Some good news

Quote from my days as a mountain climber, "stay alert, hope for the best, expect the worst, bring what you can".

Why not have an AHSR in case the worst happens. In 1,500 hours of glider flying I have never been inadvertent IMC, but I have in both airplanes and helicopter (once). I am instrument rated in both, so in the airplane as I realized things were not so sunny I just changed my fight following to an IFR plan, happened many times, apparently the forecast is as unpredictable as the weather. The helicopter (while I was instrument current and rated) was an unstable, re fun, MD 500 which are not certified for flight in IMC, this was much more thrilling and not to be repeated.

Recently I got back into soaring and when I instrumented the glider I bought a fancy multipurose instrument that also has a feature to double as an AHSR. While my first choice if caught on top would be to fly east for drier weather, I now have something in my quiver if I find myself IMC to help me get safely to clear air. As we know, one can be a bit aggressive at cloud base and end up in the cloud, it is not just wave flying.

The video on inadvertent IMC was great, it has been around for a long time, and even with rudimentary training (private pilot license) and the proper instruments, you can find yourself in a world of hurt if you go IMC.


On Tuesday, November 3, 2015 at 8:05:40 AM UTC-8, Dan Marotta wrote:

OK, I'm going to see how long it will be until the next bright idea
comes along.

On Tuesday, 3 November 2015 18:05:40 UTC+2, Dan Marotta wrote:
The Dynon D2 looks like a fine piece of equipment but it does not
have the TSO to be used in IFR flying.*

Glider cloud flying is not considered real IFR flying in Europe (for example), and gliders or equipment do not have to be TSO/IFR, only cloud flying equipment is required (compass, turn&bank, 10 m/s vario, clock). Difference between cloud flying glider and real IFR flight is that with latter you are supposed to know where you are and where you are going. Glider cloud flying regulations kind of suppose that you are flying well above ground (which is always VMC) and stay locally inside one cloud at a time. I would have no problem using non-TSO'd equipment, don't you have thousands of experimental planes flying IFR every day using these?

Not sure why you think having SOME sort of backup is a "bad" idea. The number of bailouts, crashes and general fear-inducing crashes is unbelievable. I'll tell you what's a bad idea - the flights that started this thread. THAT was a bad idea. I'm glad he survived, but there it is.

FWIW, I went up with an instructor recently doing some instrument training and we brought the aircraft down to 200 ft agl for a perfect landing. Stratus plus an ipad mini or iphone properly attached gives you weather, terrain and an AHRS. Seems way better than just heading up hoping no clouds come along.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo... Spot on! Very insightful.

I have a TruTrak turn indicator in my panel and turn it on whenever
conditions even hint that, should I screw up, I might need it. I also
have many hours of partial panel flying under the hood (couple of bored
lieutenants burning JP-4), and I still don't feel comfortable with only
the TruTrak. I don't find the slip ball to be sensitive enough in my
glider. Call me chicken, but I plan to have dinner at home every night.

On 11/2/2015 8:22 PM, Christopher Giacomo wrote:
For many people, those things are pretty cost prohibitive, and as Ramy pointed out, an Ipad doesn't fit too well in a cockpit. I was actually in the initial stages of designing a low-cost AHRS for "get-down" situations, but ran out of time to put one in. Not that glider pilots don't encounter $1000 costs, but i'm not sure "phenomenally cheap" is the term those of us not flying 6-figure glass would use to describe the current AHRS market.

If you are not pushing the bounds of safety and are properly adjusting for the conditions in flight, there really shouldn't be a need for an AHRS. Yes, i could have used one on this flight, but at that point i was already 2 bad decisions deep. More equipment will not breed better decision making, it breeds more data, and in many cases lazy pilots who have another crutch. Saying people should buy more equipment is akin to blaming your botched off-field landings on not having a higher performance glider.

--
Dan, 5J