Philosophical question on owning & IFR rating

Michael wrote:

ospam (Rosspilot) wrote

So what are you saying? A plane flying in clouds has to be high-performance
to be safe? What?


A plane flying in clouds at subfreezing temperatures DOES have to be
high performance to be reasonably safe. A low performance airplane
will fall out of the sky too quickly when the ice starts building.

Well, I found out one evening flying past Lake Erie that a Skylane will
carry at least an inch of ice on the leading edge and struts and still
fly very well ... just a little bit on the slow side. :-)

It didn't "fall out of the sky", but I did have to descend from 11,000
to 9,000 before I could hold altitude with full throttle and the carb
heat on (the air intake froze over almost immediately upon the ice
encounter).


Matt

Steven Barnes wrote:

I had an avionics guy tell me that my VOR head (localizer only, no GS) could
be used if we added a GPS. A switch to toggle from receiving from VOR head
or GPS would do it. That right?

I have heard that that is sometimes the case. Depends on the VOR head and GPS. Do you
have a NARCO VOR head? If so, that means mine might work that way, though mine has
the GS needle.

George Patterson
If you want to know God's opinion of money, just look at the people
he gives it to.

"G.R. Patterson III" wrote in message
...


Steven Barnes wrote:

I had an avionics guy tell me that my VOR head (localizer only, no GS)
could
be used if we added a GPS. A switch to toggle from receiving from VOR
head
or GPS would do it. That right?

I have heard that that is sometimes the case. Depends on the VOR head and
GPS. Do you
have a NARCO VOR head? If so, that means mine might work that way, though
mine has
the GS needle.

George Patterson
If you want to know God's opinion of money, just look at the people
he gives it to.


Hmmm. It's a Bendix/King indicator hooked up to a 155. I can't remember the
exact type. Books are at the airport.
Looks like the more in-expensive way in is the Garmin 155XL. Although, I
just did a bit of looking at the KLN94. Looks nice. Used is fine. Heh, used
will probably be required to be affordable.

Steven Barnes wrote:

Heh, used
will probably be required to be affordable.

Yep.

George Patterson
If you want to know God's opinion of money, just look at the people
he gives it to.

I found out one evening flying past Lake Erie that a Skylane will
carry at least an inch of ice on the leading edge and struts and still
fly very well ... just a little bit on the slow side. :-)

It didn't "fall out of the sky", but I did have to descend from 11,000
to 9,000 before I could hold altitude with full throttle and the carb
heat on (the air intake froze over almost immediately upon the ice
encounter).




I picked up about an inch of ice climbing out of Burlington, VT one April day
in a rented Archer. Ice on windscreen and leading edge . . . plane simply
stopped climbing at 6000 and tops were at 8. I could not get above it, and had
to return to field which was 20 miles away. Wasn't sure I had time for a full
approach so I took a radar surveillance approach and got down ok, but I could
not see out the front--had to land looking out the side. It was one of those
times I was pretty scared.


www.Rosspilot.com

ospam (Rosspilot) wrote
All IFR in IMC flown in subfreezing weather has the potential for
icing.

Ok . . . all IFR is *not* conducted in subfreezing weather.

OK, so how much IFR in IMC involves neither subfreezing weather nor
T-storms? In my experience, relatively little.

You seem hell-bent on making the argument that all IFR exceeds the capacity of
a light single.

It's simply nonsense. You have to know your aircraft's limitations, and flight
plan properly. Exercizing the "no-go" decision is a big part of having the
Instrument Rating.

But the issue here is how often the weather is beyond the capacity of
a typical light single VFR yet not beyond the capacity of the same
airplane IFR. I argue that it's relatively rare to have such weather.

If you launch under a crystal clear blue sky in a brand new Mooney Ovation or
Piper Saratoga you are "at risk".

Yes. Only a question of how much.

The issue here is relative risk. I'm not really interested in
absolute risk - each pilot decide how much is acceptable for him given
the mission. What I'm interested in is which method of completing the
mission is safer - IFR or low VFR. Given the capabilities of the
typical low performance light single, I would argue that in MOST (not
all) cases low VFR is the safer way to accomplish the mission.

As the airplane changes, so does the decision - both because a heavier
more powerful airplane is at lower risk IFR, and because it is at
higher risk low VFR.

Michael

Matt Whiting wrote
Well, I found out one evening flying past Lake Erie that a Skylane will
carry at least an inch of ice on the leading edge and struts and still
fly very well ... just a little bit on the slow side. :-)

I concur. Do you believe you would have had the same result with a
Skyhawk? I think you know better.

It didn't "fall out of the sky", but I did have to descend from 11,000
to 9,000 before I could hold altitude with full throttle and the carb
heat on (the air intake froze over almost immediately upon the ice
encounter).

Right. You had the engine power to cope with the (far from uncommon)
conditions. A Skyhawk or Cherokee 140 would not. A Hawk XP or Archer
probably would. A Skylane or Cherokee 235 definitely does.

Thus my point - in a non-deiced high performance airplane, you can
stick your nose in. There is still some risk, but it's a lot less
than the risk of doing the same thing in a low performance airplane.

On the other hand, the low performance airplane is likely slower, and
thus can fly low VFR with a greater margin of safety. Is it such a
stretch to believe that with given weather conditions, the choice of
airplane determines whether going IFR or low VFR is the safer option?

Michael

(Michael) wrote in message . com...
(C Kingsbury) wrote
If you budget $1000/month for ownership that would allow you to rent
these between 80 and 92 hours per year.

I can OWN a C-182 on $1000 a month. A nice one. A VFR airplane can
be swung on $400/month, flying 10-15 hours a month.

(a) Not around Boston you can't
(b) Especially not if you figure in a loan
(c) Nice C-182 yes, like-new low TT fully-equipped, no.
(d) Comparing apples and oranges. My point is up here you can rent
real IFR airplanes. I'm quite obviously spoiled, but keep in mind that
gas on my field is now over 4.30/gal

I think you're taking more risks on top. It's EASIER to be on top,
but I don't believe it's SAFER.


I'm well aware of this.

First, it's contrary to regs. There is no way around this. It is not
a gray area. It has been litigated. PIREPs are anecdotal, airmets
are authoritative.

No argument with the substance of what you're saying. But this has to
be among the least-enforced regs on the books. Unlike below-legal
scud-running, IFR leaves a clear paper trail with calls on tape at the
FSSs. Up here in winter you'll even hear the FSS briefers downplaying
the icing airmet in the same way pilots do.

Second, it's consistently fatal. Every year we lose some. Of course
we lose some scud running too. What are the relative rates? We have
no idea how many hours are flown in either mode, nor by what kind of
pilots, nor in what kind of aircraft. So really, all we've got here
is opinion.

My opinion is based on having done it both ways.

This is part of the reason why I've asked whether flight plans are
archived for research purposes. They'd at least give us some better
idea of what's happening on the IFR side of operations.

That's true, but irrelevant. It's very reasonable to equip a plane
for thunderstorm avoidance - a stormscope is a lot cheaper than boots.

Actually the point I had in mind was a bit more circular- that because
commercial aircraft can easily operate through icing that would kill a
light single, perhaps there isn't a sense of needing to do such a good
job of forecasting it. Up here the ice forecasts are extremely coarse.
It's like saying, "well, it's July and it's hot and there are some
clouds, so there's going to be thunderstorms so nobody should fly
anywhere within 200 miles," while in fact you're describing 30 days of
the year, out of which you may get storms on two or three at best.

But only ONE engine quit so he did OK. Misfuelings are a gray area -
if it's a matter of the plane not being level, one engine will quit
first and warn you.

I'm not going into the single-vs-twin debate now

Yes. The national airspace system is complex and quirky. None of us
are perfect. Make the wrong slipup at the wrong time, and it's over.
The difference between the proficient pilot and the non-proficient one
- the proficient pilot makes fewer mistakes and catches them quicker.
That is all. He can die from his mistakes too, it's just not as
likely.

I don't think either of them has
filed an IFR plan once in the past few years, but they stay current
for some reason nonetheless.

Living testamnets to the utility of an instrument rating .

Would you say that if they get caught in IMC inadvertently they don't
stand a better chance? And yes, I am aware that a non-trivial number
of rated pilots get killed in just that situation every year. Just
don't know how relative numbers stack up.

Hmmm... Well, pretty much every CFII and insurance guy I've spoken to
out in these parts would disagree.

And how much scud running experience do THEY have?

My CFII, plenty. He's made the point about flying under the clouds
being safer some of the time, but only for a pilot who's rated and
equipped to fly above them in case the weather goes south, which it
has a habit of around here. MVFR in New England is a pretty bad
proposition for a VFR-only pilot.

As for the insurance guys, well, they probably understand the real
statistics as well as if not far better than the FAA. After all,
that's what makes their business work, or not.

He went on to say, "the instrument rating is pretty much
useless." My local CFII's response was, "Well, in Alaska he's right,
but this ain't Alaska."

The difference between New York and Alaska is more a matter of
attitude than anything else.

Um... survey says "nope."

1) Icing is thick in the clouds in Alaska throughout the prime flying
season; in the Northeast US it's a high risk maybe 4 months a year.
2) Mountains in Alaska mean MEAs at and well beyond 10,000' most of
the time. Vast majority of the Northeast never needs to go above
7,000, with as low as 2500 in many places.
3) VFR at 500/1 is probably illegal over 50% of the routes that I fly.
There's peoples *everywhere* around here. You really need 1000-1500AGL
to be on the safe side also taking towers into consideration.
4) Instrument services just aren't available on anywhere near the
scale in Alaska as they are here.

To be fair, terrain avoidance is less of an issue here, and weather
services offer far more data. Still, Alaska is the land of MVFR
operations, and their accident rate is staggering. But they do get
their money's worth out of planes, though.

Best,
-cwk.

Michael wrote:

OK, so how much IFR in IMC involves neither subfreezing weather nor
T-storms? In my experience, relatively little.

Maybe where you are, but here on the northeast coast, we get frontal systems that
stall out and won't move until another system comes in and shoves them offshore. The
result is about a week of low ceilings and drizzle or rain, maybe fog. The choices
are IFR or scud-run. Sometimes only IFR flight is possible. There's no convective
activity after the first day and the freezing level (if there is one) is known and
constant. This is followed by a few hours of very pretty weather and then all Hell
breaks loose.

George Patterson
If you want to know God's opinion of money, just look at the people
he gives it to.

(C Kingsbury) wrote
I can OWN a C-182 on $1000 a month. A nice one. A VFR airplane can
be swung on $400/month, flying 10-15 hours a month.

(a) Not around Boston you can't

Probably true. Anyway, my point stands - you may have this kind of
stuff in your backyard, but most people don't.

It has been litigated. PIREPs are anecdotal, airmets
are authoritative.

No argument with the substance of what you're saying. But this has to
be among the least-enforced regs on the books.

And that's fine. I'm perfectly OK with the idea of violating FAR's
when in your judgment they are not applicable. But across the board
please - this also means it's just as legit to violate minimum
altitudes for scud running.

Unlike below-legal
scud-running, IFR leaves a clear paper trail

Yup. So the chances of getting busted are greater.

This is part of the reason why I've asked whether flight plans are
archived for research purposes. They'd at least give us some better
idea of what's happening on the IFR side of operations.

Yes, it would be great if we had actual statistics to work with.

Actually the point I had in mind was a bit more circular- that because
commercial aircraft can easily operate through icing that would kill a
light single, perhaps there isn't a sense of needing to do such a good
job of forecasting it.

Commercial aviation can also see T-storms - these guys can't dispatch
into an area of forecast T-storms without RADAR. No ****, it's in
Part 121. So it's really not a matter of need - icing is just not
predictable.

Living testamnets to the utility of an instrument rating .

Would you say that if they get caught in IMC inadvertently they don't
stand a better chance? And yes, I am aware that a non-trivial number
of rated pilots get killed in just that situation every year. Just
don't know how relative numbers stack up.

My opinion is no, they don't stand a better chance. It's only
opinion. As you mentioned, large numbers of rated pilots do get
killed in such situations. But we don't know who is flying what kind
of weather, either.

Important to remember - VFR into IMC fatality is a private pilot kind
of accident. Only about 18% of private pilots are instrument rated,
so they should account for only 18% of those fatalities - less if the
rating offers an advantage. What are the real numbers?

Hmmm... Well, pretty much every CFII and insurance guy I've spoken to
out in these parts would disagree.

And how much scud running experience do THEY have?

My CFII, plenty. He's made the point about flying under the clouds
being safer some of the time, but only for a pilot who's rated and
equipped to fly above them in case the weather goes south

What ever happened to putting down at the nearest airport (which, in
your neck of the woods, is probably no more than 10 minutes away,
usually less) if the weather goes south?

As for the insurance guys, well, they probably understand the real
statistics as well as if not far better than the FAA. After all,
that's what makes their business work, or not.

And what statistics do they have? I know that when I got an
instrument rating in my TriPacer, the insurance did not change. It
was a minimum-IFR airplane - 4 seats, 150 hp, 100 kts, IFR certified.

To be fair, terrain avoidance is less of an issue here, and weather
services offer far more data. Still, Alaska is the land of MVFR
operations, and their accident rate is staggering. But they do get
their money's worth out of planes, though.

And we don't. Which probably accounts for the difference in accident
rates more than anything. Hard to get hurt if you never do anything.

Michael