VFR Into IMC

you go bad so fast that you're not gonna get out of it I thought it would be easier it gets pretty hairy very quickly my heart rate was racing even though even though I was in a machine you treated as real it's scary many pilots are familiar with the hundred and seventy eight seconds to live scenario based upon research from the University of Illinois the study found that 178 seconds was the average time it took for a VFR pilot to lose control of their aircraft in simulated instrument meteorological conditions smart pilot wanted to test the hundred and seventy eight seconds to live premise so we conducted our own experiment seventeen pilots were recruited all had varied amounts of flight time some into the thousands of hours and all the volunteers had little or no instrument training using a red bird simulator at precise pilot each volunteer started out in low ceilings with a five mile visibility flying at an indicated 1,500 feet the visibility continued to lower and eventually all found themselves in instrument meteorological conditions well you know everything started off very very well you know I used a lot of my VF our training was looking outside the window quite a bit felt quite comfortable and then as they you know everything started to deteriorate you know moved my eyes back inside and onto the instruments to make sure that I met the safe minimum altitudes and then it was really to see if I could if I could fly through it if it was something that was that was quick to fly through once I realized that it wasn't you know I started to execute a 180 where I had paid very close attention to the to the heading going in and the back course heading all of a sudden in the turn and now with turbulence and making sure that I was maintaining the aircraft those numbers became blurred in my mind and so I actually started flying in circles before I realized that that have missed my back horse so that would have set me up for even greater failure I am not used to scanning the instruments so as soon as we grin in the clouds I'm obviously in trouble you do the best you can I didn't invert it but virtually I was such a steep Bank that we could have flown in the ground I was in such a steep turn I couldn't bring it out of that those are the trees yeah I want to try to level out the ground came before her the flick breath which unfortunate the reason why she would fight is so hazardous to management rated pilots is because you have all these cues from your body the g-forces are playing tricks on you the ideas always rely on the instrument this is the air the most reliable just maintain level flight with them do everything you can to stay out of the the soup you quickly learn to look at the instruments not try to figure out what's the hand you need your body motion you doesn't tell you anything when you can't see yes Benchley I didn't scan long enough my initial thought was to climb to a safe altitude about 3,000 feet perhaps eight above ground and then concentrate on figure out where I was getting into deep into the clauser tracing an altitude of 3,000 feet and you're getting into cumulus you're getting into bad conditions and you'll have all sorts of things winds here turbulence gusty winds might encounter precipitation but the higher I got the worse the situation became whether it was due to icing or turbulence perhaps or or pilot induced issues so sadly my plan failed in the end although I didn't hit the ground I did manage to to disassemble the airplane in flames without intrument training you aren't briefed to punt about I see you are briefed about turbulence convective currents wind shear things like that and that's very dangerous when when that lack of knowledge comes into play in these conditions and the fr pilots just don't have the proficiency at you know proper scanning techniques the maximum steepness of a turn for example today I saw most turns away from the weather we're at 30 45 degree banks in instrument conditions you want to have a maximum great winter oh my god that's pretty well I came to mind it's since I have no experience I was watching only one instrument really well to the rate of climb in the and the turnin bank and very difficult to try to look at your intimates all the time and stay out of trouble the ability to turn just wasn't available to me like I couldn't do it I just didn't know how to do it because I'm already been very low to the ground and can't see and just basically lost it so what just happened is yeah if you probably lost sight of yeah a lot of fight over everything yeah so so doesn't get fixated I'm some of the instruments others yeah a popper scan is the best thing best thing to do in the situation as well a reverse course and talk to someone maybe adopt a button villager on toe just to get some vectors get some guidance you can't see anything you can't see traffic you can't see obstacles yeah Eddie oh the grounds pretty bad yeah but the most important thing is no co-pilot go no-go decisions yeah never to go honestly after 15 hours of a hood time it seems that it would have been like if had none whatsoever I was a total beginner that was the strategy is to know I had won 180 degrees to course don't want to get back home but while I was turning I was in controlling my rate and I was definitely controlling my climb rate or my descent rate so it was a bit of a disaster of course as soon as the super leader starts up you can still see some preference outside little tops of the trees which is okay but as it starts to close in of course now your focus has to go strictly to it's to recline and where I found is even though I said earlier that I would not fixate on anything in particular you do find yourself doing that so you break away from that by the time you start doing that you've already gotten behind the airplane so it's very easy to get behind the airplane so you have don't throttle control trying to you know keep it level and of course you'd in the back of your head you're trying to get your reciprocal heavy when you come back out of it all the same time to get tossed around with a little bit of turbulence your brain saying one thing the instruments saying something else and of course you always try to believe the instrument but I can see where you definitely need to have a lot of good time or simulator time smart pilots volunteer candidates had an across-the-board average of 267 seconds before either impacting terrain or experiencing what would equate to an in-flight failure what they personally experienced reinforce the point that if you're not instrument qualified and the weather looks sketchy eliminate the risk and wait it out

Channel: SmartPilotCanada

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Id: 1mTwpplTnb4

Length: 7min 5sec (425 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 04 2014