It turns out that it doesn't matter what you are doing. Without some instruments, we all can die in the soup.
http://vimeo.com/17083789

Seems like most modernish airplanes have a "six-pack" panel with DG & horizon, yet they are still involved (probably more so than non-instrumented airplanes) in VFR-into-IMC crashes. And I believe there's plenty of IFR-rated pilots involved in those crashes too.
I think the secret is to MAINTAIN VFR !!!!! unless you are a licensed & proficient (n ot just "current") instrument-rated pilot flying a suitably capable IFR-platform airplane.
IMHO rusty and/or wannabe instrument pilots have just as much or more chance of crashing in IMC than a VFR-only pilot who knows his limitations.

Proficiency is the key. You can play in IMC all day long with just needle-ball-airspeed and be perfectly safe and have a ball. Especially with GPS so you can ignore the whiskey compass for heading info. On the other hand, you can have every IFR toy in the world stuffed into the panel, and it won't do you a lick of good if you don't know how to use it.

But, maintaining VFR is not that simple if you fly a lot and push wx to get where you want to go. IMC is sneaky stuff, and no matter how much you check and how careful you are, sooner or later you will find yourself needing to go on the gauges. Up north, and I'm sure down in the flatlands, whiteouts are the big killer, and you can not maintain VFR in that stuff. If you try, you will die.

Gump

GumpAir wrote: Proficiency is the key......you can have every IFR toy in the world stuffed into the panel, and it won't do you a lick of good if you don't know how to use it...........

Exactly the point I was trying to make.

I received my instrument rating over 30 years ago. I have always felt that instrument training is as much about brain washing as it is about procedures. Until you condition yourself to believe the instruments instinctively you can not become a qualified instrument pilot. I was flying home from the east coast Monday night and it was pitch black. I had an employee sitting up front with me. At one time in the flight he asked me why we were in a right hand turn. We were not but that is what he felt. This video is fascinating.

Eckair wrote:

I have always felt that instrument training is as much about brain washing as it is about procedures.

I think you are right. Several times I have been out walking in the snow on an overcast or snowy or foggy day and started following some human tracks. After a while I realize that I have walked in a circle and it is my own tracks I am following. I swear I had been walking the same general direction all along. I check my compass and the first thing I think is it is broke because it's pointing the wrong way.

GumpAir wrote:But, maintaining VFR is not that simple if you fly a lot and push wx to get where you want to go. IMC is sneaky stuff, and no matter how much you check and how careful you are, sooner or later you will find yourself needing to go on the gauges. Up north, and I'm sure down in the flatlands, whiteouts are the big killer, and you can not maintain VFR in that stuff. If you try, you will die.

Gump

Surely Gump, that would never happen to us safety conscious aviators

Chris

Hell no. Especially you guys flying in and out of Nome. Those hills NEVER turn invisible in microseconds. Ask Donny!!!!

Gump

Haven't today (yet), but the day is still young. Temps have warmed (27) and the air has moisture again, just collecting ice

Chris

Eckair wrote: I have always felt that instrument training is as much about brain washing as it is about procedures. Until you condition yourself to believe the instruments instinctively you can not become a qualified instrument pilot.

+1000

Also as Gump stresses, you truly need to know how to fly IMC on a partial panel so you can also recognize something like a bad gyro or airspeed indicator.
Trouble can travel in bunches.

As to the video...

Why can't humans go straight? Well, there are 359 degrees OTHER than straight and that choice gets made with every step (or second in a plane AND on each axis). I think it would be astounding if you could go in a straight line each and every step without a reference. If you happen to be in a plane and lose reference then take it to heart...use the only references you have. The INSTRUMENTS!

Don't worry about partial panel. Odds are very slim you'll lose any instruments the exact time you stray VFR into IMC. Just focus on the AI, reference the altimeter and DG from time to time and stay alive. Make wise choices on how high and which way to fly...

Interesting topic.

Just had my BFR yesterday. I asked the CFI to give me some hood time - the first hood time I've flown since I did primary flight training thirty-some years ago. I was concerned about my skills on the gages (I'm a 460-hour VFR pilot who generally avoids night flights because I fly over/near to mountains here in New Mexico) when I took off a couple weeks ago from my home airport (Albuquerque's Double Eagle II) on a pre-dawn moonless morning on runway 22, which takes you over terrain that's absolutely unlit, with Albuquerque's lit cityscape back behind the wing. As soon as I was airborne at Vy, everything outside the cockpit was pitch black, and I had to fly by the gages for the first time since I got back into flying a coupla years ago (after a 32-year hiatus). I did OK but it shook me up a little bit, because until that moment I hadn't really expected to be forced to fly the gages. I'm very cautious about avoiding VFR-into-IMC.

Anyway, I did about half an hour under the hood yesterday doing a variety of maneuvers, including climbs, descents, turns (climbing and descending) and flying vectors on the VOR. My skills were significantly challenged - which was a very good thing. The CFI told me I did OK except for the last descending turn, when I pitched down too steeply ... I think I was starting to get mentally exhausted after a half hour under the hood.

Bottom line - I agree with Gump and others that being able to go on the gages with little or no notice is something each pilot - whether rated VFR or IFR - should be mentally ready for at any time.

I also strengthened my resolve to earn an IFR rating this year. I don't anticipate doing any heavy weather flying in my little Cherokee, but I don't want to be in a situation, whether intentional or unintentional, where I can't fly the plane due to lack of an outside horizon. If you fly VFR long enough, sooner or later you'll enter IMC, even if just momentarily.

GlassPilot wrote:Don't worry about partial panel. Odds are very slim you'll lose any instruments the exact time you stray VFR into IMC. Just focus on the AI, reference the altimeter and DG from time to time and stay alive. Make wise choices on how high and which way to fly...

That is not true... Especially in colder climates.

Dry vacuum pumps are the shits, and I figured on losing a couple a year up north, and I always did. And cold weather eats gyros. Instrument failures can be real subtle.

Can't tell you the number of times I'd punch into the muck, with everything appearing normal on the scan at first, just to realize that the AI wasn't agreeing with the needle, with no warning flags dropped. It's a real "oh shit" moment trying to decipher which was FUBAR and which was telling the truth. Especially close to the ground. Then it's imperative to cover the bad gauge and go partial panel. We did LOTS of partial panel.

Gump

I thought one of the coolest things my flight instructor had me do under the hood was fly by the gauges (GPS off) from 10 miles from Caldwell airport. Gave me victors all the way down from about 5000msl to the 45, downwind, right base, then hood off on final. I was very comfortable with it and did very well.

Huge psychological difference in wearing the hood with a CFI on a nice day, and being in the crud putting covers on failed gauges, knowing that if you can't keep the airplane upright you're gonna die in just a few minutes.

Gump

GumpAir wrote:Huge psychological difference in wearing the hood with a CFI on a nice day, and being in the crud putting covers on failed gauges, knowing that if you can't keep the airplane upright you're gonna die in just a few minutes.

Gump

Oh hell yeah!! I know I'd be shitin bricks for sure if shit happened and I was all by myself and only being a VFR pilot

But, like you know. I try to stay away from crappy Wx when I can.

GumpAir wrote:Huge psychological difference in wearing the hood with a CFI on a nice day, and being in the crud putting covers on failed gauges, knowing that if you can't keep the airplane upright you're gonna die in just a few minutes.

Gump

Gump - that's true - but the same thing is true of any real airborne emergency as compared to one's experience during training ... if a pilot has done a fair amount of training on emergencies, including partial panel IFR, at least that can take some of the edge off the worry factor ("hey, I've done that before!").

Also, it could be a lifesaver in the event of a vac gage failure to have a decent rate-based wing leveler (like the S Tecs) working off the electric turn coordinator, or one of the new AHRS-based A/Ps to keep the wheel side down ... then let the A/P fly the plane while you focus on situational awareness, i.e., avoiding the terrain.

Relying on a vac pump and a failure-prone vac gage to stand between you and life or death is not a great position to be in.

To back up Gump's point about vac gages being unreliable, I've owned my Cherokee for less than two years and it's already had two AI failures - one was a progressive failure (it got tired on cold mornings) ... and the other one (involving the replacement for the former) was sudden, but at least it happened on the ground during taxi to the runway.

Man I know it.

I was flying the Coleville (AK) one day and the clouds came down on me. I was in and out of IMC and every time i came out I was crocked.I was down low over the river with the hills on both sides of me obscured by clouds. I could not figure out what my AH was doing. I finally figured I had better set it down and lose the airplane and save my life when a big voice came over my head set and told me to turn left NOW.

I did and broke out into VFR conditions. It was a BLM cargo plane painting me with his radar and I figure he saved my airplane at least and maybe my life. I was shaking like a leaf.

I promised myself I would get my IR if I planned to keep flying and I am working on it now.

I've known quite a few pilots who got their instrument rating but then let their skills lapse. Either their own airplane wasn't IFR equipped, or else they just didn't keep IFR current because it wasn't convenient or because they didn't enjoy it. IMHO these guys are in more danger than an admittedly VFR-only pilot like me, because in the back of their mind, they feel like they have this ace-in-the-hole instrument rating which can save them if they fly into the muck. But if & when it happens, they're just as likely as me to get disoriented & dead. Look at how many IFR rated pilots are involved in VFR-into-IMC crashes.
That's one of the reasons I have never pursued an instrument rating-- that's not the kind of flying I want to do, so I don't think I'd keep current and proficient.

178 SECONDS TO LIVE. This has been posted before but it never hurts to see it again. The first link is the text and the second video.

http://www.paragonair.com/public/docs/178_Seconds.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6Tiq-y8ZmU