It really doesn't look like a big deal to me...

I could see the runway clearly until very short final. Then he began to zoom in with the video camera and that seemed to intensify the appearance of fog. My guess is that the pilot could still see the runway down through the patchy fog even on very short final.

The runway/over run was visible beneith his wings, proir to touchdown. Weather stripes on the runway were passing beneith his wings prior to or just after the touchdown.

The fog layer was very thin, probably less than 50 ft. and a bit patchy. I suspect that the pilot set out to make the video appear more challenging that it was.

At 60 kts. in a 172, stablized at 50 feet above the ground, with the runway evident. All one has to do is maintain stability and you will practically autoland.

During my professional career the technique was often used and legal, even for instrument approaches with 200 ft. and 1/2 mile vis. minimums. More than once we legally landed during zero/zero conditions under the "Local Conditions" of the FAR's.

For example....local fog ....tower vis. zero/zero due to fog along the river. Waala. the first 500 feet of the runway was clear.... sticking out of the fog. Fog layer 200 ft. thick. Perfectly legal to make the approach and land on the clear part of the runway, under local conditions vis. limits. Of course finding the terminal was always fun....trying to taxi in zero conditions.

If he was on an IFR clearance, then under Part 91 "look-see" provisions it would seem that he was perfectly legal. Obviously the area was VFR as evident from the approach video. I suspect this video was shot under conditions more favorable than apparent.....presenting no particulary difficult challenge.

Bob

Green Hornet wrote:I would give him an "F" for decision making. I never saw the runway, maybe he did ? He landed short of the runway so that makes me think he didn't. Even if it was a rental airplane and your apathetic about life and limb that is just a poor decision especially since it appears he had a passenger! What if there was someone ready to take off IFR on the runway?

Agreed x2.

I think no matter how you look at it, even without knowing other facts, it's a bad call. Perhaps he was about to run out of fuel. Perhaps he was about to crap his pants, literally. I personally have made some of the more rash decisions in my life in response to angry bowels. Maybe that's what this was?

Or perhaps z3skybolt has the best point...the video looks worse than it really was.

58Skylane wrote:

flyer wrote:I think his only mistake was not destroying the video. Why set yourself up for criticism from people who were not there and not aware of all the decision factors.

flyer

Yeah, it would be nice to know all the facts instead of talking #@it with out all the facts.

Lets see we all got into the landing some of us would not have made the landing as it appeared in the video. Like I said maybe he saw the runway in real time. I learned something from Coyote Ugly:
" Looks to me like he's landing into the sunrise.... If the sun is in front of ya, when ya drop into the fog it's really blind, but you can see a lot better going the other way."
What is the problem if some have a strong opinion whether its for or against the decision to land? Pilot's are always suppose to be learning from each other on this site? If there are other facts then add them to the discussion. Or like some surmise from experience and add to the ponder this scenario. It is a learning process ! You take away from it what you put into it with attitude adjusted. I am pretty sure we all know that every landing is relative to the moment! and our decision alone.
If you think this is talking Sh#@ then visit the B>C>A>H sometime
Oh! that 's right you have to be a qualified member! To Bad

z3skybolt wrote:It really doesn't look like a big deal to me...
Bob

That would be my "guess", too. Most of the pictures I've taken in bad weather show far less detail than what I could see with my eyes. Video is almost alway less detailed than photos.

That said, I can remember my instructor warning about the exact condition you see in the video. The layer of fog is very thin, so looking down through it vertically the view is through very little fog, so you can see stuff clearly. On the other hand, as the observer gets lower and lower, the angle of vision begins to cut a much thicker and thicker slice of fog. By the time you are in the fog, you are looking horizontally, through a nearly unlimited amount. Then the impact is highest.

It seems like, though, that if the fog is say 100 feet thick, and you can see reasonably well, then the visibility in a horizontal direction ought to be at least a hundred feet, too. Not that that would be acceptable by the FARS, but at least it seems you would be able to see the stripes on the runway.

I haven't had the opportunity to try this. It would be interesting, though.

tom

I find all the pro and cons about this approach interesting, but find the expression,"call of shame" that svanarts made not appropriate. I feel that any decision a pilot makes for his safety even if he has to call someone to get back home is a good one.

[quote="....I personally have made some of the more rash decisions in my life in response to angry bowels. .........[/quote]

Were the angry bowels the cause of the rash decisions...or the result??

Hello all!

I’m impressed to see such a lively discussion about my landing on the other end of the planet.

Now, let me clarify a few things to those who is interested and for those who thinks I'm an idiot putting everyone in danger.

1. This is a private airfield with a 400m runway.

2. The only people fly there are those who own or rent a plane there, and there are only few light and ultralight a/crafts.

3. The runway is not equipped for IFR or night, so no IFR flights whatsoever.

4. The airspace in the area is class G.

5. There is a traffic information frequency, where everybody who is flying in class G air space should make position reports (including me) from time to time and monitor it constantly.

6. No one but me was flying in the area this time, but me.

7. That day I was just flying around the airfield not higher that 1,000 ft, doing touch and goes, so I was aware of the visibility situation and noticed a change with each approach.

8. There was a very thin patched layer of fog before take off, you could see through it. The visibility was perfect above with clear skies and sunny weather. (I have a full video of it, but it is about 40 minutes long).

9. In my opinion that wasn’t a radiation fog; that was an advection fog, as it was close to the sunset and the fog was moving. The sun is to the rear on my left.

10. When doing T&G, I touched after the threshold, so paved runway was more visible through the fog (and it was not so intense like when landing).

11. The owner of the plane was on the airfield and kept a radio contact with me. He was the one who advised me to land short of runway on the grass and it was suitable for it (just covered with thin layer of snow this time, but it was prepared for use), as the paved part was slippery (just allowing for a safety factor), however if it was up to me, I would make it after threshold and would have enough space to bring it to stop.
The other guy was shooting photos of me coming out of the fog. I did not see them yet.

12. From above the airfield and runway were perfectly visible, so that told me that the fog layer is rather thin.

13. I was landing with flaps 40, approached shallow on purpose (in order not to overshoot, just in case).

14. I aligned to the center of the runway while it was visible, then dived into the fog (the layer was rather thin) and kept the ground in sight. Yes, I did not see the runway when leveling off (after 0:32 on the video). After passing a string of small bushes (watch just before the touchdown), I knew I was over the grass part of the runway (otherwise it would be difficult to tell) and safe to land. Power to idle – touchdown.

15. As to safety - I was only few seconds in the fog without front visibility, but in sight of the surface. Not enough to get off course, especially with no crosswind. To whoever said I was off the center line: watch the video, I rolled out just on the centerline. When slowed down, I didn’t try to keep it longer moving to the left and continued to taxi to the end of the runway to get off it.

I enjoyed the experience! It was interesting how you can see through the fog from above (not even noticing it’s extent), and how the visibility changes rapidly as you move close to the ground.
To be honest I was surprised, when I got off the plane, and saw what it looked like from the ground.
I think it is better to try flying in various conditions while training (in the known area, around home airfield), rather than bumping into something you would not expect during cross country flight.

I am now in the middle of my ATPL studying.

Cheers!

Vlad.

Like I said...

".....doesn't look like a big deal to me"

Bob

Vlastr wrote:Hello all!

I’m impressed to see such a lively discussion about my landing on the other end of the planet.

Now, let me clarify a few things to those who is interested and for those who thinks I'm an idiot putting everyone in danger.

1. This is a private airfield with a 400m runway.

2. The only people fly there are those who own or rent a plane there, and there are only few light and ultralight a/crafts.

3. The runway is not equipped for IFR or night, so no IFR flights whatsoever.

4. The airspace in the area is class G.

5. There is a traffic information frequency, where everybody who is flying in class G air space should make position reports (including me) from time to time and monitor it constantly.

6. No one but me was flying in the area this time, but me.

7. That day I was just flying around the airfield not higher that 1,000 ft, doing touch and goes, so I was aware of the visibility situation and noticed a change with each approach.

8. There was a very thin patched layer of fog before take off, you could see through it. The visibility was perfect above with clear skies and sunny weather. (I have a full video of it, but it is about 40 minutes long).

9. In my opinion that wasn’t a radiation fog; that was an advection fog, as it was close to the sunset and the fog was moving. The sun is to the rear on my left.

10. When doing T&G, I touched after the threshold, so paved runway was more visible through the fog (and it was not so intense like when landing).

11. The owner of the plane was on the airfield and kept a radio contact with me. He was the one who advised me to land short of runway on the grass and it was suitable for it (just covered with thin layer of snow this time, but it was prepared for use), as the paved part was slippery (just allowing for a safety factor), however if it was up to me, I would make it after threshold and would have enough space to bring it to stop.
The other guy was shooting photos of me coming out of the fog. I did not see them yet.

12. From above the airfield and runway were perfectly visible, so that told me that the fog layer is rather thin.

13. I was landing with flaps 40, approached shallow on purpose (in order not to overshoot, just in case).

14. I aligned to the center of the runway while it was visible, then dived into the fog (the layer was rather thin) and kept the ground in sight. Yes, I did not see the runway when leveling off (after 0:32 on the video). After passing a string of small bushes (watch just before the touchdown), I knew I was over the grass part of the runway (otherwise it would be difficult to tell) and safe to land. Power to idle – touchdown.

15. As to safety - I was only few seconds in the fog without front visibility, but in sight of the surface. Not enough to get off course, especially with no crosswind. To whoever said I was off the center line: watch the video, I rolled out just on the centerline. When slowed down, I didn’t try to keep it longer moving to the left and continued to taxi to the end of the runway to get off it.

I enjoyed the experience! It was interesting how you can see through the fog from above (not even noticing it’s extent), and how the visibility changes rapidly as you move close to the ground.
To be honest I was surprised, when I got off the plane, and saw what it looked like from the ground.
I think it is better to try flying in various conditions while training (in the known area, around home airfield), rather than bumping into something you would not expect during cross country flight.

I am now in the middle of my ATPL studying.

Cheers!

Vlad.

Vlad,
Thanks for sharing the perspective from the PIC and taking the time to gives us the step by step process you went through. As we all should know it is difficult to know what is going through the pilots mind, situational awareness, and inputs from people knowledgeable of the airstrip, communications, and real time visibility to make a judgement based on a video.
In my defense of my critique I did say that you may have been able to see the runway, etc. So like any good professor I am changing my grade to a solid B+ Since you said you lost sight of the runway just before touchdown and gave a good representation and explanation of the events.
Personally I learned some things out of your video and the discussion that followed and since the weather has been soupy with vis at a 1/4 mile it was great to discuss your video since I couldn't fly.
As for the Missouri comment; I thought you folks were the "Show Me" Americans? video's don't count
FlySafe