Personal Minimums SEL?

-----Original Message-----
From: paul kgyy [mailto Posted At: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 9:12 AM
Posted To: rec.aviation.ifr
Conversation: Personal Minimums SEL?
Subject: Personal Minimums SEL?

I'm curious what Instrument Rated members of this group use for
personal minimums for takeoff and landing for single engine aircraft.

The question is prompted by a recent flight where the takeoff
conditions were 200 ft + 1 mile. That's lower than I've ever done
before, and it occurred to me that if I had any significant engine
problems, it was all over unless I was extremly lucky.

Since I fly to please myself now instead of some employer, and since
I've got a LOT greyer on the roof my personal minimums have definitely
changed. 35 years ago, I resented having to depart zero/zero because I
needed the job and there were too many unemployed pilots willing to take
it. I also only did that about a dozen times before I found a new
career. (That's why I can afford to fly now.)

Today, I like options. Published minimums make me sweat too much
(remember I'm older now) so I don't even like them for departures any
more. I personally don't care how many fans are turning because if
anything happens unexpectedly I don't want to have to work that hard to
save my butt.

I think I like published alternate minimums for departures with no
cumulo-granite in the vicinity. Of course departure and approach
minimums might have to get higher after an extended period of time away
from the clocks.

I'm sure others who fly every day and have a great personal intimacy
with their aircraft will depart in conditions in which I would prefer to
sit and drink coffee, but then I don't fly every day and I know from
experience that no matter how much of a first name basis you're on with
that fan up front - it will quit on you some day.

"vincent p. norris" wrote in message ...
My first several years of flying were in the military, when all we had
were Adcock range approaches and NDB (we called them ADF) approaches.
We did them to 200' and 1/4 mile. Sounds hard to believe today, but
we took it for granted.

So ILS mins of 200 and 1/2 seem quite reasonable.

vince norris

You had ADF? You lucky guy!
We had to find the cone of silence, turn to the appropriate heading,
and make a timed descent to visual contact with the airport.
I don't remember the minima, but I think they were higher than 200+1/4.

"paul kgyy" wrote in news:1169046707.212374.112150
@m58g2000cwm.googlegroups.com:

I'm curious what Instrument Rated members of this group use for
personal minimums for takeoff and landing for single engine aircraft.

ILS minimums for me.

Only thing is if I go out seeking ILS minimums, I must be prepared to not
come back to my airport, as GPS minimums apply.

Allen

vincent p. norris wrote:
My first several years of flying were in the military, when all we had
were Adcock range approaches and NDB (we called them ADF) approaches.
We did them to 200' and 1/4 mile. Sounds hard to believe today, but
we took it for granted.

So ILS mins of 200 and 1/2 seem quite reasonable.

When students ask me what my personal mins are here in the fog, I used
to just tell them "2 dots". If at any point I get more than 2 dots off
the loc, I'll go missed, otherwise I'll follow it all the way to mins.
As a CFII I'm not really suppose to say that though

-Robert

vincent p. norris wrote:
My first several years of flying were in the military, when all we had
were Adcock range approaches and NDB (we called them ADF) approaches.
We did them to 200' and 1/4 mile. Sounds hard to believe today, but
we took it for granted.

Probably one of the differences back then vs now is that you probably
had at least one guy on the field that just went around and tuned up
ADF receivers. If you've been tuned in the last 30 days you could
probably get a good approach. Most ADF planes on the field now would be
lucky to get w/i 3 miles of the airport on the ADF today.

-Robert

On Thu, 18 Jan 2007 02:26:33 GMT, A Lieberma
wrote:

"paul kgyy" wrote in news:1169046707.212374.112150
:

I'm curious what Instrument Rated members of this group use for
personal minimums for takeoff and landing for single engine aircraft.

ILS minimums for me.

The same here if I'm proficient.


Only thing is if I go out seeking ILS minimums, I must be prepared to not
come back to my airport, as GPS minimums apply.

My instructor put me through so much actual right down to and below
minimums that my first flight after getting the rating was comfortable
at minimums. I'm currently not that proficient.



Allen
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

In article ,
Nathan Young wrote:
50 ft is 99% luck. Pitch for lowest speed above stall, and pray
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
whatever is in front of you is soft. Hell, if you have really bad
luck, you might hit a tree while still in the clouds.

-Nathan

"Pitch for lowest speed above stall"?!? While this may provide for the lowest
possible forward airspeed/groundspeed, you're going to have one helluva sink
rate. In addition, your ability to manuver and flare with be severely
degrated. Everything I've ever read and been taught says to push the nose
over to maintain best glide speed (which is usually very close to Vy for
most light singles). There was even an article in last month's issue of
AOPA pilot about this which mentioned how much you really do need to push
the nose over to attain best glide speed upon engine failure after take off.

I'd be curious as to your rationale for pitching to lowest speed above
stall....

-- Dane

Dane Spearing wrote:

"Pitch for lowest speed above stall"?!? While this may provide for the lowest
possible forward airspeed/groundspeed, you're going to have one helluva sink
rate. In addition, your ability to manuver and flare with be severely
degrated. Everything I've ever read and been taught says to push the nose
over to maintain best glide speed (which is usually very close to Vy for
most light singles). There was even an article in last month's issue of
AOPA pilot about this which mentioned how much you really do need to push
the nose over to attain best glide speed upon engine failure after take off.

I'd be curious as to your rationale for pitching to lowest speed above
stall....

I don't want to speak for the other poster but the rationale seems
obvious. If you can't see anything and/or you don't know what's in
front of you, then how long you stay aloft isn't going to matter. Of
course, one does not want to have TOO much of a vertical speed if they
value their spine but most likely the thing that's to the aircraft's
nose will be the killer item.

Marco

On Thu, 18 Jan 2007 17:00:16 +0000 (UTC),
(Dane Spearing) wrote:

In article ,
Nathan Young wrote:
50 ft is 99% luck. Pitch for lowest speed above stall, and pray
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
whatever is in front of you is soft. Hell, if you have really bad
luck, you might hit a tree while still in the clouds.

-Nathan

"Pitch for lowest speed above stall"?!? While this may provide for the lowest
possible forward airspeed/groundspeed, you're going to have one helluva sink
rate. In addition, your ability to manuver and flare with be severely
degrated.

Good question. First off, just to make crystal clear, I am not
advocating the low speed descent in a normal engine out scenario. In
that case, standard practice of best glide and then once visual
maneuver as required, culminating in a flare just above stall speed.

However, this scenario is quite a bit different. IMC to 50ft is
crappy weather. Unless you departed off a runway in the middle of a
flat bean field, there is a high likelyhood of the plane hitting
something (like a tree) on the way down, and if that occurs, I want
the plane's energy to be at it's minimum. Hence, my comment about
keeping the airspeed just above a stall.

I also want to mention that if the weather is IMC to 50 ft, there is a
good chance that a few clouds will go to the surface. In which case,
even in the beanfield scenario, you may hit the ground without ever
going visual.

Your point(s) about controllability at stall point and sink rate are
great ones. You probably don't want VS0 + 1mph. Maybe VS0 + 5 or 10
mph. Just enough extra speed to allow a reasonable flare (assuming
you go visual at some point before impact).

But adding speed is a big trade off, because if you hit something
before going visual, that's a lot of extra energy to dissipate on a
crash.

In my plane, best glide is 80mph. Stall is 50mph. What I was trying
to avoid was impacting something at 80mph. That's 2.5x the energy to
dissipate in the crash.

Vertical speed & forward speed vs crash survivability data would be
interesting to see. At best glide & idle throttle my Cherokee
descends at about 950fpm, which is about 11mph or the equivalent of a
free-fall from 4 feet.. I haven't checked the engine out descent rate
at VS0 + 1mph, so I have no idea what the fpm would be. That will
be a fun test next time I go flying. Previously, I did test out
70mph and 90 mph, and found minimal increase (100fpm) on the VSI.

-Nathan

You had ADF? You lucky guy!
We had to find the cone of silence, turn to the appropriate heading,
and make a timed descent to visual contact with the airport.

IIRC, our ADF was useless when shooting an Adcock range approach,
which is what you seem to be talking about. We flew to the high cone,
did a procedure turn, descended and flew to the low cone, than, as you
say, took a heading to the airport.

ADF approaches had no "cones." As I recall, we often shot them using
commercial AM radio stations. Perhaps those were just practice
approaches, not actual approaches in IMC. It was half a century ago,
and I don't recall all the details perfectly.

I don't remember the minima, but I think they were higher than 200+1/4.

Ours were, of course, if the terrain required, but could be as low as
200 and a quarter.

vince norris