In article ,
says...
Mxsmanic wrote:

I had the same thing happen in the sim today; you just have to keep your
eye
on the instruments. If there's nothing to see outside the window, there's
no reason _not_ to keep your eye on the instruments.

there are a number of things in an aircraft under IFR that might take
your attention away from the instruments and which are not confined within
a screen right in front of your eyes; in no particular order: checking
the outside temp and looking whether you are getting ice; I know you
read the forecast, but there are always surprises; dealing
with the passager who has just barfed into your charts; changing
frequencies; looking for clean charts and/or reading them; remember,
no 'pause' button; going through check lists; occasionally talking
to a real live person on the other side of the radio who gave
you a complicated clearance that is only superficially related to
what you asked, etc.

Yeah I won't forget the day I was on a flight from Christchurch (NZCH)
to Omarama (NZOA) with 1 pax OB. I'd got my mate Marty to take the
controls while I sorted my next position report (head burried in the
charts and my paperwork etc). At the time we were below 3000' AGL and
so not that far below the cloud layer.

Well when I looked up, we were IN THE SOUP. 'course I near shat myself
(as well as wondering why the hell Marty had said nothing at all to me).
I was also aware of the large mountains not that far in front of us.

So in fairly quick sequence it was:
"I have control".
Use the intruments.
Keep the wings level.
Get a descent going.

And while I was telling Marty to keep an eye out the window for the
ground, we pretty much broke out of it at that time.

We didn't say much to each other until Omarama - me; I was thinking long
and hard about my mistakes (Marty's flown with me on many occasions and
he's a smart guy, he knows we don't venture into clouds). At the end of
the day I concluded it was a big mistake of mine to put as much faith in
Marty as I had done - I'm a trained pilot - but Marty isn't.

Since then I keep a close eye on what my 'co-pilot's' doing. I know
they like to have a go at it - hey it's fun - but I ensure it's taking
pressure off me and not putting it on (or leading us in that direction).

--
Duncan