Just push the blue button!

On Oct 4, 10:43*am, Bob Noel wrote:
Mike wrote:
"Bob Noel" wrote in message
...
Mike wrote:

Diamond already has this on some of their aircraft. *I don't know
that it has ever made a difference, however there are a large number
of fatalities caused by VFR to IMC (just like John-John).

John-John was VFR to IMC?

Yep.

hmmm, all the wx reports I saw were legal VMC (not smart VMC, but still
legal). *Do you have reference to reports that the conditions were not
VMC?

It doesn't matter if it was IMC for JFK Jr. On a moonless night over
water -- toss in a high overcast -- there's nothing but black to be
seen out of the window. In terms of flying, it's the same as being
inside a cloud. It could be 10,000 feet and 50 miles vis, without a
doubt legal vfr, but if you're not flying the gauges you're gonna die.
He most likely had marginal VFR, but was in conditions not too
different from what I had described above -- flying by outside
reference could have been close to impossible, even if VFR. John John
was a known risk taker, his family would rarely fly with him because
of that (ref -- the book "The Day John Died"). If you accept what his
friends said about him, he really was an accident looking for a place
to happen. The "Master of Disaster" was recovering from an ankle
injury he got earlier from an unltra light accident on -- ready for
this? -- the same Martha's Vineyard he was flying to.

Add in to his multi tasking that he was under major stress with the
magazine George, did not sleep at home the night before because of
arguments with his wife, and you have, in my opinion, a guy who
shouldn't have been trusted riding a two wheel bike, let alone a
tricycle with wings.

On Mon, 06 Oct 2008 12:45:00 GMT, Mike wrote:

I've flown with plenty of 300 hour pilots who don't multitask well and
some
of them had their instrument and commercial. I didn't multitask well at
300
hours. That's something you pick up with experience.

I've flown with many that have picked up MT skills well under 300. It's
not a black-white consideration.

Some do, but it's certainly not out of line that he didn't. As far as his
decision making goes, the actual conditions turned out worse than anyone had
forecast. Flying at night can always turn into a hazardous situation, but
Kennedy had flown a considerable amount of time with an instructor at night,
and he was working on his instrument ticket. So he was genuinely interested
in improving his flying skills and there's nothing to indicate he made any
bad decisions.

If you mean before he spun, I would heavily disagree.

My guess is he probably attempted too steep of a turn and
had no idea he was in any danger of spacial disorientation because he didn't
recognize that he was in instrument conditions. Unfortunately it's a common
mistake for low time pilots and lots of them kill themselves that way.

This is your neck of the woods, if he had called you up, would you have
said "Go"?

On Mon, 6 Oct 2008 06:05:22 -0700 (PDT), a wrote:

It doesn't matter if it was IMC for JFK Jr. On a moonless night over
water -- toss in a high overcast -- there's nothing but black to be
seen out of the window. In terms of flying, it's the same as being
inside a cloud. It could be 10,000 feet and 50 miles vis, without a
doubt legal vfr, but if you're not flying the gauges you're gonna die.
He most likely had marginal VFR, but was in conditions not too
different from what I had described above -- flying by outside
reference could have been close to impossible, even if VFR. John John
was a known risk taker, his family would rarely fly with him because
of that (ref -- the book "The Day John Died"). If you accept what his
friends said about him, he really was an accident looking for a place
to happen. The "Master of Disaster" was recovering from an ankle
injury he got earlier from an unltra light accident on -- ready for
this? -- the same Martha's Vineyard he was flying to.

Add in to his multi tasking that he was under major stress with the
magazine George, did not sleep at home the night before because of
arguments with his wife, and you have, in my opinion, a guy who
shouldn't have been trusted riding a two wheel bike, let alone a
tricycle with wings.

IMO, it was a collection of minor to major mistakes matched with a
resistant to death personality. Which being a Kennedy is either a
defense mechanism or utter stupidity...or both.

*My guess is he probably attempted too steep of a turn and
had no idea he was in any danger of spacial disorientation because he didn't
recognize that he was in instrument conditions. *Unfortunately it's a common
mistake for low time pilots and lots of them kill themselves that way.

He was tracking right towards the airport, I'd assume on a/p. My guess
is he chose to hand fly and started his descent and lost it. There was
zero need for a turn at the place of the accident. A wings level
descent from 5500 feet to pattern altitude in 15 miles is what was
needed, so he needed to lose 4500 feet or so in 7 or 8 minutes. I
would rather go down slower, but less than 1000 fpm is not in itself
bad. Any turn other than course correction was not needed.

"Gezellig" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 06 Oct 2008 12:45:00 GMT, Mike wrote:

I've flown with plenty of 300 hour pilots who don't multitask well and
some
of them had their instrument and commercial. I didn't multitask well
at
300
hours. That's something you pick up with experience.

I've flown with many that have picked up MT skills well under 300. It's
not a black-white consideration.

Some do, but it's certainly not out of line that he didn't. As far as
his
decision making goes, the actual conditions turned out worse than anyone
had
forecast. Flying at night can always turn into a hazardous situation,
but
Kennedy had flown a considerable amount of time with an instructor at
night,
and he was working on his instrument ticket. So he was genuinely
interested
in improving his flying skills and there's nothing to indicate he made
any
bad decisions.

If you mean before he spun, I would heavily disagree.

My guess is he probably attempted too steep of a turn and
had no idea he was in any danger of spacial disorientation because he
didn't
recognize that he was in instrument conditions. Unfortunately it's a
common
mistake for low time pilots and lots of them kill themselves that way.

This is your neck of the woods, if he had called you up, would you have
said "Go"?

I never tell anyone if they should go or not. That's their own decision to
make.

20% of fatal GA accidents are at night even though night flights make up
only 5% of the GA traffic. Of those fatal accidents, the most common is
exactly the situation that Kennedy found himself. So it wasn't as if
Kennedy was in an easy situation and did something monumentally stupid.

"a" wrote in message
...
My guess is he probably attempted too steep of a turn and
had no idea he was in any danger of spacial disorientation because he
didn't
recognize that he was in instrument conditions. Unfortunately it's a
common
mistake for low time pilots and lots of them kill themselves that way.

He was tracking right towards the airport, I'd assume on a/p. My guess
is he chose to hand fly and started his descent and lost it. There was
zero need for a turn at the place of the accident. A wings level
descent from 5500 feet to pattern altitude in 15 miles is what was
needed, so he needed to lose 4500 feet or so in 7 or 8 minutes. I
would rather go down slower, but less than 1000 fpm is not in itself
bad. Any turn other than course correction was not needed.

His aircraft was having intermittent problems with its autopilot. He may
have been preoccupied with it.

Personally I like to stay as high as I can, as long as I can. This would be
especially true over water. Making a 1000 fpm descent is preferable to
descending too soon and needing that extra altitude at some point.

"Bertie the Bunyip" wrote in message
...
"Mike" nospam@ microsoft.com wrote in
:

"James Robinson" wrote in message
.. .
"Mike" nospam@ microsoft.com wrote:

"Bob Noel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Mike" nospam@ microsoft.com wrote:

"Bob Noel" wrote in message
...
Mike wrote:
but the question I would have for you was
why do you feel the burning desire to ask questions in which
you are already convinced of the answer?

You are making an invalid assumption. I merely asked if you (or
anyone)
had seen wx reports that the conditions were IMC. I was seeking
information. Please don't attempt to read more into the
question than that.

No, that's not what you asked. Go back and read it again.

To the contrary. It is what I asked. quote "hmmm, all the wx
reports I saw were legal VMC (not smart VMC, but still legal). Do
you have reference to reports that the conditions were not VMC?"

Not quite, Bob. The question you originally asked was:

"John-John was VFR to IMC?"

After you received my answer, you proceeded to answer it yourself.
So the real reason you asked it was simply to be argumentative. In
other words, CS. If you don't agree with my assertion, then provide
your own references and we can discuss it like two rational people.
If you want to go down the road of CS, then expect such to be noted.

To answer your latest question, yes I do.

One report:
"Another pilot had flown from Bar Harbor, Maine, to Long Island, New
York, and crossed the Long Island Sound on the same evening, about
1930. This pilot stated that during his preflight weather briefing
from an FSS, the specialist indicated VMC for his flight. The pilot
filed an IFR flight plan and conducted the flight at 6,000 feet. He
stated that he encountered visibilities of 2 to 3 miles throughout
the flight because of haze. He also stated that the lowest
visibility was over water, between Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and
eastern Long Island."

So here we have a pilot reporting IMC in the exact area and he goes
on to say the worst of it was over water. I put a high degree of
reliability on his estimate for a couple of reasons. One, his
report came when there was still daylight and he could better judge
visibility. Two, he was IFR and had no reason to overstate the
visibility as a pilot of a VFR flight might.

Another pilot:
The pilot stated that he departed TEB "...in daylight and good
flight conditions and reasonable visibility. The horizon was not
obscured by haze. I could easily pick our land marks at least five
[miles] away." The pilot also stated that he did not request or
receive flight information after his departure from TEB. Once clear
of the New York Class B airspace, he stated that he climbed his
airplane to 17,500 feet and proceeded towards Nantucket. He reported
that above 14,000 feet, the visibility was unrestricted; however, he
also reported that during his descent to Nantucket, when his global
positioning system (GPS) receiver indicated that he was over
Martha's Vineyard, he looked down and "...there was nothing to see.
There was no horizon and no light....I turned left toward Martha's
Vineyard to see if it was visible but could see no lights of any
kind nor any evidence of the island...I thought the island might
[have] suffered a power failure."

So here we have another pilot who was flying over Martha's Vinyard
on his approach to ACK. It doesn't mention altitude, but he did say
that he was on his descent. So he was somewhere between 17,500 and
probably around 12,000. That's 2-3 miles up and he can't see the
lights. There were no low level clouds that night. That indicates
the haze was very thick and visibilities would have been very low in
the haze layer.

The only other report comes from a pilot of a VFR flight (who almost
certainly isn't going to report visibilities of less than 3 miles)
and even he says he doesn't remember seeing the Gay Head lighthouse.
Even his estimation says it was "3-5 miles" which was right on the
edge of IMC.

So what references do you have, Bob?

MVY might have been reporting VMC, but that was on the surface, over
dry land, and about 18 miles away from the crash site.

The most likely problem was poor visibility, but the following
suggests that the haze might have been localized:

During an interview, the tower manager stated that no actions were
taken regarding the ASOS during his shift, which ended just after the
accident occurred. He also stated, "The visibility, present weather,
and sky condition at the approximate time of the accident was
probably a little better than what was being reported. I say this
because I remember aircraft on visual approaches saying they had the
airport in sight between 10 and 12 miles out. I do recall being able
to see those aircraft and I do remember seeing the stars out that
night.... To the best of my knowledge, the ASOS was working as
advertised that day with no reported problems or systems log errors."

That's my point exactly. I have little doubt that visibilities were
good at the airport, but that doesn't mean they were good over the
water.


Even if they were good, that doesn't mean there was a clear horizon..

But it would mean he would have had visual references like the moonlight
shining off the water, the lighthouse at Gay Head, and the lights from
numerous ships and buoys in the shipping channel below. These are things he
could have used to keep the dirty side down.

On Oct 6, 2:59*pm, "Mike" nospam@ microsoft.com wrote:
"a" wrote in message

...

My guess is he probably attempted too steep of a turn and
had no idea he was in any danger of spacial disorientation because he
didn't
recognize that he was in instrument conditions. Unfortunately it's a
common
mistake for low time pilots and lots of them kill themselves that way..

He was tracking right towards the airport, I'd assume on a/p. My guess
is he chose to hand fly and started his descent and lost it. There was
zero need for a turn at the place of the accident. A wings level
descent from 5500 feet to pattern altitude in 15 miles is what was
needed, so he needed to lose 4500 feet or so in 7 or 8 minutes. I
would rather go down slower, but less than 1000 fpm is not in itself
bad. Any turn other than course correction was not needed.

His aircraft was having intermittent problems with its autopilot. *He may
have been preoccupied with it.

Personally I like to stay as high as I can, as long as I can. *This would be
especially true over water. *Making a 1000 fpm descent is preferable to
descending too soon and needing that extra altitude at some point.

I don't remember reading about the a/p problems. But your notion of
too steep a turn planned by the pilot seems to be refuted by the
airplane heading and airport location. There is little doubt he did
enter too steep a turn but the narrative suggests several turns in
different directions as well as variations in altitude that would not
have been justified by rational pilot decisions. He was without a
visible horizon and without the skills to fly without one.

"a" wrote in message
...
On Oct 6, 2:59 pm, "Mike" nospam@ microsoft.com wrote:
"a" wrote in message

...

My guess is he probably attempted too steep of a turn and
had no idea he was in any danger of spacial disorientation because
he
didn't
recognize that he was in instrument conditions. Unfortunately it's a
common
mistake for low time pilots and lots of them kill themselves that
way.

He was tracking right towards the airport, I'd assume on a/p. My guess
is he chose to hand fly and started his descent and lost it. There was
zero need for a turn at the place of the accident. A wings level
descent from 5500 feet to pattern altitude in 15 miles is what was
needed, so he needed to lose 4500 feet or so in 7 or 8 minutes. I
would rather go down slower, but less than 1000 fpm is not in itself
bad. Any turn other than course correction was not needed.

His aircraft was having intermittent problems with its autopilot. He may
have been preoccupied with it.

Personally I like to stay as high as I can, as long as I can. This would
be
especially true over water. Making a 1000 fpm descent is preferable to
descending too soon and needing that extra altitude at some point.

I don't remember reading about the a/p problems. But your notion of
too steep a turn planned by the pilot seems to be refuted by the
airplane heading and airport location. There is little doubt he did
enter too steep a turn but the narrative suggests several turns in
different directions as well as variations in altitude that would not
have been justified by rational pilot decisions. He was without a
visible horizon and without the skills to fly without one.

So is everyone who flies VFR over the top or on a moonless night. Are all
those pilots irrational as well? Perhaps, but if that's the case Kennedy
was no more or less irrational than thousands of other pilots who put
themselves into similar situations. That's my point.

"Mike" nospam@ microsoft.com wrote in
:

"Bertie the Bunyip" wrote in message
...
"Mike" nospam@ microsoft.com wrote in
:

"James Robinson" wrote in message
.. .
"Mike" nospam@ microsoft.com wrote:

"Bob Noel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Mike" nospam@ microsoft.com wrote:

"Bob Noel" wrote in message
...
Mike wrote:
but the question I would have for you was
why do you feel the burning desire to ask questions in which
you are already convinced of the answer?

You are making an invalid assumption. I merely asked if you
(or anyone)
had seen wx reports that the conditions were IMC. I was
seeking information. Please don't attempt to read more into
the question than that.

No, that's not what you asked. Go back and read it again.

To the contrary. It is what I asked. quote "hmmm, all the wx
reports I saw were legal VMC (not smart VMC, but still legal).
Do you have reference to reports that the conditions were not
VMC?"

Not quite, Bob. The question you originally asked was:

"John-John was VFR to IMC?"

After you received my answer, you proceeded to answer it yourself.
So the real reason you asked it was simply to be argumentative.
In other words, CS. If you don't agree with my assertion, then
provide your own references and we can discuss it like two
rational people. If you want to go down the road of CS, then
expect such to be noted.

To answer your latest question, yes I do.

One report:
"Another pilot had flown from Bar Harbor, Maine, to Long Island,
New York, and crossed the Long Island Sound on the same evening,
about 1930. This pilot stated that during his preflight weather
briefing from an FSS, the specialist indicated VMC for his flight.
The pilot filed an IFR flight plan and conducted the flight at
6,000 feet. He stated that he encountered visibilities of 2 to 3
miles throughout the flight because of haze. He also stated that
the lowest visibility was over water, between Cape Cod,
Massachusetts, and eastern Long Island."

So here we have a pilot reporting IMC in the exact area and he
goes on to say the worst of it was over water. I put a high
degree of reliability on his estimate for a couple of reasons.
One, his report came when there was still daylight and he could
better judge visibility. Two, he was IFR and had no reason to
overstate the visibility as a pilot of a VFR flight might.

Another pilot:
The pilot stated that he departed TEB "...in daylight and good
flight conditions and reasonable visibility. The horizon was not
obscured by haze. I could easily pick our land marks at least five
[miles] away." The pilot also stated that he did not request or
receive flight information after his departure from TEB. Once
clear of the New York Class B airspace, he stated that he climbed
his airplane to 17,500 feet and proceeded towards Nantucket. He
reported that above 14,000 feet, the visibility was unrestricted;
however, he also reported that during his descent to Nantucket,
when his global positioning system (GPS) receiver indicated that
he was over Martha's Vineyard, he looked down and "...there was
nothing to see. There was no horizon and no light....I turned left
toward Martha's Vineyard to see if it was visible but could see no
lights of any kind nor any evidence of the island...I thought the
island might [have] suffered a power failure."

So here we have another pilot who was flying over Martha's Vinyard
on his approach to ACK. It doesn't mention altitude, but he did
say that he was on his descent. So he was somewhere between
17,500 and probably around 12,000. That's 2-3 miles up and he
can't see the lights. There were no low level clouds that night.
That indicates the haze was very thick and visibilities would have
been very low in the haze layer.

The only other report comes from a pilot of a VFR flight (who
almost certainly isn't going to report visibilities of less than 3
miles) and even he says he doesn't remember seeing the Gay Head
lighthouse.
Even his estimation says it was "3-5 miles" which was right on
the
edge of IMC.

So what references do you have, Bob?

MVY might have been reporting VMC, but that was on the surface,
over dry land, and about 18 miles away from the crash site.

The most likely problem was poor visibility, but the following
suggests that the haze might have been localized:

During an interview, the tower manager stated that no actions were
taken regarding the ASOS during his shift, which ended just after
the accident occurred. He also stated, "The visibility, present
weather, and sky condition at the approximate time of the accident
was probably a little better than what was being reported. I say
this because I remember aircraft on visual approaches saying they
had the airport in sight between 10 and 12 miles out. I do recall
being able to see those aircraft and I do remember seeing the stars
out that night.... To the best of my knowledge, the ASOS was
working as advertised that day with no reported problems or systems
log errors."

That's my point exactly. I have little doubt that visibilities were
good at the airport, but that doesn't mean they were good over the
water.


Even if they were good, that doesn't mean there was a clear horizon..

But it would mean he would have had visual references like the
moonlight shining off the water, the lighthouse at Gay Head, and the
lights from numerous ships and buoys in the shipping channel below.
These are things he could have used to keep the dirty side down.



Well, it doesn't take long and things like the moon on the water can
have exactly the opposite effect. when the whole thing gets past a
certain poiint someone whp's not so good with instruments can lose it
fast.



Bertie