"chris" wrote in message
oups.com...
On Apr 4, 2:10 pm, "EridanMan" wrote:
On Apr 3, 2:42 am, Mxsmanic wrote:

Sylvain writes:
if you are entering IMC while VFR, knowing where you are will be
the least of your problem: you'll be dead before it matters one
way or the other.

Not if you know how to fly with instruments.

Knowing how to fly with instruments is not enough. The
rationalization that you are currently pushing is among _THE_ most
deadly in aviation.

Frankly, knowing how to fly with instruments is kinda a given to even
get in a cockpit. Its really trivially easy (how hard is it to keep
an artificial horizon level?)

Knowing how to fly with instruments and assuming that means you'll be
safe in IMC is one of the few near-guarantees of ending up an aviation
statistic. The term Sophomore applies more here than probably in any
other aspect of aviation.

Flying on instruments, for a few seconds at least, is trivial.
Operating an aircraft on instruments for anything more than a half
minute or so, is a different animal. What's worse, it doesn't lend
itself to a mistake. Fixate for just 30 seconds on any one thing and
there's a decent chance you'll be beyond recovery.

The other compounding factor is the fact that flying an aircraft is
like walking (or any other physical activity) in that many of the
actions and behaviors you do to respond to the aircraft very quickly
"program" themselves into your muscle memory... (this is actually
important and the mark of a good 'stick and rudder' pilot). Things
like adding the proper rudder in a turn, or correcting for a
turbulence-induced upset (or, as you get better, preventing sed upset
from occurring by feeling it in the yoke and countering it)... These
are all mechanical skills that get programmed by experience.

This is all well, good, and beneficial for good stick and rudder
flying, but the same adaptations that make for a pilot who can shrug
off a gusty crosswind on landing can become VERY dangerous if
incorrectly triggered in an IMC environment.

For example: oddly enough in my piper flying IMC, the act of bending
forward to switch my fuel tanks induces vertigo that feels precisely
like a left-bank turbulence upset. If I bend forward to switch tanks
in IMC while my left hand is on the yoke, my arm will INSTINCTUALLY
move to counter-act the upset. I have no more control over the action
than a baseball player does to close his mitt when he catches a
baseball. Hence, experience in IMC (with a safety pilot) has taught
me to hold the yoke with my right hand during a tank switch (which has
no such muscle memory), so that my brain does automatically attempt to
right the aircraft.

This is not ignorance on the part of the pilot, its simply trained
reflexes manifesting themselves in incorrect ways. The _ONLY_ thing
that can prepare a pilot to be able to control these reflexes and
understand how their personal body and training will respond in the
sensory-limited world of IMC is experience. Period.

Knowing what pictures to look for in the various gauges is laughably
trivial. Knowing what sort of sensations to expect, and what sort of
behavior they will invoke because of your training - THAT is what
keeps you alive IMC.

And thinking that knowing the procedures and gauges is all you need is
a terribly foolish and quite possibly fatal rationalization,
especially if you use to to justify pushing your personal weather/
visibility minimums to a situation where you stand the risk of being
caught inadvertently in clag.

I have come to the conclusion that although mx is wrong about a lot of
stuff, the danger is not to himself, as he has already told us he has
no intention of flying, but instead to those who actually do fly (I am
thinking of student pilots here) and read his posts and get dangerous
ideas from him.


Indeed. This is one of the most difficult concepts for a student pilot to
fully realize, and in reduced visibility situations at night can be just as
confusing, although seldom as deadly. Until you actually try to fly an real
aircraft in IMC, you will never fully realize the danger. A lot of new and
student pilots make the same mistake MC. But the reality is, it's very
difficult, has to be learned, and can't possibly be simulated.