single pilot ifr trip tonight

Why can't people
who have decided not to install an autopilot just admit that they
have chosen a slightly lower level of safety?


Probably for the same reason that those who have one but don't use it won't
admit they've "chosen a lower level of safety", and those who insist on flying
themselves rather than having a professional pilot co-pilot team fly them
around in a part 135 aircraft are "choosing a lower level of safety".

There are autopilots in all the club aircraft I fly. I never use them. (ok, I
tried playing around with one once; it just didn't feel like I was flying an
airplane any more).

I much prefer to be a pilot than a passenger, I much prefer to have my hand on
the yoke and my feet on the pedals. That's the whole point, isn't it?

Jose

--
(for Email, make the obvious changes in my address)

Snowbird wrote:
(andrew m. boardman) wrote in message
...
FWIW, our AA5B does fine hands-off if the pitch trim is OK, even in
bouncy stuff, using one's feet to keep it vaguely straight.

I don't know what to say about this.

Do you have aileron trim? Do you have the 100 hr aileron AD
or the terminating condition?

No and yes; we're happy to deal with the AD considering all the horror
stories I've heard about the aileronectomy.

He becomes noticably left-wing heavy in rain, to the extent
that if I'm flying under the hood I can tell immediately when
I enter and exit IMC just by the feel of the yoke.

Ours too, although not in all IMC; there seems to be a critical level of
moisture that causes it. (You've probably heard all the same theories I
have about *why*, I just wish I could make it go away.) The above comment
about driving with the feet does definitely *not* apply when it's doing
this. (It's really also less active than "driving with the feet"; more
like "figuring out how much rudder pressure I need to compensate for the
heavy wing so I can hold approximate heading in uncoordinated flight long
enough to go deal with whatever I need to deal with.)

Once upon a time, in very smooth air (11500' over one of the flat
states), self and copilot went for about 20 minutes thinking that the
autopilot was on when it wasn't; the plane was tracking perfectly.

I have flown in smooth air and have never encountered anything
remotely like this. If our autopilot weren't engaged, we'd know
right away.

All I can say is it really happened! We were playing with all of the
electronics on the delivery flight, and decided to see how the Century I
did with course tracking. I'd read 2^n pieces of advice about how they
don't work worth beans unless they start out on course and on heading, so
I took some time getting everything perfectly dialed in and on the beam
and then settled back to watch, but never actually switched it on. I
*was* periodically tweaking the pitch trim to hold approximate
altititude. The plane eventually went into a very gradual right bank,
and we waited a bit for enough of a CDI deviation for the C-1 to kick in
with a course correction, and only twigged to what was really going on
after we were 20 degrees off and getting (slowly) worse. The air was
smooth as glass, and the two pilots on board were inert if not
somnolescent.

I was reading the first part and thinking maybe you're just a
stud-muffin ace pilot...

No worries there!

...who doesn't notice the constant slight adjustments you're making and
I'm a putz, but the above is just totally foreign to our experience.

Hmm. I've flown a few four-seat Grummans (though I'm *far* from being
Mike LeTrello), and while the experience related above is indeed so far a
unique one, I've never felt like I couldn't let go of the controls for a
bit for some vaguely-straight-and-level. Maybe I've just got looser
tolerances for what I'm willing to recover from after I finish fishing
around in the back seat?

You're welcome to come fly Tigger and generalize about 4 place
Grummans after you do.

Thanks! And vice-versa, too. Might even be at Baraboo...

Peter,

that an IFR flight
plan must be airways only. Perhaps it is similar in Germany? Can you
fly IFR more or less anywhere (like you can in the UK)?


You file airways, but sometimes you get direct.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

(Snowbird) writes:

And please remember, my original point was that you should let go
of the yoke in IMC when you are not looking at the attitude
instruments

And my original point is that this is not a "one size fits all"
solution to lack of autopilot. There are planes where this will get
you into trouble.

When you are not looking at the attitude instruments in IMC, in any
plane, how do you know which way to move the yoke? Or are these
planes where you have to hold constant pressure on the yoke against an
out-of-trim condition?


All the best,


David

"Tom S." writes:

Also, learn to handle the yoke without using a death grip. It may
require a bit more than fingertip pressure to handle the yoke in
turbulence, but "white knuckles" only makes the sensations worse.

Right -- thumb and forefinger only for me, with elbow on the armrest
(actually, I normally use only thumb *or* forefinger).


All the best,


David

(Snowbird) writes:

However, other things being equal, I don't think there can be any
doubt that extra equipment adds to safety. I personally would not
care to argue that a SE plane flown by a proficient pilot is as safe
or safer than a ME plane flown by a proficient pilot -- how can it
be, when the extra engine/alternator/vacuum pump provide levels of
redundancy and additional options after a failure which most SE
planes lack.

Do you know where to find stats showing the differences in accident
rates between single-pilot+single-engine IFR and
single-pilot+multi-engine IFR?

In theory, it sounds like your statement should be right, but then, in
theory, spin training should reduce the stall/spin rate (which it
didn't, in Canada), and airbags should bring down the fatality rates
in car accidents. We have to look at the actual results to see what
works.

I'd be willing to bet money that single-pilot/multi-pilot is a much
more sigificant risk determinant than single-engine/multi-engine; if
you throw in a dispatcher and operations manual, even more so.


All the best,


David

(Ben Jackson) writes:

This whole thread is nuts. There are many levels of safety, and
people have to choose between them all the time. Why can't people
who have decided not to install an autopilot just admit that they
have chosen a slightly lower level of safety?

That's not a fair assessment of the thread. A couple of extreme
positions crept in -- (a) an autopilot does no good, (b) IFR without
an autopilot is unacceptably dangerous -- but most of the postings in
this thread are exploring the ground in the middle. I mentioned right
at the start that I would love a wing-leveller some day, just to have
a panic button available if I ever get severe vertigo.

The hard part is figuring out how big the risk is, and we simply don't
have the stats available to do that. The people who *do* have the
stats -- insurance companies -- do not give a discount for private IFR
pilots flying small planes with an autopilot (as far as I've seen), so
they must figure it's too small a risk difference to affect the amount
of claims they pay out.

The question is not whether an A/P provides additional safety, but how
much additional safety it provides. For example, does it provide more
additional safety than wearing your shoulder belt? Almost certainly
not. Does it provide more additional safety than carrying a gun on
board? Probably (unless you're flying in polar bear country). Does
it provide more additional safety than wearing a flame-retardant suit
or a full survival suit? I don't know.

Sometimes things that look good on paper don't work out in real life.
For example, as I mentioned in a previous posting, the U.S. abandoned
spin training for the PPL not long after WWII (I think), while Canada
stubbornly kept spin training right up until the 1990s, assuming it
was saving lives. Unfortunately, when Transport Canada looked at the
numbers in the 1990's, Canadian pilots (*all* of whom had spin
training) had a slightly higher stall/spin fatality rate than
U.S. pilots (most of whom had no spin training). Go figure --
obviously, risk-management is not a simple, incremental problem
(i.e. autopilot: +2, IFR GPS: +1, low ceiling: -2, etc.).

Still, I am willing to buy a wing-leveller on faith some day, even if
I cannot prove that it will make a significant difference in my flying
safety.


All the best,


David

David Megginson wrote:
The hard part is figuring out how big the risk is, and we simply don't
have the stats available to do that. The people who *do* have the
stats -- insurance companies -- do not give a discount for private IFR
pilots flying small planes with an autopilot (as far as I've seen), so
they must figure it's too small a risk difference to affect the amount
of claims they pay out.

Another possibility is that the whole risk pool is just too small to
come up with any statistics meaningful enough to sub-divide the pool and
offer different rates.

I think there's no doubt that if you take two equally skilled pilots and
put them in otherwise equal airplane and flight conditions but give one
an AP (with appropriate training) and make the other hand-fly 100% of
the time, the one with the AP will have a lower workload, which
translates directly into higher reserve of ability to handle the
unexpected which in turn translates into a safer flight.

On the other hand, for all I know, the guy with the AP in his plane
will, over the long run, tend to get complacent and dependant on the AP,
letting his hand-flying skills erode. This leads to a decrease in
safety.

Which is the stronger factor? I have no clue, and I suspect the
insurance companies don't either.

Roy Smith writes:

I think there's no doubt that if you take two equally skilled pilots
and put them in otherwise equal airplane and flight conditions but
give one an AP (with appropriate training) and make the other
hand-fly 100% of the time, the one with the AP will have a lower
workload, which translates directly into higher reserve of ability
to handle the unexpected which in turn translates into a safer
flight.

On the other hand, for all I know, the guy with the AP in his plane
will, over the long run, tend to get complacent and dependant on the AP,
letting his hand-flying skills erode. This leads to a decrease in
safety.

Which is the stronger factor? I have no clue, and I suspect the
insurance companies don't either.

But they do have better statistics about accidents than we can get
publicly. They know a lot about their individual policy holders, both
the ones who get in accidents and the ones who don't.

To help everyone in this discussion avoid jumping to absolutes (I'm
not accusing you of that, by the way), here's a different way to
approach the problem. Let's say you have a basic plane like mine -- a
125 kt, 160 hp, fixed-gear Warrior II with dual NAVCOM, DME, and ADF
-- that you fly a few hours each month in actual IMC and the rest in
VMC or marginal VMC (filed IFR, in that case).

You decide that you can afford to install *one* new permanent system
costing from USD 4K to USD 10K this year, and possibly one in each
following year (but not for certain). Arrange the following list in
the order that *you* think would make your IFR flying safest, putting
the highest priority item at the top. If you want, you can assume
that you already have some kind of backup vacuum system. These are
currently in alphabetical order:

Electric AI (backup)
Engine monitor (i.e. EDM 700)
HSI (slaved)
IFR GPS (non-moving-map, at this price)
Stormscope (or Strikefinder)
TPAS
Wing leveller (or other general single-axis AP)

For some people, there will come a point in the list where it makes
more safety sense each year to spend the money on additional
maintenance, inspections, and proactive replacement of typical failure
items like the alternator or vacuum pump (or even the navcom radios);
others will likely run down the full list and want to add more at the
end.

I'll post my own list shortly, but I will mention in advance that
neither the IFR GPS nor the wing leveller will be at the bottom.


All the best,


David

(Ben Jackson) wrote in message news:CIXqb.140965$Tr4.368294@attbi_s03...
In article ,
Snowbird wrote:
At a fundamental level, this is correct. No amount of fancy
gear can compensate for fundamental flying skills (or the lack
thereof) and for pilot judgement.

Oh come on, a 777 can do Cat IIIb autoland if I know how to push
the buttons, even if I couldn't maintain heading or altitude without
the autopilot. A GPS with "nearest" has rescued plenty of pilots
from bad judgement or poor pilotage.

Ben, I hope it's unintentional, but the way you cut my post
(with this the only excerpt included) superficially looks as
though you are arguing against the position (I hope) it's
clear I hold. In general, I agree with what you write below.

However, I don't think your examples above obviate my point:
if the Cat IIIb autopilot fritzes and your fundamental flying
skills suck, you're in doo doo. If the situation at hand falls
outside the parameters where a Cat IIIb autopilot is helpful
(the Arkansas accident comes to mind) the plane is in doo doo.
Likewise, if a pilot's judgement or skills didn't suck, the GPS
wouldn't have to save him and if the situation falls outside the
parameters where the GPS usefully contributes, it *won't* save
him. At the most fundamental level, and despite what aerospace
industry might like us to believe, there is still no substitute
for piloting skill and piloting judgement.

This whole thread is nuts. There are many levels of safety, and
people have to choose between them all the time.

Exactly.

Why can't people
who have decided not to install an autopilot just admit that they
have chosen a slightly lower level of safety?

Because they don't believe it. Why don't they believe it?
Wrong person to ask. As I hope was clear from previous posts.

It doesn't matter if I could draw a 3-meter resolution map
of the US from memory, however good (or bad) I am, the GPS would
augment that.

Exactly.

If inflating a tire cost $12000 I bet we'd have people here arguing
that they were just as safe with good landing technique on a flat tire.

*chuckle*
Sydney