Is it possible to switch from VFR to IFR and back?

"Morgans" wrote in
:

I think I'll start a list of names that responds to MX, in any way
other than combatively.

That way, some day, I can sit back and look at the names and laugh at
them, for being such fools.

1.) Ron Garret

Good thread....

Then we do not reply to the fools as well and take back the group the way
it was.... and advise newbies to avoid these folks.

Allen

Mxsmanic wrote:
If I am instrument rated and my aircraft is fully equipped for
instrument flight, and I start out a flight with a VFR flight plan,
and it gets foggy enough that I'm below minimums, is there a way to
switch to IFR in flight,

*** I do it all the time. Coming home to the Bay Area from Fresno,
it's common
that the Valley will be severe clear, but the Bay Area will have some
clouds. It's
a pain in the butt to file IFR from the uncontrolled field in Fresno,
so I do it like this:

Immediately on takeoff from Fresno, I get flight following. Coming
up the Valley,
I ask to leave the frequency and talk to Flight Service on 122.2MHz. I
get a weather
update from them, and if there is so much as a hint of clouds in the
Bay Area, I file
and IFR flight plan with them, beginning at the next waypoint on my GPS
flight plan.
The GPS tells me when I'll be there ( ETE ), and I just make my best
guess as to
how long it'll take. Then I return to ATC.

About 10 miles from my waypoint, I mention to ATC that I would like
to activate
my IFR flight plan starting at ***. They give me the new clearance, I
write it down and
immediately turn to the new heading and altitude. Poof, I'm IFR.

If ATC isn't busy it's sometimes possible to file the IFR flight
plan in the air directly
with them. One common example is - you're flying along over a cloud
layer and
you'd like to land the airplane. So you ask ATC for an approach. I
get the feeling that
it's easier to get a single approach out of ATC directly than a whole
flight plan.

- Jerry Kaidor

wrote in news:1164646255.242808.209320
@l39g2000cwd.googlegroups.com:

*** I do it all the time. Coming home to the Bay Area from Fresno,
it's common
that the Valley will be severe clear, but the Bay Area will have some
clouds. It's
a pain in the butt to file IFR from the uncontrolled field in Fresno,
so I do it like this:

It's no biggie to get an ATC clearance from FSS? I've done this at 2G2 and
get an ATC clearance from FSS. 2G2 is below the Bravo airspace of
Pittsburg.

Just a headsup Jerry, you are dealing with a person who plays games on MSFS
and not a real aircraft. This itself is no biggie, but he is a troll and
does not give you the time of the day on your responses and question your
real world experiences as if we live in the simulated world.

While his questions are good, the intentions are questionable. Just look
back on the responses from Mxmaniac and you will clearly see what I am
talking about.

Allen

A Lieberma wrote:

While his questions are good, the intentions are questionable.


If his questions are good then what bearing does the intention have? If
you take such exception to Mx's eccentric personality then just direct
your answers to the many others who are undoubtably interested. I for
one would have liked to see some answers to his ATC questions, but you
guys made damn sure that wasn't going to happen. I think the anti-Mx
brigade are doing considerable harm whilst imagining they are doing
good, and 'Jim in NC' in particular is starting to look ridiculous.

Apologies in advance to those likely to take offence at a comment from a
mere sim pilot.

fromTheShadows wrote in news:ekf7sd$8in$1
@aioe.server.aioe.org:

If his questions are good then what bearing does the intention have?

Intentions are everything.

I'd rather put my time and effort to those that will truly use the
information rather then sit behind a keyboard and make it like the MSFS
game is reality.

As you will see from my postings, not only will I add to the responders on
topic, but I am going to advise them they are dealing with a troll.

If it talks, walks and quacks like a troll, it is a troll.

If you have questions, post away. Don't look to Mxmaniac.

If it's a sim question, post to the sim newsgroups. I am sure there are
pilots that monitor that group.

Also, don't expect pilots to treat simulation the same as the real deal.
IT IS NOT, and WILL NEVER BE!!!!

IF you are in the same simulated world that Mx lives in, then hopefully the
real world pilots will treat you just the same.

Allen

In article ,
Mxsmanic wrote:

Ron Garret writes:

It tends to, but it's not a perfect tendency. Real airplanes are rarely
perfectly trimmed; they will have a roll bias one way or the other.

Still ... how long before they "flop over" from straight and level
flight in trim?

It depends. Seconds to minutes depending on how good the trim was to
begin with. Definitely not tens of minutes.

In practice you can't count on a plane
staying level by itself for more than a few minutes.

I think that probably depends a great deal on the plane.

It depends on the plane whether you have seconds or minutes. No plane
stays level by itself for more than a few minutes.

Some planes have rudder and/or aileron trims, but many don't. And even
those that do, it's very hard to get it perfect. And even if you do it
rarely stays that way for long.

Granted, but it seems implausible that it changes so quickly and
dramatically that the plane flips over the moment you avert your eyes
or hands.

I never said it did.

Yes. But that's the point: in IMC you have to look and in VMC you don't
(because your peripheral vision will notice if you roll).

Well, in IMC you have nothing to see outside the window, so you have
more time to look at the attitude indicator.

You're missing the point. Yes, you having nothing to see out the
window, but you also have to look at other things (other instruments,
radios, charts). When you do you have to take your eyes off the AI.
When you do that, absent the peripheral vision cues you have in VMC
whether or not you are actually looking out the window, the plane can
(and often will) roll without you realizing it.

And by the
time you look you could be in a pretty severe bank. Learning to look at
the AI "often enough" and without fail is a skill that can be
surprisingly difficult to acquire.

Maybe, but a VFR pilot who fails to develop this skill quickly in IMC
has a serious problem. I don't see any way around that.

Yes, that would be precisely the point I am trying to make.

Yep, GPS makes life easier in many ways. With a GPS and an autopilot,
flying a real plane can be not so much different from playing a video
game. But if you want to be safe you have to be able to fly the plane
without them because they can break.

I agree. It's highly unlikely that the GPS would break at the same
moment that you enter IMC, but one should try to be prepared for
anything. In any case, pilots were handling IMC successfully long
before GPS came along.

Yes, but not without a great deal of training and practice IN IMC or
under the hood. You can't practice in VMC without a view limiting
device because you can't eliminate the subconscious processing of
peripheral vision information no matter how hard you try.

Actually, simulator pilots might have an easier time in IMC than real
pilots because flying a sim is actually a lot more like IFR than it is
like VFR. It would make an interesting experiment.

That would be an unusual bit of foresight. 121.5 is also an option.

Unusual?

Yes.

The books I've read seem to recommend it strongly.

There are many recommendations in books that people don't often follow.

That can help a lot too.

A copilot with a cool head can help even more psychologically. A
crisis often seems less serious when you're not alone.

Or it can make it worse when you realize that you now have two lives in
your hands and not just one. It depends a lot on who the other person
is. If your co-pilot is a CFII that can be really handy. If it's your
girlfriend and she's screaming "We're gonna diiiiiieeeeeee!!!" at the
top of her lungs that can make things worse.

Like I said before, it is very hard to achieve perfect trim, and even if
you achieve it, it rarely stays that way for long.

Well, how long is long? How long before the aircraft flips over?

A few seconds to a few minutes depending on how good your trim is.

The most common cause of altitude excursions are up-and-down drafts,
which are common in IMC. Fuel burn can change the CG and hence
the pitch trim too.

The former shouldn't be too dangerous if you're high enough above the
ground

If you're flying over flat terrain that is true. If you are near
mountains it's not.

Where I fly there are mountains. You can be as high as 10,000' AGL
where you are and still not be clear of terrain just a few miles (and
minutes) away.

Mountains are a bit of a special case.

Not around here.

Very good. You might survive.

Well, that's what the books say.

Books can only take you so far. Come to LA.

For straight and level flight. But now you're climbing so there's
P-factor.

OK, so climb and retrim.

Yes, it sounds simple in theory. In practice it is not. Remember, you
are climbing because you forgot to monitor the altimeter and have just
realized that you are in danger of hitting nearby mountains. You are no
longer at the top of your game. In such a circumstance and in the
absence of the usual visual cues, it is very easy to forget to apply
right rudder in a climb and end up in a power-on stall and spin. (Does
your sim setup even have rudder pedals, or do you fly by mouse? If the
latter, you are in for a lot of surprises the first time you get into a
real plane.)

No, you are climbing above the terrain. Pay attention.

But you chose to climb.

You can consider it a choice only if you are willing to risk death by
staying where you are. Of course, if you are willing to die then flight
in IMC is really a cakewalk.

Obviously,
if you start maneuvering, you're going to have to devote a lot of
attention to flying. Until you return to straight and level flight,
you're going to have a lot less time to do other things.

Yes, that is the point. If you are not practiced, the situation can
easily get to the point where the time it takes you to do the things you
have to do exceeds the time available to do them.

If you already know that you are at a safe altitude, there's no reason
to climb.

That's the third time you've dropped the context, and this is the third
and last time I am going to bring it to your attention. One more time
and we're done. (Why do you do that, by the way? I really want to
know. Is it deliberate? What are you hoping to achieve? Do you have
some mental deficiency that prevents you from keeping track of context?)

Structural failure is rare and unrecoverable. Vacuum pump failures are
common and recoverable.

How common is that?

I don't have numbers handy, but it's quite common. Anything with moving
parts (vacuum pumps, mechanical gyros, engines) can pretty much be
counted on to fail regularly.

rg

Ron Garret writes:

It tends to, but it's not a perfect tendency. Real airplanes are rarely
perfectly trimmed; they will have a roll bias one way or the other.

Still ... how long before they "flop over" from straight and level
flight in trim?

In practice you can't count on a plane
staying level by itself for more than a few minutes.

I think that probably depends a great deal on the plane.

Some planes have rudder and/or aileron trims, but many don't. And even
those that do, it's very hard to get it perfect. And even if you do it
rarely stays that way for long.

Granted, but it seems implausible that it changes so quickly and
dramatically that the plane flips over the moment you avert your eyes
or hands.

Yes. But that's the point: in IMC you have to look and in VMC you don't
(because your peripheral vision will notice if you roll).

Well, in IMC you have nothing to see outside the window, so you have
more time to look at the attitude indicator.

And by the
time you look you could be in a pretty severe bank. Learning to look at
the AI "often enough" and without fail is a skill that can be
surprisingly difficult to acquire.

Maybe, but a VFR pilot who fails to develop this skill quickly in IMC
has a serious problem. I don't see any way around that.

It's a bigger deal in IMC than in VMC. But the point is not so much
that it's a big deal as that in VMC you don't have to actively think
about keeping the plane level. If the plane starts to bank in VMC you
will know. Not necessarily so in IMC.

Maybe. It depends on your scanning habits and other factors, I
suppose.

Yep, GPS makes life easier in many ways. With a GPS and an autopilot,
flying a real plane can be not so much different from playing a video
game. But if you want to be safe you have to be able to fly the plane
without them because they can break.

I agree. It's highly unlikely that the GPS would break at the same
moment that you enter IMC, but one should try to be prepared for
anything. In any case, pilots were handling IMC successfully long
before GPS came along.

That would be an unusual bit of foresight. 121.5 is also an option.

Unusual? The books I've read seem to recommend it strongly. I've
done it a few times, but only for VORs, as it's hard to look up those
frequencies while flying. The nature of the simulations I run makes
it easy to find ATC frequencies. Also, the GPS does provide those
frequencies as well, so they are available in real life, although, as
I've said, I find the GPS manipulation a bit awkward, and it would be
even more so while stuck in IMC.

That can help a lot too.

A copilot with a cool head can help even more psychologically. A
crisis often seems less serious when you're not alone.

Like I said before, it is very hard to achieve perfect trim, and even if
you achieve it, it rarely stays that way for long.

Well, how long is long? How long before the aircraft flips over?

The most common cause of altitude excursions are up-and-down drafts,
which are common in IMC. Fuel burn can change the CG and hence
the pitch trim too.

The former shouldn't be too dangerous if you're high enough above the
ground (depending on its violence, of course). The latter happens
very gradually.

Where I fly there are mountains. You can be as high as 10,000' AGL
where you are and still not be clear of terrain just a few miles (and
minutes) away.

Mountains are a bit of a special case. I'd be tempted to get as high
as possible if I were stuck in IMC in the mountains. Of course, in
some cases, you just cannot get high enough.

Very good. You might survive.

Well, that's what the books say. Stay calm, keep the aircraft
straight and level, make sure it's trimmed to stay like that, make
sure your altitude is adequate to clear terrain by a generous margin.
Then you can start thinking about navigating out of your predicament,
including a call to ATC. Planes don't magically misbehave just
because you can't see anything outside the window. If they are
willing to fly and behave in clear weather, they are willing to do the
same when it's all mist outside. Stay calm, fly the plane, navigate,
and then communicate.

Very good armchair flying. But writing it down and actually *doing* it
when your life is on the line are two different things.

Yes, but that kind of stress affects different people in different
ways. Some people panic and lose it, and die. Others become
extremely determined and intent upon surviving, and they live. To
some extent, one can discipline oneself to behave in either direction.

Then you need a better sim.

In simulation, any type of reset is cheating. You don't learn
anything if you give up every time things get tough.

For straight and level flight. But now you're climbing so there's
P-factor.

OK, so climb and retrim.

No, you are climbing above the terrain. Pay attention.

But you chose to climb. You weren't doing that initially. Obviously,
if you start maneuvering, you're going to have to devote a lot of
attention to flying. Until you return to straight and level flight,
you're going to have a lot less time to do other things.

If you already know that you are at a safe altitude, there's no reason
to climb.

Yes, but now some time has passed and you have become disoriented
because you've been dealing with other things.

Well, are you climbing, or are you navigating, or are you talking on
the radio, or what? You can't do it all at once. You have to sort
out what to do, and when, or you're in trouble.

Which is a common situation during VFR flight.

It may be common, but it is not a _necessary_ condition of VFR flight.
You can fly VFR and still be prepared for possible problems.

I'd feel pretty nervous flying VFR anywhere outside of my own
neighborhood unless I had reviewed my plans carefully in advance.
It's good to see landmarks, but it's better to see landmarks and
instruments that all reach a good consensus on exactly where I am.

Indeed. Avoiding IMC altogether (unless you are on an IFR flight plan)
is an even better idea.

Yes, if you can. But it doesn't hurt to prepare in advance as if IMC
might be unavoidable. That way, if it _does_ become unavoidable,
you're not caught completely off guard.

Yes, but those things are much easier when you can see and much harder
when you cannot.

Yes ... but you have to do them, anyway, even when you cannot see. In
fact, then you _must_ do them. If you've already gotten into the
habit, you're less likely to wet your pants when they become your only
route to safety.

Nowadays perhaps. Not when I was learning to fly.

At one time, even a compass was a luxury. But just because things
used to be more primitive doesn't mean you should avoid using more
advanced technologies. Keep a contingency plan available, but don't
hesitate to use the gadgets if they are available and working
correctly. Besides, when you are flying on instruments, that's all
you have. If none of them can be trusted, you're doomed no matter
what, so there's not much point in considering what might happen if
all the instruments fail.

But in any case, I
thought the topic at hand is why people get into trouble during
inadvertent encounters with IMC. The reason is that for one reason or
another they are not prepared, and the situation very quickly overwhelms
them. Then they lose control of the airplane, or they lose track of
where they are and hit a mountain. Of course, this is not inevitable.
But when it happens that is usually why.

Which is why I'd try to be prepared. I need an instrument rating to
fly legally in IMC, but even without the rating, I'd try to be
prepared to fly on instruments, just in case the weather decides not
to heed my lack of a rating.

Structural failure is rare and unrecoverable. Vacuum pump failures are
common and recoverable.

How common is that?

The vacuum pump doesn't have to fail at that precise moment. It might
have failed a while ago, but you didn't notice because you were too busy
looking out the window at the scenery that was visible until a moment
ago.

Ah ... you mean you were insufficiently aware of your situation long
_before_ you got stuck in IMC. Well, that's a problem.

That is another way of saying that pilots who die in IMC sometimes have
faulty instruments. And your point would be...?

That they die because they panic and/or don't know what to do, not
because their instruments failed.

But it is more of a problem in IMC because you don't have the benefit of
your peripheral vision telling you if you start to roll.

You have instruments for that. And while turbulence may temporarily
move you in one direction or another, it's less likely to move you in
the same direction for a long period. If it did that, it wouldn't be
turbulence, it would be a wind.

Yes indeed. But that's the thing: most people flying VFR are not
prepared.

Well, if they won't prepare, they won't prepare. I would, but that's
just me. I'm paranoid about safety.

Yep. :-) It's very common in late spring and early summer when the
jet-stream moves north and the marine layer from the ocean moves inland.
We call it "June gloom" and there's a local joke that you can pre-record
the weather forecast during that period: "Early morning low clouds and
fog burning off to hazy sunshine by mid-afternoon."

I've seen that in person in San Diego (less so in LA), and often
enough in the sim (which uses real-world weather most of the time).
It must be frustrating if you have to cool your heels for half the day
waiting for the fog to burn off, especially since the skies are
probably crystal clear above the fog.

But why do you care about fog? Do you really want to fly in fog
(keeping in mind that fog by definition is always close to the ground)?

I do fly in IFR that way. I've set zero visibility from the surface
to 15,000 feet in some cases, and flown from one place to another
without ever being able to see anything. It's quite a challenge. You
have to know where you are and where you are going, and you have to
anticipate things way in advance--no sudden dramatic maneuvers to try
to correct a mistake you made miles back.

It can be challenging. But I hear the northeast is worse.

I don't know much about the Northeast. It doesn't seem to be very
scenic in any case. Of course, when all the land is flat, presumably
that does make flight safer. But I grew up in the Southwest, so
perhaps I'm prejudiced.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Jay Beckman writes:

- Pilots who fly inadvertantly into IMC without already working a proper
scan will (on average) lose control in approximately 90 seconds.

Sounds like even VFR pilots need to work on getting a proper scan to
be a habit, then.

I don't think too many aircraft in stable flight will spiral out of
control in just 90 seconds, so the loss of control has to be the
pilot's fault ... and it implies that he was never in control to begin
with.

- 72% of Inadvertant IMC encounters end in a fatality.

See above.

- 40% of the pilots who make (made) up the above 72% are (were) Instrument
Rated.

Perhaps VMC encourages complacency.

I'm sure it's much safer to fly IFR in VMC than to fly VFR in IMC.
The implication is that all flights should be IFR, but that admittedly
would take a lot of the fun out of flying for many pilots.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

In article ,
A Lieberma wrote:

"Morgans" wrote in
:

I think I'll start a list of names that responds to MX, in any way
other than combatively.

That way, some day, I can sit back and look at the names and laugh at
them, for being such fools.

1.) Ron Garret

Good thread....

Then we do not reply to the fools as well and take back the group the way
it was.... and advise newbies to avoid these folks.

Allen

Maybe I will start a list of all the people who rant and rave about
people who respond to MX. That way I can sit back and look at the names
and laugh at them for being such fools. After all, they seem to lack
the mental capacity to figure out how to use a kill file, and the
strength of will to just not read threads where MX is participating.

Tell me, A. Lieberman and J.S. Morgan, do you think that would be
helpful?

rg

In article ,
Thomas Borchert wrote:

Ron,

nice description.

Thanks. :-)

rg