Lawsuit in HPN accident

"...everything to do with avoiding obstacles (terrain, buildings, other
aircraft, etc.)."

Duh! My bad!

I guess I need new spectacles. Yeah, that's it!

Jose
--
The price of freedom is... well... freedom.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"Gary Drescher" wrote in
:

snip

Will you sit right seat? Will you take off if the weather is BELOW
MINIMUMS?

No, you're right, I wouldn't take off then. I'd want to be able to
approach and land if a mechanical problem became apparent shortly
after takeoff. On the other hand, their takeoff was uneventful, so
that danger didn't materialize. When they flew the approach, in the
absence of any mechanical problem, below-minimum visibility should not
have been dangerous; it should just have prompted a missed approach.
In fact, though, they crashed a mile or two from the field--long
before below-minimum visibility should have been a factor at all. So
even if taking off under those conditions was irresponsible, that
particular irresponsibility was arguably not contributory to the
accident, as things turned out.

True. But the fact that they did take off in weather that was below
minimums, helps to paint a picture of an instructor whose focus was on
something other than safety of flight.

And no, admittedly I'm not going to sit in the right seat or let my
friend fly. I have no experience giving instruction or flying from the
right seat. I don't know how if that would be particularly difficult
for an experienced instructor to do. But from the reports I've seen,
we don't know if the student was flying the approach at all; the NTSB
report doesn't even say who was sitting where. It's conceivable that
for the return leg, the instructor was sitting in the left seat and
the student was just along for the ride.

That is conceivable. It's equaly as conceivable that the instructor was
not IFR current. After all, he let his medical lapse, what's to say that
he didn't let his currency lapse?

Obviously, a lapsed medical and an irresponsible take off didn't cause
this accident. But they are among a series of facts that paint a picture
of an instructor who had a pattern of taking less than responsible
actions and failed to excercise good judgement.

Nobody's perfect, but the apparent trend makes it easy to assume
(perhaps incorrectly) that the cause of the accident lies in the hands
of the instructor as well...

Recently, Gary Drescher posted:

"Neil Gould" wrote in message
m...
Recently, Gary Drescher posted:

"Neil Gould" wrote in message
...
For example, a clear, moonless
night is also loggable as IMC, and goes all the way to the ground.
;-)

Well, it can be loggable as instrument time, but not as IMC--a
clear, moonless night is definitely not IMC.

If you spend any time over a large body of water or undeveloped
landscape on a moonless night, you may arrive at a different opinion
about that. I've done both, and they're definitely IMC.

It's just a matter of terminology. Yes, you're describing conditions
that require flying by instruments; and yes, the time spent in such
conditions is loggable as instrument time. But IMC has a specific
meaning under the FARs. It refers to visibility conditions that are
less than the specified minimums for Visual Flight Rules. If the
conditions you describe were really IMC, then you'd have to be
instrument rated and under IFR to fly in those conditions. But in
fact, there's no such requirement, because those conditions are not
IMC.

I think that Peter Duniho's response casts doubt on your perspective. The
way I see it, "I" and "V" indicate the mode used for control of the
aircraft; "MC" describes the conditions which require a particular mode of
control. I suspect that we can make these things far more convoluted than
they need to be.

Remember, VMC and IMC are defined primarily for purposes of
*separation* rather than aviation or navigation. You may still
need instruments to keep the plane right side up, but that's a
different matter.

How would this be a different matter? Far more accidents are due to
colliding with fixed obstacles and terrain than with other aircraft.

Regards,

Neil

"Neil Gould" wrote in message
. ..
I think that Peter Duniho's response casts doubt on your perspective. The
way I see it, "I" and "V" indicate the mode used for control of the
aircraft; "MC" describes the conditions which require a particular mode of
control.

Well, I did say the distinction was *primarily* a matter of separation. Pete
correctly points out some other aspects of the distinction.

But regardless of what motivates the distinction, the point remains that a
clear, moonless night over the wilderness does not qualify as IMC (even
though the conditions require the use of instruments to keep the plane
upright), because flying in IMC, by definition, requires being under
Instrument Flight Rules and having a (current) instrument rating; whereas
flying over the wilderness on a clear, moonless night can be done under
Visual Flight Rules.

From the AIM Pilot/Controller Glossary:
"Instrument Meteorological Conditions- Meteorological conditions expressed
in terms of visibility, distance from cloud, and ceiling less than the
minima specified for visual meteorological conditions."

The conditions you describe have visibility of many miles, no clouds, and no
ceiling; those are, by definition, Visual Meteorological Conditions, even if
everything is pitch black, with no visible horizon. (Night visibility is
defined in terms of the distance from which a prominent lighted object would
be seen.)

--Gary

"Neil Gould" wrote in message
. ..
I think that Peter Duniho's response casts doubt on your perspective.

I don't. My response was intended only to agree with Gary's statement, and
to provide some additional insight into the situation. Nothing I wrote was
intended to dispute what Gary wrote, nor do I see anything that does.

The way I see it, "I" and "V" indicate the mode used for control of the
aircraft;

They do with respect to IFR versus VFR. They do not with respect to logging
instrument conditions (which requires only control of the aircraft solely
with reference to instruments, not a particular set of rules or
meterological conditions).

"MC" describes the conditions which require a particular mode of
control.

"meteorological conditions" by itself describes nothing. You need the "I"
or "V" to make the phrase meaningful.

IMC versus VMC describe weather conditions (specifically, visibility and
clouds). IFR versus VFR describe a set of flight rules, only one of which
permits one to fly in or near clouds. Neither of those pairs has direct
control over logging instrument flight time (though there is, of course, a
strong correlation between IMC and instrument flight time).

I suspect that we can make these things far more convoluted than
they need to be.

One might even suggest you're demonstrating that now.

Remember, VMC and IMC are defined primarily for purposes of
*separation* rather than aviation or navigation. You may still
need instruments to keep the plane right side up, but that's a
different matter.

How would this be a different matter? Far more accidents are due to
colliding with fixed obstacles and terrain than with other aircraft.

It's a different matter because VMC and IMC don't have anything to do with
whether you log flight time as "instrument flight time", from a regulatory
standpoint.

Pete

Recently, Gary Drescher posted:

"Neil Gould" wrote in message
. ..
I think that Peter Duniho's response casts doubt on your
perspective. The way I see it, "I" and "V" indicate the mode used
for control of the aircraft; "MC" describes the conditions which
require a particular mode of control.

Well, I did say the distinction was *primarily* a matter of
separation. Pete correctly points out some other aspects of the
distinction.

But regardless of what motivates the distinction, the point remains
that a clear, moonless night over the wilderness does not qualify as
IMC (even though the conditions require the use of instruments to
keep the plane upright), because flying in IMC, by definition,
requires being under Instrument Flight Rules and having a (current)
instrument rating; whereas flying over the wilderness on a clear,
moonless night can be done under Visual Flight Rules.

From the AIM Pilot/Controller Glossary:
"Instrument Meteorological Conditions- Meteorological conditions
expressed in terms of visibility, distance from cloud, and ceiling
less than the minima specified for visual meteorological conditions."

Point taken. I was inappropriately referring to "IMC" in my example.

Neil