On 2006-04-24, Jay Honeck wrote:
I have found the obstruction databases in both of our moving map GPS's
(AvMap EKP IIIc and Lowrance 2000c) to be remarkable -- almost eerily
-- accurate. I'm sure they're missing some, but, wow, I would NOT want
to be without this remarkable tool.

Even so, just in case - if I found myself in a situation where things
had turned to a scud run, it's a good idea to:

- slow down (gives you more time to see obstructions)
- don't fly on the base of the clouds

This second one sounds a bit counter-intuitive (after all, if you do
that, you'll be the furthest away you can be from the ground, right?) -
but the visibility is often MUCH better if you fly lower. Sparky Imeson
in his mountain flying website recommends flying in the lower third of
the air (divide the space between terror firma and the clouds into
thirds, and fly in the lower third). But I shudder at the idea of scud
running in the mountains.

Incidentally, on the general subject of stupid pilot tricks, I've made
my fair share and had a few flights that read like the start of an
accident report (and I still shudder about some of them - even if I
didn't at the time, and even if so far I've been able to put them all
down to experience having merely got a fright and never bending a plane).
I have around 1200 hours in light planes - anyone
with this amount of flight time who says they have never made a stupid
pilot trick were either with the airlines ab-initio (and probably made
the SPT in the simulator) or are lying, or are so unaware they haven't
even realised that they've made some SPTs and just got lucky (and are
probably even now looking for that grid reference).

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