"Travis Marlatte" wrote
I'm not sure which comes first. Disorientation or panic. Either one will
cause the other. You seem to have an easy time keeping your perspective
without visual references. Many people are not that fortunate and have to
consciously fight the urge to fly by the seat of their pants when their
physical sensors gets confused.

I doubt that my situation is unique - I know lots of people who have
no problem trusting the instruments. As I said above, I suspect the
issue is one of initial flight training. If you learn to use the
instruments for aircraft control from day one, they are familiar. As
visual references become less and less useful, you just naturally rely
on the instruments to a greater extent. That's what the integrated
method of instruction is all about.

I suspect the people who have to consciously fight the urge to fly by
the seat of the pants were trained to do that. Such instructors start
covering up instruments the moment a student starts using them to make
his life easier. Thus they teach a lesson below the conscious level -
and that lesson is that the instruments are not reliable, and that one
can rely only on the seat of the pants. There are still plenty of
flight instructors who believe this is the right way. As you may have
gathered, I am not one of them.

Given the accident statistics for VFR flight
into IMC, that seems to be true of instrument trained pilots and not.

One of the fundamental principles of learning is the principle of
primacy. That which is taught first is best remembered. It's much
easier to learn it the right way from day one than to unlearn it
later, and there is a regrettable tendency to revert to the earliest
training under stress.

JFK and many others have become victims because they were not able to
recognize the problem until it was too late. Once the problem develops,
panic probably prevented them from taking simple steps that would have saved
the day.

I concur.

By tracking VORs, watching min altitudes and contour lines on sectionals,
VFR pilots have enough training to navigate and avoid the ground without
visual references.

Absolutely.

Presumably, by the time they have to descend below
surrounding min altitudes, there would be airport lights to guide them.

Right - that's the idea.

How
often do VFR pilots pay that much attention to the section while trying to
fly the plane.

I would imagine all the time. I can remember conducting more than a
few flights in exactly the manner you describe.

I think that flying in VMC in the dark is probably the scariest thing. You
are responsible for see and avoid and yet, you need to have your head in the
cockpit to control the plane. For me, swiveling my head for an outside scan
can be disorienting.

Trust me - it gets better with practice.

Too dark to see the clouds you might be flying into?
Hmm. I hope that there is only one of you out there.

You know, in the UK flying IFR in uncontrolled airspace, without a
clearance, is quite normal. I don't believe there has ever been a
midair due to this practice. There are only a very few areas where
airplanes congregate - basically just VOR's and busy airports. These
days, GPS makes it totally unnecessary to fly VOR-to-VOR, and busy
airports are well lit.

VFR pilot in a VFR plane at night in the dark. How accurate is the
altimeter. Pitot/static system been tested lately?

Who cares? The pitot-static check is of no value whatsoever in a slow
unpressurized airplane. So what if the static system leaks? About
the maximum error you will get from the venturi effect is maybe 100
ft. You can effectively check the altimeter at any airport with
weather reporting - just set it to the altimeter setting and check
against field elevation. If it's about right, it's plenty close
enough for cruising flight.

What you're doing here is spreading FUD - Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt.

Vacuum, gyro, turn
coordinator? That's an awful lot of things that can go wrong in a plane that
doesn't officially need most of it just when the pilot might.

More FUD.

There are three gyros on two independent power sources in most
airplanes, and realistically a simple trainer only needs one of them -
any one. If they were working to begin with, what are the odds they
are all going to fail?

Besides, do you know what kind of gyro checks are required for Part 91
IFR? Right, none.

Michael