Melbourne FL airport -- approach

"Brien K. Meehan" wrote:
Every pilot is trained on how to deal with a number of common optical
illusions.

What are some other aviation optical illusions?

Tim923 wrote:

What are some other aviation optical illusions?

Here's a couple --

There's a phenomenon at night called the "black hole" approach. If all you can
see are the runway lights, it appears that you're higher than you actually are.

Distant lights on the ground often create a "false horizon" at night.

George Patterson
Coffee is only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to
your slightly older self.

"George Patterson" wrote in message
news:kFotf.2261$uv.1145@trnddc06...

There's a phenomenon at night called the "black hole" approach. If all you
can see are the runway lights, it appears that you're higher than you
actually are.

And this runway foreshortening can be severly accentuated by rain on the
windshield. (ref PanAm at Pago Pago)

"Tim923" wrote in message
...
"Brien K. Meehan" wrote:
Every pilot is trained on how to deal with a number of common optical
illusions.

What are some other aviation optical illusions?

- Runway Width
- Runway / Terrain Slope
- Distance / Depth Perception due to haze, fog or rain
- Black Hole
- Featurless Terrain
- False Horizon
- Ground Light Patterns
- Autokenesis

Jay Beckman
PP-ASEL
AZ Cloudbusters
Chandler, AZ

Sloped runways, black hole and white out.



--
James H. Macklin
ATP,CFI,A&P

"Tim923" wrote in message
...
| "Brien K. Meehan" wrote:
| Every pilot is trained on how to deal with a number of
common optical
| illusions.
|
| What are some other aviation optical illusions?

"George Patterson" wrote in message news:kFotf.2261$uv.1145@trnddc06...
Distant lights on the ground often create a "false horizon" at night.

I was flying back to Houston from Oshkosh a few years ago... I was somewhere
over Arkansas at the time... The lights on the ground gave me the impression
that there might be mountains around there... I was on flight following at
the time, so I asked what the maximum height of the Ozarks were around
there... The controller informed me that I was nowhere near the Ozarks and
there was no mountains that would be at my altitude... Very strange visual
effect...

On more than one occasion, on a moonless night, over
sparsely populated areas, with lots of stars in the sky and
a similar number of lights on the ground, with those lights
reflecting on the windshield, you can lose all visual sense
of right side up unless you fly by the instruments. This
was a real problem on night coming out eastbound from Denver
Stapleton (long time ago, single pilot demo flight in a
pre-84 P68 Baron). It was totally clear, visibility was
over 100 miles and even though I was IFR, I was being given
traffic at all altitudes, some was participating, some had
transponders and encoding, some didn't. I tried to hand fly
the departure for about 3 or 4 minutes. It was very
difficult, since ATC was forcing me to look outside and
there was nothing outside to see but aircraft lights above,
below and level, all moving. Finally learned to turn the
autopilot ON and let it do the flying while I looked 90% of
the time for the traffic, and monitored the AP with quick
glances.

You get the same loss of visual reference over water with
just a few stars and boats on the water. [JFKjr may have had
this problem]

There is at least one area in NW Arkansas that has a radio
warning about rising terrain.


--
Merry Christmas
Have a Safe and Happy New Year
Live Long and Prosper
Jim Macklin
"Grumman-581" wrote
in message ...
| "George Patterson" wrote in message
news:kFotf.2261$uv.1145@trnddc06...
| Distant lights on the ground often create a "false
horizon" at night.
|
| I was flying back to Houston from Oshkosh a few years
ago... I was somewhere
| over Arkansas at the time... The lights on the ground gave
me the impression
| that there might be mountains around there... I was on
flight following at
| the time, so I asked what the maximum height of the Ozarks
were around
| there... The controller informed me that I was nowhere
near the Ozarks and
| there was no mountains that would be at my altitude...
Very strange visual
| effect...
|
|

P58 Baron
"Jim Macklin" wrote
in message news:t%Jtf.38733$QW2.32700@dukeread08...
| On more than one occasion, on a moonless night, over
| sparsely populated areas, with lots of stars in the sky
and
| a similar number of lights on the ground, with those
lights
| reflecting on the windshield, you can lose all visual
sense
| of right side up unless you fly by the instruments. This
| was a real problem on night coming out eastbound from
Denver
| Stapleton (long time ago, single pilot demo flight in a
| pre-84 P68 Baron). It was totally clear, visibility was
| over 100 miles and even though I was IFR, I was being
given
| traffic at all altitudes, some was participating, some had
| transponders and encoding, some didn't. I tried to hand
fly
| the departure for about 3 or 4 minutes. It was very
| difficult, since ATC was forcing me to look outside and
| there was nothing outside to see but aircraft lights
above,
| below and level, all moving. Finally learned to turn the
| autopilot ON and let it do the flying while I looked 90%
of
| the time for the traffic, and monitored the AP with quick
| glances.
|
| You get the same loss of visual reference over water with
| just a few stars and boats on the water. [JFKjr may have
had
| this problem]
|
| There is at least one area in NW Arkansas that has a radio
| warning about rising terrain.
|
|
| --
| Merry Christmas
| Have a Safe and Happy New Year
| Live Long and Prosper
| Jim Macklin
| "Grumman-581"
wrote
| in message
...
|| "George Patterson" wrote in message
| news:kFotf.2261$uv.1145@trnddc06...
|| Distant lights on the ground often create a "false
| horizon" at night.
||
|| I was flying back to Houston from Oshkosh a few years
| ago... I was somewhere
|| over Arkansas at the time... The lights on the ground
gave
| me the impression
|| that there might be mountains around there... I was on
| flight following at
|| the time, so I asked what the maximum height of the
Ozarks
| were around
|| there... The controller informed me that I was nowhere
| near the Ozarks and
|| there was no mountains that would be at my altitude...
| Very strange visual
|| effect...
||
||
|
|

"Jim Macklin" wrote in message news:t%Jtf.38733$QW2.32700@dukeread08...
There is at least one area in NW Arkansas that has a radio
warning about rising terrain.

Looking back at it, I was well above even the highest mountain in the state
even if there was a 1000 ft tower on top of it... The highest point in the
state is less than 3000 ft MSL... The illusion was definitely there
though... Enough so that even after ATC told me that I didn't have anything
to worry about, I still paid quite a bit of attention to see if the lights
were getting closer... Kind of wierd how that works out sometimes...

The eye just gathers light, the mind sees.


--
James H. Macklin
ATP,CFI,A&P

"Grumman-581" wrote
in message
...
| "Jim Macklin" wrote in message
news:t%Jtf.38733$QW2.32700@dukeread08...
| There is at least one area in NW Arkansas that has a
radio
| warning about rising terrain.
|
| Looking back at it, I was well above even the highest
mountain in the state
| even if there was a 1000 ft tower on top of it... The
highest point in the
| state is less than 3000 ft MSL... The illusion was
definitely there
| though... Enough so that even after ATC told me that I
didn't have anything
| to worry about, I still paid quite a bit of attention to
see if the lights
| were getting closer... Kind of wierd how that works out
sometimes...
|
|