 3-400 ft agl, landed and put her away.
Experience is the best teacher, unfortunately. I read about flight safety and accident reports a lot but it seems like I sometimes get a little too close to the fire and get burned. That's when real learning begins and the event is seared into memory.
 
Some resources you might be able to use next time the WX is perhaps marginal:

- Tune up ATIS for Ottawa and listen to the ceiling/vis. Its close enough to be fairly accurate for Smiths Falls, I'd think.
- Pull up the weather online before you fly
- Call for a weather briefing
- Get a PIREP from another aircraft that landed, or is in the pattern

Good job getting into the clear and enlisting ATC's help. All private pilots should be able to at least keep the shiny side up when IMC. This highlights why I think its a very good idea for your aerospace vehicle to have some kind of attitude instrumentation, even if you don't have an instrument ticket.
 
- Tune up ATIS for Ottawa and listen to the ceiling/vis. Its close enough to be fairly accurate for Smiths Falls, I'd think.
- Pull up the weather online before you fly
- Call for a weather briefing
- Get a PIREP from another aircraft that landed, or is in the pattern
Click to expand...

All good thoughts but Smiths Falls (YSH) is about equidistant between Ottawa and Kingston, and is not close enough to either for this to be reliable. As I mentioned there were blue skies with few clouds at Ottawa while this was happening. I often encounter deteriorating weather as I drive from Ottawa to Smiths Falls and vice-versa.
Also, while I can see Radar coverage of weather around YSH, there is no nearby METAR service, so I'm not sure if I have any reliable way of getting a ceiling estimate.
PIREPs are of course the best... but this requries somebody to be the guinnee pig. What I've learned from this is that *I* don't want to be the Guinnee pig ever again. I doubt I'll ever take off again if I don't have solid proof that the ceilings are at least 1500' AGL.
 
is smith falls a very active airport? where there any other pilots flying, and if not is that normal for the day of the week?
 
It can be pretty quiet there on weekday mornings. The club 172 was sitting on the Tarmac, but hadn't been flying yet that day. So yes, I should have probably wandered into the clubhouse and asked a more experienced pilot for his estimation of the ceiling height. Like I said, "lesson learned".
On further reflection, if it happened again that I entered into cloud on climb-out before my crosswind turn, I should carefully fix my heading straight ahead and get below the clouds without turning. This way I keep a fix on an exact heading back to the airport (180 behind me).
But, I think I'm unlikely to ever allow myself to get into this situation again.
 
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Obviously you realized the serious nature of what happened. A couple of questions though. I am assuming you are not IFR rated, but not that it would matter, did you you experience any spatial disorientation? Also, did you have an autopilot and did you use it?

According the the FAA Airplane Flying Handbook CH13, "Accident statistics show that the pilot who has not been trained in attitude instrument flying, or one whose instrument skills have eroded, will lose control of the airplane in about 10 minutes once forced to rely solely on instrument reference."

Further it states "The first steps necessary for surviving an encounter with instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) by a VFR pilot are:
• Recognition and acceptance of the seriousness of the situation and the need for immediate remedial action.
• Maintaining control of the airplane.
• Obtaining the appropriate assistance in getting the airplane safely on the ground."

Good job keeping your cool and doing what you needed to do to get it back down safely. Thanks for sharing. I for one know that you expose yourself to lot's of criticism when you share the mistakes that you have made. Still, there are some who will learn and take heed.

Additionally let me recommend to you the Instrument Flying Hanbook http://www.faa.gov/library/manuals/aviation/instrument_flying_handbook/

I am pretty sure you can log your time as "actual" instrument.
 
Thanks Tony.
I experienced slight disorientation when in my low-level turns vis started to completely grey-out (clouds). I did pretty well in my instrument portion of my PPL training (no I am not instrument-rated) and even got a bit of extra hood instruction with "partial panel". I also really ejoyed hood-training, finding it very focussing. So I was very careful to ignore my senses and focus on the artificial horizon (which may have saved my life today) and my airspeed and altitude. Altitude wasn't really helpful, because I always emerged below the clouds at least 500' AGL. It did occur to me though, that if i wasn't careful and got into a spiral while turning in clouds, I could end up unable to recover by the time I saw ground. The thought definatley occurred to me that the flight very well might end with an off-field landing, and it also occurred to me that if i wasn't VERY careful I might not survive the flight. What suprised me is how matter-of-fact I was about these thoughts though... I was pleased with myself for staying focussed on the task at-hand and not letting fear overcome me (I'm not boasting, I actually wouuld have expected myself to react more badly and am happy that I discovered I can stay focussed under this kind of pressure).
 
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Phil,

I helps that the RV9(A) is an amazing airplane and is actually a good instrument platform.

My instrument skills are rusty and I had already talked to my CFII friend earlier today to get an instrument proficiency check. Having read your account, it makes me all the more anxious to get it done.

Now you need to get on with the Flight Testing so that you can come to LOE with the rest of us! All VFR of course.
 
I am a proponent of moving map GPS, and had to be one of the first on the block to get new one, when terrain features were added. I feel good about the auto-level mode of my auto-pilot too! :)

You just never know. I've lost five aquaintences over the years to sudden whiteouts or total darkness. It's just something that happens.

L.Adamson --- RV6A/Garmin 696
 
Cloud base tip from my dad...

prkaye said:
For judging ceilings, I wonder if they make some kind of affordable hand-held radar device for this purpose...
Click to expand...

My dad gave me this rule of thumb to figure the ceiling base on the fly with just temp and dew point. No need for any electronics to get an "idea" of the cloud base. Temps change around 2 deg C for every 1000' feet right? So if your temp is lets say 8C and dew point is 4C then the cloud base will be about 2000'. Here's the math ((Temp - dew)*1000)/2 = approx base or the simpler version to remember is (temp - dew)*500 = approx base. So (8-4)*500 = 2000'
 
Thanks!

Thanks alot for sharing! A valuable lesson to all of us!
Good job keeping a cool head and that you got it down safely.

And the previous poster is so right: we'll remember the post and not the writer in such cases...
 
Don't feel alone, Phil. Most of us have done something equally boneheaded in our flying careers. And those who haven't are either lying to themselves or have already forgotten about it. :D

Early in my piloting, I needed to fly to Kansas City for lunch. I decided to leave before dawn to get a head start on the day (I was flying a Yankee back then and, at 100 knots, it was a long lunch flight).

I dialed up DUATS on my trusty Commodore 64 (yes, you read that right) and it said that the weather was "7 miles and clear" at the closest reporting airport. However, when I got to the hangar, it was obscured in light fog. Harrumph.

Well, figuring that it was "7 and clear" only about 10 miles away, and that it wasn't foggy as I drove to the aerodrome, it HAD to be a local phenomenon and I'd just climb through it into the clear sky above. Riiiiight. :rolleyes:

I did my run-up and took off into the mist. Instead of seeing a nice, clear sky within seconds, I was totally in the soup! At about 1000' AGL, I finally broke out of the "fog" into the clear air -- only to see a moonless sky and a solid undercast in the blackness with no discernable horizon! Gulp.

Like you, I had done OK on my simulated IFR training, so I fought the urge to panic and just flew on the clocks. Knowing that I couldn't turn back and land in the crud, I really had no alternative. Imagine ATC's surprise when I checked in VFR ...

I was literally IFR until I hit freakin' Peoria, and then all was OK. And, while I won't claim victory over stupidity at ALL times, I won't be "climbing through fog" again anytime soon!

Glad you handled it OK and learned from the experience. Add my screwup to your knowledge base. :D
 
Pilot error

Hi

Firstly, let me say I did almost exactly the same thing. Before take off I could see 5k horizontally, but as soon as I got to 300 to 400 foot ft......only grey. God does that grey get your attention and yes you can get diorientated very fast!! I was sure it was above circuit hight before I took off.... big mistake!!

But I never take off withot full tanks and always have a GPS, what use is fuel in a bowser and a GPS on the ground? So I flew a very low level circuit following the gps and put her on the ground ASAP!!

But I have to say this was pilot error, the aeroplane did nothing wrong, it was me the pilot who made the decision to go and I was wrong.

I know your decision to climb above worked for you but it could easily have had the opposite effect. One when doing aeros I failed to notice that the gaps in clouds I had climbed through were disappearing and that below them was heavy rainfall. I only realised this when I popped through a hole to find zero viz. I climbed back into clear air and headed in the general direction of my airfiled. No GPS this time. Then I spotted another hole I could descend through.

When I came out it was only raining lightly and I knew exactly where I was but was so disorientated it took several orbits to work out the way home. Thats why I always carry a GPS now.

If the clouds had closed in behind you you could have been very disorientated too.

But the two links that coud have made the siutaion better for you would have obviously been the GPS and fuel.

I write this not to criticise you but to reinforce the point to others who might get into the same situation.

As another member of this forum often puts 'Clever people do stupid things all the time I know I'veseen me do them!!!"

Lets all keep breaking those links in the chain that lead to accident stats by reminding each othe that we all make mistakes.

I am really glad you got down safely!!
 
Good method...

pazmanyflyer said:
My dad gave me this rule of thumb to figure the ceiling base on the fly with just temp and dew point. No need for any electronics to get an "idea" of the cloud base. Temps change around 2 deg C for every 1000' feet right? So if your temp is lets say 8C and dew point is 4C then the cloud base will be about 2000'. Here's the math ((Temp - dew)*1000)/2 = approx base or the simpler version to remember is (temp - dew)*500 = approx base. So (8-4)*500 = 2000'
Click to expand...

to use during the warmer part of the day except in hilly terrain or with non-cumulus clouds.

Thanks Phil and N8RV for the stories. I wish we had MORE of these on here! They do really help us new pilots(125 hrs).
 
I wish we had MORE of these on here! They do really help us new pilots(125 hrs).
__________________
Click to expand...


I fly in the San Joaquin Valley in California, and several times each year we have big dust storms that have caused massive chain reaction collisions on
Hwy 99 and I-5. One day I was getting my RV-3 ready to fly, and could see some brown dust in the air about 40 miles N. I thought to myself "I better
keep an eye on that", but it had been a beautiful warm day, the winds at the field were very light, and the visibility was unlimited. I have flown around
blowing dust in the valley lots of times. It's usually well localized, and you
can fly around or away from it, and just stay away from it. But this dust
storm was much bigger. I had been listening to the car radio on the way to
the airport and there was nothing mentioned, but if I had been listening
during the pre-flight, they were talking about how bad it was up in Fresno, 40 miles to the North on the traffic report. I had checked weather a few hours
earlier from the computer at home, but there was no warning about blowing dust then.
I only planned a short flight near the airport, and a couple of touch and go's.
I got distracted during the pre-flight and run up, and did not realized how
close the dust cloud was getting, how dense it was, and how fast it was approaching. As I taxied onto the active, the dust still did not look that close. I thought it was still 10 or 15 miles away. I made a bad decision and took off, thinking I could check it out from the air, and fly away from it, if necessary, and land somewhere else if it got closer. To my shock, I could then really see that the cloud was within a couple of miles of the airport to the North, and getting closer very fast. From the air, I could see the lower levels of the cloud which were much thicker than what I had been looking at when it was further away, and it started looking like that dust storm in "The Mummy" where the Mummie's face appeared in the dust. It was probably about 3000ft thick. I then made another bad decision, and decided since it was still a couple of miles or so away, I could
make an abbreviated pattern, and land before the dust got to the airport from the North. That was an even worse mistake than taking off in the first place. I should have just flown south and landed 40 or 50 miles away in clear air, well away from the dust storm,
and waited it out. As I lined up on final just before touchdown, the
dust cloud was starting to fully envelope the other end of the airport. It was dumb luck that I could still see the runway and was still VFR just as I touched down, but very shortly thereafter, during the rollout, I was suddenly completely enveloped in thick dust, and could not see much of anything, except fortunately, I could still barely make out the
centerline, and the wind, which suddenly gusted to about 50mph, was straight down the runway. A mechanic friend located at mid-field saw me on final, and from his perspective, I had disappeared into the dust on final before touchdown, and he thought I had crashed. He came tearing out in his truck to the approach end and could not find me, but I had taxied in the dust up to the other end of the runway, and he could not see me. I was back at the tiedown with my knees shaking when he gave up looking for me and came back to his hangar. The whole scenario was the stupidest thing I've ever done in flying so far.
 
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300' in the Southern Hemisphere.

Well done Phil. Kept your cool.

pazmanyflyer said:
My dad gave me this rule of thumb to figure the ceiling base on the fly with just temp and dew point. No need for any electronics to get an "idea" of the cloud base. Temps change around 2 deg C for every 1000' feet right? So if your temp is lets say 8C and dew point is 4C then the cloud base will be about 2000'. Here's the math ((Temp - dew)*1000)/2 = approx base or the simpler version to remember is (temp - dew)*500 = approx base. So (8-4)*500 = 2000'
Click to expand...

I have used Carlos's Dad's rule for for over thirty years and it has saved me embarrassment when the destination Wet and Dry bulb temps were close a few times, by prompting me to load more fuel even though the TAF was claiming CAVOK. It is particularly applicable if there is onshore winds bring moist air. Regarding the 500'. I have always used, and found accurate that each degree spread gives 300' increase in the cloud base. Maybe the 300' v. 500' is a Southern Hemisphere thing, but weather it is more accurate or not, it is conservative and will cause you to expect to enter cloud earlier.
Phil, it would be interesting if you could check what the Wet and Dry bulb temps were the day you flew.

Pete.
 
Phil, it would be interesting if you could check what the Wet and Dry bulb temps were the day you flew.
Click to expand...

Indeed... unfortunately I don't think environment canada has a station closer than ottawa or kingston, which as I indicated earlier are of questionable relevance (weather this am was very different in Ottawa than smiths falls). To implement this rule, I'd have to get one of those hand-held electronic hygrometers that KurtB mentioned.... anybody know if spruce carries something along these lines? or another supplier?
 
While You're In Test Phase...

Phil:
You should be primarily in data gathering mode. I would encourage you to limit your flying to CAVU. There's plenty of time to finish to testing, so there's no real need to push the weather. Any ceiling is going to limit the type of testing you can accomplish, and if it's low enough for you to wonder how high is up, it's also placing a limitation on your ability to climb should a problem arise.
Glad to hear everything turned out alright, as most of us can look back on our flying experiences and recall a couple of times that ended with thinking... "That was dumb".
Finally, I'd think again about mounting a GPS as soon as possible. Even in VFR weather, if offers the comfort of being able to push the "nearest" button so you know exactly the heading and distance to the nearest available field. Take a look at Advanced Flight's website and see Roger Bentlage's mounting position for his 496 - it just required fabrication of a simple bracket and offers a great position for VFR or IFR scan.
Best,
Terry, CFI
RV-9A N323TP
 
"Don't feel alone, Phil. Most of us have done something equally boneheaded in our flying careers."
Click to expand...

Here here....only I was too chicken to fess up!

Good headwork, Phil. Thanks for sharing and helping the next guy.
 
Phil, check out your nearest HVAC distributor

I have a Mfr: UEI, Mod# DTH31. Accuracy: plus or minus 3% rh, 1% temp. Very handy for my hvac business or flying and fits in your pocket.
 
More than anything else ...

... I'm glad you got back down and can be talking about this. Your willingness to share this experience is MUCH appreciated. I've gained some valuable caution as a result.
 
GPS is nice to have. Preparation is need to have.

Years ago I took of from a South Pacific tropical island (which topped out at 8,000') and flew into impenetrable tropical rain and lost all visibility but down. Under the pressure I had trouble calculating the reciprocal back to the field.
Years later I was taught the 'Procedure Turn during IFR training.
The 'Procedure Turn' is worth memorising as it's simpe and might have helped Phil.
There are a number of different procedure turns, but most require a watch and 'timing.' This one doesn't.

Turn left (or right) 90 degrees. Then immediately roll into a turn 270 degrees the other way and you will end up close to the reciprocal.
Draw it on a piece of paper and you will see why it works and it will help cement it in your brain.
Naturally the turns need to be at the same bank angle.

Pete.
 
This looks like a handy unit from Spruce:
http://www.aircraftspruce.ca/catalog/inpages/skymate_windmeter2.php

The accuracy for temp is +- 2 deg F, and for dew point is +-3 deg F, so I guess in the worst case the relative error between them is +-5 deg F = 2.7 deg C. So for a ceiling of 2000', I would want confidence in a real spread of 4 deg C, which accounting for the worst-case error of the device would be an indicated temp-dewpoint spread of at least 6.7 deg C.

Does relative humidity provide an alternate way to estimate cloud base?

The wind feature would also be handy, although I think it's usually pretty obvious standing in the wind or lookign at hte windsock whether it's too windy to fly.
 
Thanks for sharing...we all need reminders of stupid things we have done...it reminded me of same thing I did 20 years ago in cessna 150...your story was a great reminder....again THANKS
 
Interesting flight. Perhaps the best thing you did was contact ATC to get help. You know and can correct all the mistakes you made but I will add that this easily could have been a spiral dive into the ground ending.

I am a weather wuss and will do my best to never get caught in clouds. But I do have a plan should it happen. The autopilot will be engaged and a gradual descent initiated. I can monitor instruments but if I get vertigo and my instrument scan is marginal I will trust the autopilot.
 
Phil,

Congrats on getting safely on the ground. It sounds like you did everything right once you found yourself in the soup.

In my experience, if you can't clearly see the bottom of the clouds conditions are probably not suitable for VFR flight. In better conditions, there is a very clear dividing line between the cloud and the clear air underneath the cloud. The moisture content is very high in the cloud, and the air is much drier below the cloud. The dividing line between the clear air and the cloud is very distinct and easily seen.

If the dividing line between the cloud and clear air is so indistinct that you cannot see it, I think this implies that the moisture content of the air below the cloud is not very different from the moisture content of the air in the cloud. Thus the clear air is very moist, and it wouldn't take much of a change in either location or time for that piece of clear air to change to cloud. This is a recipe for finding yourself in IMC with little to no warning.

If I can't see the bottom of the cloud from the ground I don't fly VFR, unless I have some solid evidence that conditions are acceptable. I.e. I can watch someone else doing circuits, and see that they are at a safe altitude, and I can clearly see the aircraft the whole time.

The less certain I am about the weather, the more fuel I want in the tanks. I see no reason why you should restrict yourself to half tanks at this stage of your flight testing.

I have seen quite a very times when conditions in Smiths Falls were very different from conditions in Ottawa. I have been disappointed more than once when I found the conditions deterioateing as I was driving to the airport. I keep forgetting to check the CYSH Weather Webcam. WARNING - the default picture on the web cam page is not a current picture. It is an old picture, with an obstacle overlay. You need to click on the "East View" or "South View" buttons to see an up to date picture.

I've got an ancient Lowrance AirMap 100 GPS you can have if you want it. I haven't turned it on in years. I need to confirm it still works. Hopefully I remembered to take the batteries out of it.
 
Phil,
Glad to hear a good and safe outcome out of your flight and appreciate sharing it with us. Like yourself, I have no inhibition to share my goof ups in flying and one just happened as recently as last week.
I was on an IFR flight plan to a busy SF airspace. While on the approach and being confident with having my needles right on the target and popping out of the cloud, I was asked to go to tower. Well, I had dialed in the tower frequency but had overlooked and one digit was wrong (had 119.80 instead of 119.00) and it happened to be a nearby tower with the same runway. For some reason neither of us (me or the tower) ever realized this till I execute a miss approach since did not get the "clear to land" instruction and only on the go we realized the mistake. Being a VFR condition made things much easier and was able to land on my second attempt, though it earned me "request to call tower"
The call to the tower went rather easy with no yelling or citation, they were just baffled as what happened and why I did not land, since they have given me the green light. I explained that since I was talking to "A" tower, it did not have a reason to look for the light. Anyway, the lesson learned (again) is to double check frequency, destination, fixes, etc specially if you are on IFR flight plan.
 
Phil, thanks for sharing. I did my fifth flight two days ago and I think that a new RV pilot (like me) need some tach hours to become confident with the plane. Everythig happens soooo fast.

Glad for your touch down !
 
I use 3 deg. C or 5 deg. F per 1000 ft for a little safety margin and have not had a problem. If the temp, dew point spread is less I wait until it warms up a little.

Brian
 
Should not have been scary!

I have been teaching for 30 years. When this stuff happens its very simple. CLIMB, CONFESS, and CONFIRM. Don't loiter around low to the ground. Yours odds of having a problem while climbing IFR are a lot worse than hitting a tower or terrain (we call that CFIT- controlled flight into terrain). GO UP and get assistance!

Dave
 
Dave....your posts makes sense. Is that the agreed upon method for such a situation? I can see pros and cons to both trains of thought. Climbing makes sense to me but what if you start to disagree with what your instruments are telling you? If you don't get on top...you risk disorientation and/or vertigo. I would really like more opinions (preferably from CFIs) on this so it sticks in my head. There was a pilot and son killed in my area when they tried to punch through a low ceiling. Nobody knows for sure if there was a medical condition involved but the pilot knew he was going to punch through illegally and try to get on top. When they failed to get on top...well...the plane made a series of climbs, descents, turns and eventually came apart in the air and crashed.
 
I seriously doubt that CLIMB means that a VFR pilot in a new plane...probably minimal time in said plane and minimal IFR time...should climb.
 
I did something like this once..... I was scud running to Homer AK in a C-150. I called my contact in Homer and they said there where some clouds but mostly clear so I figured getting into Homer wasn't going to be a big deal, but I was sick of flying so close to the ground so when I passed a lake that had a huge clearing over it, I took the opportunity to get above the weather.

I flew another 20 minutes and was enjoying the sunshine, but it started to make me nervous that I couldn't see the ground. I flew a little further and saw another hole so figured I'll get back under while I have the chance.

I dove into the hole, only to find myself in some rolling hills (I won't call them mountains since I live in Alaska and know what real mountains look like) that where obscured by the weather.

I could see well enough to get around so I flew towards the coastline to get out of the terrain then flew up the coast to Homer where I landed without any trouble.

I learned a number of important lessons from this flight:

1. A C-150 just doesn't have the performance to fly above the weather.

2. The only difference between IFR and flying above the weather in VFR weather is that you know which way is up when above the weather. Your still screwed if something goes wrong.

3. Scud running is stupid, but flirting with IFR in the mountains is more stupid.

4. Get a plan and stick to it. I would have been just fine if I continued to scud run, or if I continued to Homer above the weather. Don't go diving through a sucker hole unless you know exactly what is under it.

5. Always have a GPS on board. My new airplane (a bearhawk) has synthetic vision, multiple sources of attitude, and a handheld gps.

6. Always have enough fuel to divert to an airport that is sure to have better weather.


My new airplane is IFR equipped and I'm going to get my IFR rating. Not that I have any interest in flying single engine IFR in AK, but I really want to have every option available to me in case I do something stupid.

I disagree with some pilots that say IFR in Alaska is dumb and they will never do it no matter what since those guys eventually play the scud run/sucker hole game which really isn't any safer.

Anyway, hopefully my story helps someone...

schu
 
Kevin was very kind to loan me his old Lowrance AirMap... I picked it up from him last night and spent an hour or so getting used to it at home last night. This will be an extremely nice thing to have along with me until I can afford to buy a Garmin Aera. The AirMap actually has everything I need - no pretty colours but it has an airport database with runway, elevation, com frequencies etc, a "nearest" function, a very basic black andwhite moving map display, a screen backlight, and a nice intuitive navigation display. It will display a CDI under the map - all of my GPS experience in rental planes is exclusively limited to chasing the CDI needle on a small panel mounted GPS with no moving-map, and this has always worked fine for me.
Kevin's loan of his Airmap is very, very much appreciated, and may mean I can hold off on the purchase of an Aera for a while (finishing the plane this year on top of building a hangar 2 years ago has stretched my budget past the limit!).
Planning to go up again tomorrow. Looking forward to trying-out the Airmap in-flight.
 
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GPS

prkaye said:
Well, this morning I had the scariest flight of my life - due not to any problem with the aircraft nor due to piloting error, but due to a poor judgment of ceiling height before takeoff. Let me preface the story by jumping to the conclusion - a happy ending with a valuable lesson-learned. I thought about keeping this under my hat, but I'm a believer in admitting my mistakes, and pilots should always share stories from which lessons can be learned.

This morning I left Ottawa in my car and the skies were completely clear. As I drove towards Smiths Falls airport a ceiling formed, and there was some very low-level foggy cloud, which could be seen when looking to the distance down the road.

I arrived and spent an hour or so doing various preflight things and chatting with Korrey while I waited for the fog to lift. At about 10:00 am ground visibility was fine and I could see the trees on nearby hills. Above me was a solid layer of gray, but i couldn't discern any of the tell-tale individual cloud details that indicate a very low ceiling. So I decided I should have at least enough height for circuits and could evaluate when airborne.

As I taxiied out I was pleased that my new main gear leg stiffeners seemed to make the plane drive much more solidly (reduced shimmy). The air was the coolest it's been on any of C-FUNC's flights so-far, and she climbed very nicely on takeoff. I was feeling good about all this, when suddenly I found myself surrounded by gray, at about 700 feet AGL. I poked the nose forward but it was too late - my climb rate was high and before I knew it I was totally engulfed. I reduced power and started a medium turn to the right, watching my artificial horizon and airspeed. I hoped I could come out below the clouds and just do a low-level circuit to land. By the time I ducked out under the clouds, though (probably 500-700' AGL) I had lost the runway. I continued to circle, focusing on skimming the bottom of the clouds, keeping airspeed up, while trying to navigate. Now, two problems made the situation more serious. One, I didn't a lot of fuel. I have been doing my test flying on less than half tanks to keep the weight down. So I couldn't just fly around all day waiting for the clouds to clear. So I throttled back, and leaned-out the mixture to reduce fuel consumption (luckily I'm past the really criticial part of the engine break-in). The second problem, I had no GPS.

I didn't know how thick the cloud layer was, so I decided I should continue to skim around at low altitude, not flying in any one direction for too long to avoid getting too far away. I tried calling Ottawa Terminal, but was too low to make radio contact. My preferred general direction would have been West, towards Ottawa, except that the low-level cloud seemed worse to the west, and slightly better to the East. After a few minutes of aviating and thinking, I saw some blue sky peeking through small breaks in the clouds. I could see it wasn't too thick, so I glued my eyes to the instruments, throttled up and climbed through the pea-soup.

Very quickly I emerged on top of the layer and leveled out in cruise at about 2000'AGL. I then contacted Ottawa Terminal. The controller was very helpful and vectored me on a heading direct to Smiths Falls. He also reported there were only few clouds in Ottawa, so that was a backup plan. When he reported I was only 2 miles from Smiths Falls Airport, I saw glimpses of ground beneath the clouds, so I decided to poke down below, evaluate if I had enough visibility, and land at Smiths Falls if possible. If not, I would climb back up and get assistance back to Ottawa (the whole time I was nervous about the fuel, so I had throttled back and leaned out to about 7GPH). When I emerged beneath the clouds at 700'AGL, I was again too low for Terminal radio, but they had some kind of relay operator so I was able to communicate through him. I reported that I was VFR, but did not see the airfield. The relay guy gave me a heading and I looked to the left and saw the runway. The sight of a runway has never been a bigger relief to me. I turned final and landed without incident (except I think I may have a slight shimmy on my nose gear leg, which might require adding a stiffener there too).

In hindsight, I think I did all the right things to bring the flight to a safe conclusion, and I am pleased that C-FUNC proved her worth by getting me home. But I acknowledge that I shouldn't have gotten into this situation to begin with. The main lesson-learned for me is to find a better way of estimating ceiling height before taking off from an airport with no ATIS. My "eyeball" technique clearly isn't reliable. Also, I learned to be *very* careful about the "go up for a circuit to check-out ceilings" approach. I underestimated how easy it is to lose the airport very quickly. A GPS would have probably successfully ended this flight after 10 minutes rather than the 30 minutes of TACH time I logged, but I've been holding off on that purchase until I'm done my 25-hours and am ready for x-country.

For judging ceilings, I wonder if they make some kind of affordable hand-held radar device for this purpose...
Click to expand...

Do a web search for an IFLY700, it is a nice moving map not too expensive, I like mine.
 
Issues

Same old story. It's not usually one thing that gets you into trouble but several stacking up. Low ceiling, less fuel than you would like and forgot the GPS. When the dew point and temp match it can turn to scud. It doesn't happen up to down or left to right. It just happens and quickly. The laws of Physics cannot be suspended, either in your favor not against it. Sooner or later we've all been there. Some can still talk about it, others can't.
 
Do a web search for an IFLY700
Click to expand...

I actually take issue with the way that product is marketed and sold. The device basically stops working in any useful way if you don't continue to pay for updates every year. That isn't made clear in their product advertising unless you dig around the site and read the FAQ. I find that deceptive and it urks me. Also, I don't believe you get any guarantee that the subscription price won't go up over the years. And since it's a very small company, if the guy dies or retires or shuts his company down for any other reason, the product becomes useless.

I plan to buy a Garmin Aera 500. Not as pretty as the IFLY700, smaller screen and $300 more money for the device, but Garmin is a much bigger company giving a better guaruntee of ongoing updates/support. Also, the device doesn't stop working on me if I forget to buy an update, and I can choose how often to do updates based on my own requirements and preferences.
 
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