Cloud Flying

snoop wrote:

Chris, this is the exact reason I'm still looking for the technical
answers. You just made about every working pilot reading your celebrity
dialouge, pass out. "11o'clock 15 miles", your descending out of who
knows what exact altitude, and the big boy is climbing toward you, this
would wake everyone up. I would venture that the captain on that AA
flights' first thought would be, "we're turning now", then he would ask
the center about the accuracy of the gliders' altimeter.

Oh, for God's sake, snoop. You're really beginning to annoy me. If
you fly IFR as much as you say you do, you hear that every day.
Aircraft A receives a hold down clearance until he is clear of traffic
B above. American was thousands of feet below me, climbing to an
altitude two thousand feet below me. He saw me on his TCAS. There was
no conflict. ATC was providing separation. Everybody was happy.
Geez.


Chris, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume you mean
that your not doing this near an airway. MEA is an altitude, and
although you may be flying in the Flight Levels, MEA's do run from
down in the thousands to the flight levels.

Snoop, we aren't navigating airways! In fact, no navigation equipment
of any kind is required to fly IFR! You need to stop thinking like a
135/121 airplane pilot. You're in a GLIDER. The world of aviation is
a big place, and most pilots are only familiar with their little slice
of it. You need to think outside of your box.

Scroll up to my first message; I've referenced the exact regs that
legalize IFR gliders. It is legal. Period.

My final case-in point: The Goodyear Blimp flies IFR over football
games all of the time. There are tens of thousands of people who are
first-person eye witnesses to this fact as they watch the blimp fly in
and out of the clouds on a snowy day. Millions more see this on TV.
I'm sure that one or two of those fans is a fed. The pilot of the
blimp is getting paid. It's a commercial operation with passengers on
board. But there is no requirement for that pilot to have an
instrument rating of any kind. He might be 1,000 feet AGL, definitely
below the lowest minimum IFR altitude for airplanes. He's IFR without
a rating, and he's perfectly legal. It's a big world out there, snoop.
The rules that apply to airplane 135/121 don't apply to all other
types of flying.

Going out to the glider club? That's sounds good. I'll join you.

Chris Fleming, F2