I guess I should have included the question "Do you have a night rating"?
Again, that will colour my response...
J
Night
Ifr
Cpl.
1000TT
should I send logbook scans?
Cmon guys it's an opinion based on observations of the accidents happening, inevitably fatal, by folks who shouldn't be over Algonquin park on a hazy night with their experience and currency. What if it was your family with them? What's the big deal in progressing further, and getting an IFR rating, really?
Shoot some alternatives, then. More training?
I've done my share as a % of TT at night. Some were magical full moon flights. Some were so hazy over unlit terrain, I could have done without it, and was glad for my IMC time.
With a full array of instruments to stare at, you'd be surprised how many CPL students get disoriented during the 'unusual attitudes' recovery procedure if you do it in a more intensional way.
When most students practice the recovery, the instructor will just mess around a bit with attitudes randomly, and then put the nose up and banked for a moment and say "recover".. but the student's body can usually give them a hint as to what's going on. What I've started doing now every so often, is while they are looking down/closing their eyes, I gently roll into a steep turn, gradually adjusting the power and speed while maintaining a banked attitude for around 2 minutes. After that, I quickly turn back to straight and level with a slight nose-up and a tiny bit of bank and say "recover." Most students struggle a bit to figure out what I've done, but then they laugh because they realize they're almost straight and level. Still, either they completely mess up the recovery because their body has no idea what's happening and they're still trying to listen to it, or they start battling between their body's senses and that the instruments say, and struggle for a bit to keep it straight and level. Just don't do this too much and make the student's sick! Always ask them how they're doing between each recovery.
By the way, I am reading a bit of mud-slinging in this thread. Just keep in mind that flying into a cloud un-intensionally is easier than you think, even in the day (because haze and crappy AWOS systems). I would be ok with new Night VFR visibility rules put in place by TC. Most schools have higher night weather minima for a reason. Regardless, it can be surprisingly easy to fly into a cloud unintentionally, and people really need to refresh themselves on what to do if it happens.
rookiepilot wrote:
Cmon guys it's an opinion based on observations of the accidents happening, inevitably fatal, by folks who shouldn't be over Algonquin park on a hazy night with their experience and currency.
That's not a regulatory issue. It's a lack of brain power issue. Poor choices made by pilots regardless of experience or training will result in accidents and incidents.
Poor decision making can't be regulated or trained away, people willing to take stupid risks will always win stupid prizes.
rookiepilot wrote:
Cmon guys it's an opinion based on observations of the accidents happening, inevitably fatal, by folks who shouldn't be over Algonquin park on a hazy night with their experience and currency.
That's not a regulatory issue. It's a lack of brain power issue. Poor choices made by pilots regardless of experience or training will result in accidents and incidents.
Poor decision making can't be regulated or trained away, people willing to take stupid risks will always win stupid prizes.
Of course that is true. I'm simply thinking perhaps less gray in regs, like visibility/ ceiling, might defer folks from making unwise choices.
NeckStrain wrote:In the final portions of my PPL doing some full panel instrument training, I was asked to close my eyes and maintain straight and level flight...44 seconds before I was in a deadly spiral dive.
The real thing is much more frightening. Been there, done that, grateful to be alive.
You would be surprised how many instructors do not try to imitate typical unusual attitudes, instead trying to take it up a notch to make sure their students are really disorientated..
Oh maybe you would not be surprised, as it seems you are one of thise who like to turn training into an amusement park ride.
Students getting sick,,,,from repeated " demonstrations" of your unusual attitudes.
You should be ashamed of yourself.
You really need to sit down, have a full glass of maturity, and start trying to teach to an objective other than thrill rides and making a student sick...
2 minutes in a turn...repeated more than once...i take it your ppl students are the 90 hour ones we keep hearing about,
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Those that post don’t know. Those that know don’t post
You would be surprised how many instructors do not try to imitate typical unusual attitudes, instead trying to take it up a notch to make sure their students are really disorientated..
Oh maybe you would not be surprised, as it seems you are one of thise who like to turn training into an amusement park ride.
Students getting sick,,,,from repeated " demonstrations" of your unusual attitudes.
You should be ashamed of yourself.
You really need to sit down, have a full glass of maturity, and start trying to teach to an objective other than thrill rides and making a student sick...
2 minutes in a turn...repeated more than once...i take it your ppl students are the 90 hour ones we keep hearing about,
That's quite the conclusion you just jumped to. You've seriously read deep between the lines of what I posted, but that's ok, maybe I didn't write it clear enough. I don't do this repeatedly, but demonstrate a gradual entry into an unusual attitude once. Problem is, when instructors just quickly enter an unusual attitude after straight and level, the student can usually 'feel' if the nose is up or down/banked very easily, defeating the 'unusual' part of the recovery. Recall that I wrote, "Just don't do this too much and make the student's sick! Always ask them how they're doing between each recovery."
Aggressive unusual attitude recoveries seem to me like they would kind of simulate a wake turbulence encounter. The recovery is more important than the entry so we usually write it off as such. Plus, it gives bored instructors a little stick time to toss the airplane around a bit.
Here's a cool way for an instructor to do an unusual attitude entry: don't take control, just have your student fly with their eyes closed until you say 'recover.' On a long enough timeline you will almost always end up in a spiral dive. Obviously not the answer for every time but it's a good illustration of how they will really end up in that situation. Bonus points if you've spent a portion of the lesson quietly creating a fuel imbalance (within reason/limits, people) to help it into that unusual attitude.
Also fun from time to time: integrated commercial programs have a navigation test in them that includes a lost procedure. The candidate goes under the hood and is assigned a heading for ten minutes then has to look up and figure out where they are. Put the hood in the back before the flight and when it's time to get lost take control and start doing lazy S-turns back and forth like you're bored while they turn around and dig out the hood. When they're not looking you turn the heading indicator about thirty degrees and when they turn around just say something like, "Sorry man, what heading were you on?" Turn to that, give control back, turn off the GPS and tell them to continue on their way. Ten minutes later wherever they think they are, they're not.
I haven't instructed in a while but it would be interesting to come up with a reliable way to lead a student into unintentionally stalling, or at least tripping the horn.
I would prefer my students recognize things like excessive pitch up or deteriorating airspeed and take action well before they are reminded by a stall warning, or an actual stall.
It is very difficult to simulate or actually occur as it generally requires the student to intentionally control, or allow the aircraft to do something they would not normally allow it to do. There are some auto pilot and pitot static failures available in sims to get the student in a bad place, but not great ideas, even if possible, in a real plane
I have always stated that the best form of upset recovery training is to teach pilots to recognize the danger zone behind other aircraft and avoid putting themselves there. The techniques they learn to recover are secondary. Yet over and over I have seen light aircraft taxi out to position behind a heavy. Get a wake turbulence warning from the tower, and then just blast off seconds behind the heavy...
And , as we have seen from posters here. Non instrument rated pilots flirting in the clouds..
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Accident speculation:
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The point of VMC weather is to see and avoid other traffic, not to ensure a visible horizon for aircraft control. This is axiomatic since it is common ground here that there are plenty of night and day situations which are VMC and still require flight by reference to instruments. The people who wrote and standardized - internationally - the weather minima for VFR flight are not stupid and have plenty of flight experience. When they say you need three miles flight visibility in controlled airspace but only a mile in uncontrolled airspace it hasn't nothing whatsoever to do with your ability to keep the shiny side uppermost and everything to do with see and be seen.
It's always - day and night - the pilot's responsibility - and his or hers alone - to make sure that they have the skill and instrumentation to maintain control in whatever weather conditions they are lawfully flying. Imagining you can rely on it remaining VMC to mean that you won't need instrument flight skills is like imagining that you can rely on wearing a condom to help you cross the road safely. It won't. VMC guarantees you a minimum visibility to see other traffic, that's all.
That is why redefining weather minima is a wrong-headed approach.
However, after ten hours of instrument flight one would hope that a pilot would have a decent level of skill at flight by reference to instruments, and even more important, an understanding of the limits of those skills and when it is an inappropriate time to try to use them.
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Last edited by photofly on Mon Aug 21, 2017 5:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
DId you hear the one about the jurisprudence fetishist? He got off on a technicality.
I finished my ppl in March and began my float training on the plane I bought in Muskoka shortly afterwards. On one of the training flights, for a variety of reasons the planned flight got scrubbed, later in the evening my instructor asked me if I wanted to go for a night flight. I jumped at the opportunity to get the extra experience, with an instructor on board. We flew around for almost 2hrs, between Muskoka and Parry Sound, running circuits at both and allowing me the experience of true night flying.
It was a pitch black night with no lights and no horizon due to the cloud cover.
The experience that happened next changed my perspective. We were finishing the night with a few circuits on 18 at CYQA. I was getting comfortable and what I realized afterwards was that I wasn't concentrating on my instruments. As we took off and climbed out through 500 feet agl I did what you do VFR, I checked for traffic to my right and then looked out my left window and initiated a climbing left turn....... The landing light was still on ( positioned on the left wing) and it caught my eye......
I remember hearing the engine rpm's increase, but I froze, I couldn't think of what to do next and I knew we didn't have the altitude to play with.
The instructor easily recovered the plane and we returned back to debrief on what happened.
Now, to be fair, I'm not night qualified and this was my first night flight. But I do have my 5hrs of instrument time and have never once faltered on any of my unusual attitude recoveries during my ppl.
What this taught me was a tremendous amount of respect for instrument flying and for how quickly and easily you can get into a position where recovery isn't possible. Night flying in Muskoka in April is a different beast altogether then flying out of Markham airport with all of the city lights. If you took your night training in the winter near the city I think your in for a big surprise when the right conditions present themselves.
For me it was an experience I won't soon forget and instilled a tremendous amount of respect for the skill required when flying instruments and why staying current and proficient are so important.
If you are going to take chances that can result in death at least think of others your accident may involve.
Flying without reference to any outside vision is something you must be trained to do.
If you do not have instrument training that allows you to safely control the airplane without outside visual reference instead of getting in an airplane get yourself a 357 revolver and put one bullet in it.
Then spin the cylinder put the gun to your head and pull the trigger.
That will give you your need for a thrill and if you are unlucky only you will die.
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The hardest thing about flying is knowing when to say no
After over a half a century of flying no one ever died because of my decision not to fly.
I have no stats, but possibly most vfr only pilots are smart enough not to dabble to much with night X country flying, or are, at least, super cautious about the weather.
Or it might be something simple like it representing a very small accident cost ( not number of accidents, but cost to the insurers)
It is an interesting question though. Someone who does underwriting might have an answer.
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Accident speculation:
Those that post don’t know. Those that know don’t post
waterdog wrote:Now, to be fair, I'm not night qualified and this was my first night flight.
I'm not sure who paid for the flight, but I'm assuming you did. Perhaps this wonderful instructor that "offered" you the opportunity for a night flight simply wanted to get a couple more PIC night hours themselves? I personally think it's pretty bad form to take out a student for a first night flight "experience" without properly preparing and briefing about the risks and potential illusions you have to guard against. Kind of putting the cart before the horse.
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Being stupid around airplanes is a capital offence and nature is a hanging judge!
“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.”
Mark Twain
