almost home

[flyerme]

yay,. flew from Cohuna vic yesterday to swan hill then on to Ouyen where thick blanket of cloud was encounted at 2500ft,,was forced to fly low under the cloud waited 2 hrs at ouyen and after clouds where gone had a clear blue sky NO wind but could see the shimmering thermals every where,desided Id take off gain,,(big mistake) after lift off was thrown around and heaverly pounded made a 70knt (146kms)landing (wheeler) and desided to wait a bit longer,ha ha

 

after waiting 6 1/2 hours I headed to Pinnaroo,sweeeeeeeeeet only an hour from home but as it was 6pm when I hit Pinnaroo No chance of continuing..head down today(hrs drive) to check on my baby and prepare for the dreaded flight tomoz morning...yep I gotta get it down on my wee strip,(however I finally had it exstended to 360 mtrs....so happy I did it alone and proud as punch and conferdence has increased(not my flying but my nav precedures,radio etc..) I love this lighty but do have a slight gripe...bloody ailron drag!!!!!!!!!!!It be nice to roll the aircraft (lets say a wing waggle) in stead of it yawing,but NO chance of that ,Who needs a rudder with them big draggy ailrons throwing the slip ball into the corner? lol so happy ..

 

 

[Wayne T Mathews]

Get someone to teach you how to "roll on a point". It's a great stick and rudder coordination exercise akin to playing the scales on a piano... Sorts out that "bloody aileron drag" big time... You pick a point on the horizon, then using stick AND rudder, you roll from one side to the other while maintaining the nose on the point. Start out with small and slow inputs. As you learn the technique and become more proficient, you'll be able to increase the "wing waggle" speed and rate. It really is a great way to teach/learn foot and hand coordination.

 

 

[flyerme]

Get someone to teach you how to "roll on a point". It's a great stick and rudder coordination exercise akin to playing the scales on a piano... Sorts out that "bloody aileron drag" big time... You pick a point on the horizon, then using stick AND rudder, you roll from one side to the other while maintaining the nose on the point. Start out with small and slow inputs. As you learn the technique and become more proficient, you'll be able to increase the "wing waggle" speed and rate. It really is a great way to teach/learn foot and hand coordination.

makes for a nice easy side slip I must say..with all that drag..

 

 

[Wayne T Mathews]

makes for a nice easy side slip I must say..with all that drag..

Yes it does. When it's done properly, you go from a level, gentle little wing low side slip one way, to a level, gentle little wing low side slip the other way, and so on. Be gentle, and with practise you will become smooth and precise with your stick and rudder inputs. My advice is though, get your instructor to show you how to do it first. Fore if you're not doing it properly, and you learn bad habits and technique, you'll wind up writhing and wobbling all over the sky like a damn idjit.

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Dont worry about the aileron drag.. Focus more on important things...Like staying out of cloud.. Flying low through cloud??.. I cant think of a better way to end up dead..

 

 

[Wayne T Mathews]

Dont worry about the aileron drag.. Focus more on important things...Like staying out of cloud.. Flying low through cloud??.. I cant think of a better way to end up dead..

Well yeah,,, I just reread the first post,,, and Motz is right... Stay the hell out of cloud!!!

 

 

[Aldo]

Spot on Motz, and people wonder why attention gets drawn to RAA flying. It's one thing to be stupid enough to do it (and you shouldn't have a licence for doing it) but another completely to post it. I no doubt imagine CASA & RAA Aus keep a pretty good watch on this site.

 

 

[Sapphire]

I cant think of a better way to end up dead..

Try the mile high club

 

 

[facthunter]

I concur with the 2 previous posts. You are not legal to do it and it is a serious threat to your continued existence. and our continued right ot pursue out hobby. VFR is a situation WE are allowed to fly in. You should make every effort to do so.

 

 

[turboplanner]

FMe, here is the extract of the law, from CASA's Visual Flight Rules Guide, page 218.

 

 

 

[J170 Owner]

You flew threw cloud (through cloud)? Has somebody changed the rules or am I missing something here? Anyway, sounds like it was an exciting time, any photos?

 

 

[turboplanner]

You flew threw cloud (through cloud)? Has somebody changed the rules or am I missing something here? Anyway, sounds like it was an exciting time, any photos?

Would you be passing it off so casually if he had spiralled in?

 

What the hell is going on in SA?

 

 

[J170 Owner]

Would you be passing it off so casually if he had spiralled in?What the hell is going on in SA?

Nope. And I do not think it should be treated casually. What I could have said but didn't because I don't want total strangers throwing their shoes at me, is 1) improve your spelling and 2) Only a fool would deliberately fly into cloud and a bigger fool post it on this forum. However, I have decided to limit my posting and (hopefully) not lose any friends. Oh, by the way, we are all going mad in SA because somebody stole all the water from the Murray and left us with the dregs.

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Reading this sort of thing really makes me sad. It effects me terribly as it points to a pretty serious culture flaw. The same sentiments as echoed when pilots departed natfly in the dark. Similar circumstance here. A clear breach of the rules and all the is holy ( VFR). Flyerme obviously felt no compunction in posting about it.. This to me points to a much more serious problem then one pilot dabbling into imc.

 

Incredibly saddened by this. Flyerme, please don't feel I'm attacking you here but I would hate to hear of your demise due to a VFR into imc incident.

 

Please mate. Have a talk to your chief, or give me a call if you like. I am not interested in flaming you, I just want to help you understand how serious this sort of thing can be.

 

It's seriousness is compounded by the fact that Your post indicated rudder co ordination issues. One of the biggest problems when an untrained pilot enters imc is loss of control due to un coordinated turns. The spiral dive after disorientation has killed many many pilots and it generally starts with the secondary effects of either aileron or rudder.

 

I urge you to contemplate what happened. As I said above, talk to someone. It's fathers day today ;) .

 

Cheers

 

 

[facthunter]

That's true about the water and It's more serious than that, even. You have to have good water to make good beer. I have the wine instead. Nev

 

 

[hfrensch]

What the hell is going on in SA?

 

Making that kind of statement on a comment without being there then insulting SA pilots is a bit stiff . Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone!

 

 

[flyerme]

You flew threw cloud (through cloud)? Has somebody changed the rules or am I missing something here? Anyway, sounds like it was an exciting time, any photos?

No not fun and as I had filled a flight plan and printed a weather report from airservices as a registed pilot,all was said to be clear and as my cfi whome I did my x country said if you ever encounter low cloud fly under it , And I accually thought it was a bit of fog antill I staretd flying threw it then set glide and passed threw, I maintained Visual of the whole time so stuck to the rules...so settle down people and you gotta stop jumping to conlusions.. made contact with my CFI on arrival to Ouyen and He was both happy and satified with how I handled a situation where you just get cought out.. everything by the book. so much for clear sky with some patchy fog early.... as I mentioned , before I went off in to blindness I chopped power set glide maintained a visual before I entered it fully and continued undernith and landed emediatly.all by the book....sorry gotta laugh at some of you drawing your own conclusions...

 

 

[flyerme]

and a

 

No not fun and as I had filled a flight plan and printed a weather report from airservices as a registed pilot,all was said to be clear and as my cfi whome I did my x country said if you ever encounter low cloud fly under it , And I accually thought it was a bit of fog antill I staretd flying threw it then set glide and passed threw, I maintained Visual of the whole time so stuck to the rules...so settle down people and you gotta stop jumping to conlusions.. made contact with my CFI on arrival to Ouyen and He was both happy and satified with how I handled a situation where you just get cought out.. everything by the book. so much for clear sky with some patchy fog early.... as I mentioned , before I went off in to blindness I chopped power set glide maintained a visual before I entered it fully and continued undernith and landed emediatly.all by the book....sorry gotta laugh at some you drawing your own conclusions...

and as I was only 11 nm from ouyen and was clear at 1500ft No point detouring when all was safe AND LEGAL....

 

 

[facthunter]

You are making light of something that is just not the thing to do." Before I went off into "Blindness"," and you say you went by the rules. When you are in that stuff you don't know which way is UP. Believe me you were outside the rules. Did you ever think of turning back? having a forecast that says the weather is OK really means nothing. You have to asssess the situation you find and do the right thing. We are all trying to help you. It's not a matter of giving you a hard time. Nev

 

 

[turboplanner]

What the hell is going on in SA?

Making that kind of statement on a comment without being there then insulting SA pilots is a bit stiff . Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone!

I was aiming broadly for CFI response, but Motzart's post is the correct one.

 

FMe, if the regulation requires you to have five kilometres vision, that's what it means.

 

It's designed to give you five kilometres to get the aircraft turned around and heading away from it to save your life.

 

At five kilometres vision you are at the minimum the turn around point, so you can't just accidentally fly into cloud - you have to have decided to push on below the minimum.

 

You cannot just fly based on the forecast you received before you left. A good way of thinking is to assume that the forecast will never be right.

 

 

[flyerme]

I mearly mentioned ailrons as I noticed the drag only when giving my CFI a wing waggle... so rudder co ordination issue.s? what the?

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Ok mate. No problems. Got a pax endorsement?

 

 

[Sapphire]

I know of a couple of pilots who regularly fly IFR in RAA aircraft with no formal qualification and probably many more do it because it is hard to get caught red handed. My personal rule is when flying a single engine plane I am comfortably in VFR [not messing around in marginal conditions VFR] and within glide angle distance of a survivable area to land. Even GA aircraft come down. Impossible to do in commercial operations but ok for fun flying.

 

 

[turboplanner]

FMe, you have people depending on you for their wellbeing; the people here are trying to keep you alive. We are not talking about some minor use of control technique.

 

 

[flyerme]

As I mentioned visual was fine , I had passed some fog that had lifted to 2500ft and did not effect my visual in anyway .as I was around 15nm from my destination I noticed what appeared to be more fog ,this fog looked thicker and as I got closer I saw it was a blanket about a km long about 50mtrs thick and who knows how far? I descided to set glide and then saw very thin bits of fog/cloud pass bye as I descended keeping WELL over 5km visual as coud see the runway from 15nm out .I levelled at 1500 well undernith and encounted some minor turbulance.

 

I emediatly rang my CFI and told him what had happened ,His words where you did the right thing in reconising a potentual problem,he said it happened to him once and he made an out landing in a paddock,,lets not foget fellow pilots Im doing MY FIRST REAL SOLO NAV alot of things going on,( as apposed to the triangle x-country I did to get my endourcment)I m proud of how I handled it and was happy to hear My CFI say he was proud of how I did...