Sad news to report (crash/fatality)

[fodrv7]

My condolences to Scott's family.
There, but for the Grace of God go I.

Regarding John's concern about IFR flying, the greatest area of risk for IFR is the transition to VFR. Until you pop out into the clear, you do not really know what you are going to be dealing with.

You could become visual and under a defined cloud base with 20 mile visibility (piece of cake) or you could find the base undiscenible in 1 mile vis. in rain or snow- though not the later in Aus.

If you are doing an instrument approach and the runway is fittied with HIAL (High Intensity Approach Lighting) then the undefined base and poor visiblilty are not so hard to deal with, as at the minima you will either see the lights or you won't and if you don't you should be immediately carrying out a missed approach.

However, if you are faced with no HIAL and a circling approach then it is far more difficult to assess whether you have sufficient visual clues and legal VMC in order to continue the approach. It is also possible to become visual on a circling approach, only to find another part of the circuit pattern you need to fly, does not have IMC due lower cloud base or reduced visibility in precipitation.

Adding to the problem is that you may be circling away from the missed approach direction, so you need to keep a mental picture of which way to turn for a missed approach, at any stage of the circuit, in order to ensure that if a missed approach becomes necessary, then you will be afforded the terrain protection of the published missed approach procedure.

The ability to assess whether you are IMC or VMC is the crux of it.
YOU CAN ONLY EVER BE ONE OR THE OTHER.

Pete.

[David-aviator]

Originally Posted by pierre smith

You also have autoland. Is it really as good as we're told? Hands off landings?
Only then would fog not be such a concern.

It's better, Pierre, if the runway and airplane are certified for such ops.

When I was in that world, the only limitation was a 50' DH, vis did not matter. The best runways were at London and Paris. The airplane would autoland and track the center line perfectly. All the pilot had to do was ease the nose over after TD, go into reverse thrust, disconnect everything when slowed to taxi speed and follow a line of lights to the gate. The guy in the tower knew the gate and pushed buttons to get proper steering to the assigned gate. Sometimes the fog was so thick, you couldn't see the edge of the concrete on a taxi way. It was a piece of cake if everything was working. There were coordinated checks by the pilots on final to make sure everything was working. If not, it was off to an alternate.

Hand flying an RV is such conditions is no piece of cake.....for anyone....really wonder why the guy was doing it?

[JohnR]

My condolences to the family. This kind of news is always hard to hear.

[OldAndBold]

Originally Posted by David-aviator

. . .
Hand flying an RV is such conditions is no piece of cake..... for anyone.... really wonder why the guy was doing it?

When I was a student pilot not so long ago part of the training was to start reading accident reports. The ones that really stood out in my mind were the airline pilots who died flying GA aircraft. How could these guys with all that much training and experience make those kind of mistakes? If they can make those mistakes then certainly I can. Yikes.

Speaking as someone who is getting his instrument training I can tell you that it is very tempting to think that after 40 hours of training and a successful checkride that I can start doing instrument approaches in bad conditions. After all, I will have been trained to know what the minimums are, I will know what the procedures are and the FAA will have given me this rating that says I can legally fly to minimums. The reality is that its a lot harder than it looks and its very easy to overestimate my abilities. And here I am trying to decide what kind of IFR panel to install...

--JCB

[jbDC9]

Originally Posted by pierre smith

You also have autoland. Is it really as good as we're told? Hands off landings? Only then would fog not be such a concern.

Yup, a Cat II or IIIA autolanding is an amazing thing to watch; how'd it do that? Pretty cool... it really is that good. One side effect of a using all that fancy technology is that it kinda dulls down your hands on skills. The sharpest I've ever been on instrument flying was my freight dog days hauling cancelled checks in ragged out Cessna 310s. Single pilot, no autopilot, mostly at night, in minimally equipped airplanes flying 5-7 legs per night in all kinds of weather. Some nights we did ILSs down to 200 and 1/2 mile viz every leg; throw in ice, thunderstorms, fog, the occasional NDB or DME arc approach just to keep it interesting. I'll never be that good again.

[N674P]

Originally Posted by jbDC9

Yup, a Cat II or IIIA autolanding is an amazing thing to watch.

Gripe: Autoland very rough.
Maintenance: Aircraft not equiped with Autoland.

All levity aside, my condolences to family and friends - a sad time.

[Brantel]

We don't know what happened here and no one should draw conclusions on what all the circumstances were that created this disaster but...

Was it the airplane type/model that killed this man? Most likely not. No mater how many hours you have and no mater what you fly, if you make a bad decision, it could kill you.

Everyone assumes that an airline pilot with thousands of hours shooting ILS approaches in the big iron is somehow exempt from what can happen to you in a single engine, light and agile airplane on a non-precision approach and that somehow the airplane must have been at fault. The airplane most likely did not cause this man to die.

My heart and prayers go out to the family of this fellow aviator.

Everyone be carefull!

[OldAndBold]

I hasten to respond to Brantel's post and say that I have made no conclusions about this sad accident. My posts have been simply in consideration of what has been stated about the accident and reflecting on what it might mean for me as a pilot and builder of a similar aircraft.

--JCB

[Mel]

Once did a "flight advisor" session for an airline pilot. Thousands of hours in airliners. Less than 100 in single engine, and most of that in a Champ. Strongly recommended that he get some RV transition time before flying his 180 hp RV-4. He did, and has been enjoying it ever since.

[captainron]

Originally Posted by jbDC9

The sharpest I've ever been on instrument flying was my freight dog days hauling cancelled checks in ragged out Cessna 310s. Single pilot, no autopilot, mostly at night, in minimally equipped airplanes flying 5-7 legs per night in all kinds of weather. Some nights we did ILSs down to 200 and 1/2 mile viz every leg; throw in ice, thunderstorms, fog, the occasional NDB or DME arc approach just to keep it interesting. I'll never be that good again.

So you're the guy I had to always slow down for on approaches! I was doing the same thing in Aerostars. My old favorite was serial no. 13.

Sad to hear of another brother going this way. May he rest in peace.