Near miss from space junk.

"chris" wrote in
ups.com:

On Apr 3, 2:53 pm, Jose wrote:
Really?? But you gotta be clear of cloud, surely!!!

Yes, you must be clear of cloud. Depending on the airspace, you must be
certain distances away. However, in the US you do not need ground
contact. You can fly VFR above a solid overcast.

It may not be too bright to do so, depending on circumstances. However,
it is legal, and often not a dumb thing to do.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Makes me laugh, just a little.. People here have been telling me how
dangerous it is to fly without accurate fuel gauges coz you might have
a fuel leak or something like that and here you guys are now telling
me you can fly above a solid overcast.. What happens if you have an
engine failure?? Or get to your destination and you can't get down??
I also wouldn't think you could navigate by using your map if you
can't see the surface, so that means using VOR or GPS or something,
which I was under the impression are supposed to be secondary to your
map reading! But what do I know... :-)


In clear VFR, would you fly over water, say between the North and
South Island or, in the US, between Ventura and Catalina? If so, you have
no option on where to land should you get an engine failure. If you would
not such a flight in clear VFR, then you shouldn't fly over a solid
overcast. But if you would, what is the difference, especially if you have
CAVU and can see your destination?

I've done the trip from San Jose to South Lake Tahoe and there have
been several times the central valley is fogged in but the fog only came up
to 1,000' AGL. The weather in the Santa Clara Valley (San Jose), the
mountains west of Sacramento, South Lake Tahoe, and at my cruise altitude,
9,500 MSL, it was CAVU all the way. If I have an engine failure over the
central valley, I'm in big trouble as it is often W0X0F on the ground, but
I'm in just as much trouble over the mountains or water where I have CAVU.
If it's W0X0F, unless I'm CAT IIIc capable, even an instrument rating isn't
going to be of much help.

I would not go over an extended overcast unless I knew the weather
patterns at both my origin and destination and planned alternates. In the
mountains, the higher elevation airports often are CAVU when the valley
airports are effectively closed due to Tule fog.

--
Marty Shapiro
Silicon Rallye Inc.

(remove SPAMNOT to email me)