Into the Sun

On Mon, 12 Sep 2005 20:31:26 -0700, "Bob Gardner"
wrote:

I know of two fatal midairs in which sun-blindness was a contributory
factor. No matter what the reported visibility, in those conditions it is
essentially zero. Only solution other than changing course is to get some
kind of opaque disc or sheet that can be stuck to the windscreen.

Way back (how long ago will become apparent), I was landing on 25 at Phoenix
near sundown. The controller kept telling me that the runway was dead ahead
and counting down the miles, but I couldn't see it. I asked him for the
localizer freq...but at that time PHX didn't have an ILS. I finally picked
up the threshold markings when I was right on top of them. Scary.

Ever tried a "blind" touchdown? Where you can't see the runway even over
the threshold because of the sun?

It can be done if you treat it as a "glassy water landing" like a seaplane,
and set up the proper deck angle with power and fly the plane onto the
runway (water).



Bob Gardner

"Kyle Boatright" wrote in message
...
We had gone to the NC beach for the weekend, and had to bug out because of
the hurricane threat. I was worried that even if the hurricane didn't head
right for us, that the outlying winds might get strong enough to prevent
us from departing.

Despite the winds Saturday evening (15 G 25), we had a smooth departure
and headed back towards Atlanta, getting a smooth ride and a bit of a
tailwind for most of the flight. The one thing we didn't have in our
favor was visibility. We were literally headed right into the setting sun
for 2 hours. The haze didn't help. I felt a little better about traffic
avoidance because we were using flight following, but I had a truly
miserable time looking into the sun for the whole flight, despite my
sunglasses.

By the time we neared home, my pupils had contracted to the point that I
was having real problems getting them to open up enough to see the panel,
which is flat black. On this evening, it was sea of black with a bright
orange ball perched on top, and the instruments barely visible. As soon
as we changed course to enter the pattern at our home field, everything
was better...

Other than picking a course that isn't into the sun, or choosing a better
time to fly, is there any cure for the sun in the eyes problem?



--
Jay.
(remove dashes for legal email address)