How to Train to Avoid Inadvertent IMC Tragedy like Kobe Bryant InTheHangar Ep 76

flying into clouds has been killing pilots since men and women started to fly it's been made famous recently by the Kobe Bryant tragedy we're gonna be talking about how to prevent inadvertent imc in the hangar [Music] hello and welcome I'm Dan Milliken and I'm Christy Wong today's episode is brought to you by Wingfield aviation we're gonna be talking about inadvertent imc Christy what I'm seeing IMC is instrument meteorological conditions and means that you're flying in the clouds and fog and things like that where you can't see outside yeah joining us today from 80 systems we have Andre Andre thank you so much so much for having us all right and we have Tyson Tyson thank you being here thank you so much all right so guys you know we're talking about inadvertent I am seeing let's really jump into the definition of what that is I mean specially in light of the Kobe Bryant tragedy and we're hearing the term spatial disorientation and all that kind of stuff so what is this well in of art and imc is a term we've used for a long time the FAA is actually transitioning to you IMC unintentional instrument instrument meteorological conditions you'll hear us use those terms pretty synonymously okay basically what's happening is a pilot for whatever reason is going into an environment where they cannot see their the horizon special VFR could be a condition but not necessarily as you go into those environments and you start losing those horizons is where that inadvertent piece comes in well and you mentioned special VFR because in the Kobe Bryant the situation people are hearing that in there I don't think they're quite understanding what that is and special VFR you're still not allowed to fly into IMC correct you're just Mabel have to maintain visual conditions absolutely and I think there's confusion even with pilots between IMC versus IFR and VMC versus VFR while they're similar they are different of the visual flight rules that you fly in versus the actual meteorological conditions and I think that is kind of lost sometimes and let's define some of those letters because some of the people that are watching maybe they're not pilots but they're wanting to understand this situation so when we say VFR we're talking about visual flight rules the the FAA allows pilots to fly by two different rules you can either fly by visual rules or you fly by instrument rules so you hear the term VFR or visual instrument for it will be IFR absolutely and then along with that you have the conditions that denote what flight rules you are flying on instrument conditions are visual condition absolutes so a helicopter can fly at a half-mile visibility and clear clouds in special VFR which is much lower than what an airplane can fly at the other I won't say cause but problem why this is more prevalent in the helicopter community is helicopter is inherently unstable at low air speeds so when you fly in that half mile clear cloud environment you're gonna slow your aircraft way down you're probably gonna be you know coming down closer to the surface so that you can see more obstacles keep your orientation so unlike airplanes that request special VFR when a helicopter request via special VFR half-mile clear clouds half mile visibility if you've never flown in it is it's your your your IMC I mean yeah half mile is nothing right I think that there's a question out there in the pilot community how could this happen you know you you get into a situation you know it's cloudy or foggy or low visibility when does it become you know VMC and then all of a sudden oops I'm in the clouds did you not see it coming kind of thing it tends to be a gradual transition it's and then that actually is part of where our training has gone wrong over the years is we've trained it where it's it's instant and that's not what really causes the problem when you start talking about specialist orientations some of the illusions so it tends to happen gradually so it's the froggen water it is okay the other challenge that that comes into that and which creates this problem is that no one has been effectively trained because the current methods are inadequate we're using simulators that lack excuse me they had the ability to create visual illusions but they lack the ability to create vestibular illusion okay so before we get going let's take a step back there's iím C which is a condition and then there's spatial disorientation which is the root cause of the accident and they're there they're tied together but we want to make sure we're not saying that I IMC causes the accident right it I am see it's the the condition of the situation but the pilots experience pilot to come back inside on his instruments and it's that transition from using your visual system to to get your spatial orientation and then transitioning down into your your instruments and how quickly you can make that transition and how your mind associates what they're seeing on the instruments and that's where the the spatial disorientation that Tyson's about to talk about it really it affects your your motor skills and your cognitive ability how big of a problem is it about a hundred million dollars a year in civil aviation two helicopters just average the helicopter to the air two aircraft loss of aircraft equipment personnel overall loss to the civil market in the United States averages 100 million dollars a year and just to be clear you guys buy both fixed-wing and helicopters correct yes both I kind of joked that the greatest thing that helicopter can do is hover the worst thing a helicopter can do in this condition is hover so like Andre alluded earlier helicopter pilot is going to slow down because we can the faster I go the faster the world's coming at me the slower I go the more I can see and start to start dressing so the first thing it's gonna happen is we're as slowed down helicopters are inherently unstable most depending on your platform you may have some automatic flight control system some things that help a little bit but not necessarily gonna help you stay in trim and those types of things so as we start slowing down we're gonna pitch our nose up that's how the helicopter flies so already I have a I have a horizon that may or may not be that visible to begin with when you pitch your nose up you're further removing yourself from being able to see that horizon because now I'm pointing myself from my nose if you will I'm pointing it toward that toward that fog that cloud so I'm going to lose that horizon so that's where the next step really this is where the problem starts I'm already high a pitch nose high pitch attitude because I'm slowing back I'm slow making the aircraft less stable decelerating so it's a decelerating attitude so you're pitching the nose up to start decelerating the aircraft so now your your decelerating the aircraft I don't want to say unusual attitude because it's not an unusual attitude it's an abnormal attitude that's not our normal flight profile at that point a couple different things can happen either the pilot continues to fight and stay outside and we can cite examples of that happening or the pilot transitions inside but let's talk about that transition because I've had the question after after the Kobe Bryant accident I've had that question I can't even count how many times we were at Le Expo that next week and it just kept coming up why can helicopter pilots not falaya far that's not the problem excuse me helicopter helicopter pilots can fly IFR we don't see helicopters falling out of the sky regularly yet we fly instruments all the time long time so it's not a matter of flying IFR it's the transition between the visual flight and the vision and the instrument flight so what's happening we'll just use a little scenario so we've already talked we're gonna slow down we're going to go down which now we're closer to the earth we've got that nose-high attitude we pick up a false horizon creates that visual illusion that visual illusion because the vision system makes up 80% of your sensory for your orientation it can convince your ears and a good example of this is if I put you in a simulator you're fully engrossed in the scenario you feel like you're moving you're turning everything's going right until the time you turn around look behind you and immediately your brain cages the reason your brain cages is because your vestibular system is not involved in this process it takes 20 seconds of motion according to the FAA 20 seconds of motion to actually create illusions in the vestibular the inner ear system so as we transition now we have visual illusions with that false horizon the ears have gotten on board because the eyes convinced it now we go this isn't going to work now we transition inside this is the first time a pilot has experienced that confusion the brain is having to process two pieces of information which it's never done at the same time before in a simulator it's processed visual illusions and when you look inside immediately your brain cages because there's no conflicting information I can go out as an instrument instructor I can go out close your eyes put you in the lanes and I can demonstrate the lanes john f kennedy's accident so I can demonstrate independently those two things the missing training piece is the fact I can't create visual and vestibular illusions in either of those conditions so going back to our accident sequence this is the first time the brains process this data both visual and vestibular where they're conflicting that turns the brain and what's fast brain slow brain fast brain is that intuitive action so we preached delay intuitive action but the problem is is the brains not capable of doing it because the brain has not been trained to delay intuitive action high-stress situations we've all seen the stress stress curve of performance were well past that we were talking earlier about the IMC video with the fixed-wing right and he was very scared his brain was certainly well past that stress level so he's this this instance the first time the brains getting conflicting information the brain starts I won't say shutting down but slowing down for sure which speeds up the processes of making decisions because it's not going through the slow brain side which is taking in information in making a decision it's instantly making decision it is not delaying his fruitive actions when you look at these accidents and we can cite all you want the the California accident a few weeks ago 8,000 our pilot the army for the crashed at Blackhawk uh-60 Mike helicopter off the coast of Florida in 2015 8,000 our pilot on the flight controls they crashed one in Hawaii in 2017 2300 our pilot it's not flight time it's not instruments it's the transition period and the fact that no pilot has been trained to deal with the vestibular and visual confusion and the fast brain responds to these conditions so how do we do that what is the solution to being able to do that the answer is to put them in the aircraft and you'll hear our term is degraded visual environment it's an army term but it describes the environment it's any environment that's visually degraded regardless it could be a dust landing it could be fog it doesn't matter they obscure it it could be a death finding for the army and for the military we we land into into dust a lot and I'm thinking he'll okay helicopter now you can see where the ground this is something that a Texas fixed-wing pilot wouldn't necessarily encounter I always joke if anyone ever says that they like test landings they're crazy or lying doesn't matter which one because it's an issue it's a problem learning something yes I do want to take a step back and talk about we're kind of discussing the differences between fixed-wing and helicopters and the what brings on the spatial disorientation so the inner ear the vestibular system has fluid in a semicircular canals that are lined up in the pitch the roll in the all axis as well as an otolith organ that is excited when you decelerate or accelerate or climb or descend you know in an airplane in a fixed-wing they're inherently stable I can take if I have everything trimmed up I can take my hands off the controls it will continue to fly so if I inadvertently go into the IMC conditions if I do nothing the plane continues to fly I have a couple minutes I can I can try to cage my brain on the instruments and take a few seconds and say okay I'm climbing my air speeds okay my wings are level in a helicopter once we've slowed down and descended there every both my feet my my collective and my cyclic are all moving I'm trying to remain in control of the aircraft and it it requires all four controls all the time oh that's interesting we can't just let go and then try to to make sense of the information the aircraft won't fly on its own so that fast brain that Tyson talked about we we fly instinctually we do it at a hover with our eyes we're constantly making small inputs based on what we see in our field of view but as we're slow and we lose our visual when we come inside we're immediately our brain is immediately relying on my vestibule er system it's telling my body am I still turning am I not turning I have met maybe I was in a constant rate turn trying to do a 180 back out of the environment and the fluids it came back down and centered so my brain is telling my body I'm level but yet I'm in a turn so when I when I do transition I finally lose the visual environment I transition my brain saying you're level and my attitude indicators like this so now I got to decide it is my attitude indicator failing you know okay now I've got to look at my and and I'm gonna make an intuitive reaction and it may be in the opposite direction and now I'm watching the attitude indicator go even further now you got to take into account half mile clear clouds which means we can come down to 20 feet off the trees if we have to we have some some pictures of helicopters following roads 10 feet above the powerlines just trying to get to where they're going and in that environment one wrong input and it's unrecoverable in a helicopter most these accidents if you look historically at them whether it be army or civilian less than 30 seconds and most of them are more in the neighborhood of 15 to about 22 or 23 seconds from the time the pilot clearly becomes spatially disoriented in the time of the accident how do we train it yeah how do we fix this we have to put people in aircraft in an environment that we can degrade the visual environment we can create it's not good or bad vision it's limited vision so by putting them in an aircraft and giving them say a mile visibility or 1/2 mile visibility we're creating an environment conducive to that visual illusion the body is gonna do the rest for us as long as we're in the aircraft because all the forces are acting on the aircraft I create the eye I take a system that creates a visual a restricted visual which creates the visual illusion and then just like I said earlier the vestibular system is going to get onboard gonna get confused and then create that overall overwhelming sense in the brain in an aircraft and for anyone's been in the simulator they're great training devices absolutely I've never been scared in a simulator I've read screen more than more than I care to share but I've never been scared the opposite is true you put as someone in an aircraft it doesn't matter how many times you've done in a simulator it's different it's more there's a human factor it's real absolutely yeah and the human factor is a big part of this it's decision-making skills it's your ability to to correct the aircraft at the proper time and right now the answer has always been they need more instrument time they need more simulator time so we continually put these people back in the simulator and even a full motion simulator still works in a 1g environment you can't create G's in a simulator you can drop aside you can raise the nose and you can drop the other side but the fluid in the ear isn't getting pushed to the outside and then at a constant rate it settles back even when you're still in that manoeuvre and then when you snap out of it it thinks you're in the opposite turn we're talking blindfolds then I should we should put our students in blindfolds and then we use for muggles right now in the fixed wing I mean I don't know what you guys do in helicopters we use the same thing but again that's either an on or off environment right okay so you know when you're gonna put the fog was on there's no there's no fear there's no anxiety there's no miscues between you have them on you put them on now you're on the instruments and there's no transition there's no there's no decreased visibility you either have visibility or you don't know is that degree how do you accept that's what actually started our company after 2015 when the army crashed off of Florida we started designing the system Andre and I are both military pilots we built it to work off the HD 56 but we actually have a system to use it for those folks that don't wore helmets and their operations but what's my goodness what you'll find is again it's not on-off like fog we can set the visibility via like it's kind of fading in and out absolutely and we can set visibility basically anything from clear down to a half mile we also can train dust landings so we really can go a lot should plot lot shorter than then then then a half mile as we transition we know well we can go down to Train inadvertent IMC IMC or dust / snow landings so when you break out it's not over and you can't roll your fog up and say hey just go laying them that's how ability to deal with ability soon only do you have to find the runway and land you're gonna figure out where you're parked too though it hits that critical transitioning phase not only just transitioning from visual to the instruments but transitioning back from instruments to visual if you want to put this on Christy kind of so the easiest thing is if you take your hands right there on those ear cups you point down just a little bit further so we we put some safety features into the helmet we put some safety features into the helmet that allow us to control when the aircraft our goal is to for you to understand what spatial disorientation feels like what it what it feels like when it comes on and how difficult it is to transition to the instruments and oh and overcome that feeling that's what we had to develop some safety features because we're trying to get you out of control so we've developed some disoriented DISA Sara Lee with the disorientation the risk is being out of control in this success by our definition is you become spatially disoriented and you fight through those conclusions and conclusions that could be a case when when we take this training back into your aircraft your office space the one that you're comfortable with it becomes real real pertinent training that is realistic and scenario based scenario basically how to deal in there I mean it's not uncomfortable it's I mean it's actually yeah Oh what is that so this this picks up that the aircraft is as Bank too far whoa yes it's going to there's something happening it's clear yeah there we go yeah okay so it's clear and it actually will flip oh they're goodness and it comes out of your field of view and the reason for that is okay so if you bank too much and you've basically failed yes at least it pops up immediately and you can absolutely but the accident that spurred us they had a simulator on their nearly therefore their installation they had eight thousand hours they were in the simulator all the time so we started asking a question well if the simulator doesn't fix it why doesn't the simulator fix it and then we started to go down the road of spatial disorientation the vestibular system and we realized that without that eight to twelve seconds of acceleration deceleration you're not getting that confusion between maybe it is sorry most of that wait is that you know maybe this piece and it's magnetic so it breaks away okay yeah you can feel how heavy this piece is these are like the bottles of the future again we just don't crash airplanes or helicopters in IFR conditions in IMC conditions it's the transition that's the focus for us all right so let's run Christy through a little bit of what happens here so Christy you tell us what you're experiencing while he does so we're gonna start just completely clear but that's not realistic because very seldom do you go from clear blue 22 - oh my gosh and if you do there's bright and early definitely give me villians push me definitely changes one of the things that came up during their in heli Expo was oh we take off at a thousand and three so clear and now it's just gradually getting worse and worse what's the frog in water your it wasn't clear and now blank I'm in the clouds it's actually just slowly progressing to where it's getting thicker now if you're in the aircraft and you're you're focusing on whatever you consider your horizon and you pick up that false horizon there's the visual illusion that's going to lead to everything else a road a hill right roads don't always stay straight you may follow it for 15 minutes and by following the road your your wings are level but then the road starts to turn to the left and you're not looking at your instruments you're watching the road and now you've started a very slow left turn to continue to follow that road we don't want to we don't want to make pilots more comfortable to fly in these conditions that's not a goal our goal is to scare them to realize that they do not want to fly in these conditions we want them to make the better decision before they take off we want them to make a better decision when the weather does start deteriorating more than they anticipated to to make a decision at that point commit to instruments stop flying helicopters can land anywhere they're fantastic I would make that work to make that decision early on then the specialist orientation then the recovery through the process but one of the problems with continuing the train and the simulator is in the simulator we go through this environment and we would go from visual to two instruments and we look down and we immediately you know write the aircraft and climb out and we're told you did a great job you eat you're properly trained so when the weather does get bad you go I've been doing this for ten years I've done these thousand times in the simulator my beer exactly it's that overconfidence you know if we can train every pilot to experience spatial disorientation understand how disorienting it is and how that affects cognitive ability to really take that information that the instrument panel has given you then they'll make better decisions about flying in engine Scotia whether I am now no longer able to make out Tyson or Andres faces Sarah but you could a minute ago I could just yeah not that long ago and it's just very slowly okay I think yeah yeah but the other focus and I'd mentioned the u.s. helicopter safety team one of the things the team has worked on is and talked about and continues to work on is realistic scenario based training so our system not to go into all the details of it but is designed around scenario based one of the things we have we take real-world accidents and recreate them Wow so you pick an accident scenario and then there's a short description of the accident scenario the for instructors wrong if the instructor can can can either brief this before the flight and talk to the student about what they're gonna go out and do or just run it let the students successfully complete it and come back debrief with the station explain that you just went through the same thing that this aircraft did this aircraft crashed and that was our focuses we did not want to attach anything to the aircraft we could go put this I wouldn't advise this we could go put this in your car drive around so it's it's absolutely standalone of the airframe itself I'm floor not pulling any data to get what we need this with the this scenario based training the reason we chose real-world accidents is pilots tend to be type-a personalities no I know I will just tell you that if I do not complete an iteration correctly Andre as my instructor has failed me because it's not my fault we took real-world accidents because it's not our opinion at that point this accident killed someone this was this happened there were fatalities here's how it developed that way the pilot if they don't do well very quickly goes oh that is that really is how that would have happened there's also some other things there available so that we can you can recreate training scenarios based on your mission if you're an EMS operators search-and-rescue operator you can cater to your exact mission set I want to add that the the human factors aspect that we talked about earlier we we talked about it and with a psychologist and it's a well - relatively well-known fact that the longer you spend trying to accomplish something the more you want to accomplish it so if we can develop a scenario over 15 20 minutes before you know you lose your vision or we start bringing you down there's that much more human Drive you know what I'm only five miles away from the airport I can make it you know instead of I'm gonna turn around or you know what this weather's moving in is supposed to be here for the next three days so I really want to sit in this lady's yard for for the next three days I need to make it I need to try to get there or if you're an EMS pilot you've already picked up your patient you know and now you've seen the patient and the nurse and the medic are working on the patient saying hey how long till we get to the hospital it creates that sense of urgency that that human factor that drives us whether it be someone in the back that is paying us to get them to a location or a child that's that needs to be at a hospital those human factors all come into a into account but we have no way to put them into use because when you sit in a simulator all those human factors go away it sounds like a very creative solution to a big industry problem we think so so so for us GA pilots who want to train to to avoid spatial disorientation how would we get something like this is this something you're just selling to schools and that they use how would it work how would I get to use this we're looking we're actually working on an actual real close to a design for the what we call our non helmeted market because there are helicopter operators that don't wear helmets tour operators oil the oil platforms offshore stuff they don't wear helmets so we're currently finalizing that design to make it available both to helicopters which is our focus because that's where the problem is but it'll be available to the civil market as well excuse me the GA fix me yes sir just promise me that if you use fossils of the future you'll at least you know give me credit bring a pair for you to try okay very good well guys listen I really appreciate you coming out she's gonna walk out with that you know some light on the situation thank you very much and if we can if I could we try to do this every time we teach a class we believe our device is the answer to this problem or at least a step in the direction but the one thing we'd like to leave with is make sure the pilots understand the limitations in their training if you're training in a simulator you're not getting vestibular if you're training the aircraft without something similar to this where we limit your visibility you're not getting the visual illusions in no condition are you getting the visual vestibular confusion and thus the fast brain slow brain problem that's the root cause that's leading to these accidents so as a chief pilot as an instructor pilot understanding limitations of our training is is important so make sure we understand make sure we understand where our training lacks to make that better decision like I said we believe our device does both of those and believe it's the the step but for those that don't want to do it is understanding that limitation is critical okay so there you have it as pilots out there and it's a really big point not just in a IMC but is understanding your own training limitations and making better decisions so thanks for watching and we really appreciate you guys and we'll see you next time in the hangar [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Taking Off

Views: 25,050

Rating: 4.9104476 out of 5

Keywords: 172, 182, 28, adventure, airplanes, airport, aviation, aviation 101, aviation videos, cessna, dan millican, faa, flight, flight instruction, flight school, flight training, flying, josh flowers, pa, pilot, piper, plane, private pilot license, serendipitous films, kobe bryant, kobe crash, rip kobe, ripkobe, iimc, imc training, ifr, vfr, imc, ifr training, foggles, christy wong

Id: MZWJtVxCjWU

Length: 29min 33sec (1773 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 28 2020