lml@lancaironline.net Mailing List Archive

You are probably correct in that thinking? But flying in Navy fighters in the late 60's you had limited choice. It was either fly without auto pilot when IFR conditions existed or don't fly. That's because there was NO autopilot. Guess which choice our bosses made for us? XM weather? We never even dreamed of that. In reality, the challenges of flying IFR and with only directional beacons, TACANS and omnis for Nav and using PAR approaches was challenging and fun.

Not to disparage your cautious approach - the concept of not taking off without all systems go is a good idea - but I worry about the tendency today of thinking the autopilot is a necessity. I think way too many of us don't practice hands on instrument flying including take offs, departure procedures and approaches. We'll be in a world of s@*# if George quits on us at a critical time and we don't know how to handle it.

Sort of akin to what happened to the folks on the French Airbus who were driven from about 35K into the sea in a perfectly good airplane because the pilots didn't know how to recognize and deal with lack of airspeed indication. HELLO!!

My two cents.

John Barrett

Sent from my iPad

On May 13, 2013, at 10:43 AM, Colyn Case <colyncase@earthlink.net> wrote:

Somebody is going to call me not a "real" pilot but in the interest of getting from 99.995% safe to 99.999% safe (see my article this month) I'll say anyway that I personally won't launch IFR without:

functioning xm weather
fully functioning auto-pilot

accident stats say that adding a second pilot dramatically improves safety. If you don't have that, auto-pilot is the next best thing.

"single pilot IFR is almost an emergency. the first thing that goes wrong after that IS an emergency."

Colyn

On May 12, 2013, at 5:53 PM, Keith Smith wrote:

Hi Jim,

The heading hold isn't reliable and the alt hold eventually gets into a PIO after a few minutes, especially if you try to transmit on the radio. I've gotten used to doing 3 1/2hr legs without it at this point. I engage it for brief periods if I need to reorganize the cockpit or eat lunch.

Keith

On Wed, May 1, 2013 at 4:38 PM, James Collins <jcollins@snet.net> wrote:

What happened To your auto pilot. I know you had one. Nice report. I've also seen some of your trips on YouTube always great.

From Jim Collins iPad

On May 1, 2013, at 10:19 AM, Robert R Pastusek <rpastusek@htii.com> wrote:

Keith,
Very nice report. Did you notice that with the weather conditions you experienced, you normally pick up ice at/very near the cloud tops? I’ve noticed this to be true over a rather surprising range of OATs… Lesson for me has been, don’t dawdle in and out of the tops…

Bob

From: Lancair Mailing List [mailto:lml@lancaironline.net] On Behalf Of Keith Smith
Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2013 7:58 PM
To: lml@lancaironline.net
Subject: [LML] challenging flight with the LNC2 yesterday

Flew the LNC2 to Kentucky today for the condition inspection. This was a tricky flight. I briefed the weather in some detail the night before to get a feel for tops (9-12k along the route of flight), convective activity (none), likelihood of icing (possible above 9k), winds (hairy at 30kt headwind initially, then 5-10kt later on).

Verified the weather this morning, then set off from N07-K24. Cleared route was "upon entering controlled airspace, direct Chatham NDB, vectors LANNA V30 ETX V39 MRB ESL V4 HVQ AZQ LOZ, direct."

Picked up the clearance via phone, told the controller I could depart VFR, he was happy to hear it, so off I went. This complicated things slightly as I now needed to talk to Caldwell tower (KCDW) immediately after departure since my route of flight would take me through their airspace. The challenge would be to talk to them and get a freq change to NY Approach before butting up against the next Delta, which was Morristown (KMMU). Caldwell cut me loose as I was passing abeam the tower, so I checked in with NY Approach who quickly identified me, got me onto a 180 heading and climbed me to 7000. Once they had me above the Newark arrival stream, they turned me west towards SBJ (not on the original plan, but easily added to the flight plan and backed up with the VOR receiver a few seconds after that).

I spent the next 2 hours or so not being able to see a darned thing, which is pretty tiring when you're hand flying. The workload was absolutely relentless between wind shifts, updrafts and downdrafts, monitoring outside air temps, turning the ram air on and off when going in and out of precip, and monitoring inlet air temperature (carb temp), employing carb heat, etc. I cannot stress the importance of having a carb temp gauge in non-fuel injected aircraft that flies IFR.

The first 2/3 of the flight generally took place at around 8000ft, almost entirely in stratus clouds with light to moderate precip and a smooth ride. It's hard to explain or recall the sights and sounds of the trip, but here are the 3 most memorable parts:
1) Keeping close track of temps at 8k, 9k and then 10k, eventually hitting ice at 10k, dropping back down to 9k and watching the ice go "buh bye"....twice.

2) Getting tired of being in IMC and in and out of performance-robbing clouds, I had a pretty good feeling that if I could get on top, life would be a lot better. I was able to get the climb from 8-10k but the controller said it would be a few moments before he could get me higher. The OAT was dropping, and I knew I had a very, very narrow window to get this climb done, or I was going to have to drop back down and try again later, or not at all). Just as the first crystals of ice start forming on the canopy, I receive the climb to 11k. By then, the speed has wound up a bit, and I have the ability to trade it for a quick zoom to 11k where I can sense by the change in lighting that I should pretty much be on top. Sure enough, at about 10,800, with 115kias (ie, just about out of gas in the zoom), I pop out on top, the OAT immediately shoots up to +6C and the ice quickly disappears. I have nothing but blue skies above, and every cloud I can see out to the horizon is below me. Success. I let the speed wind up, carb heat off, ram air on and off we go in 'go fast' mode at last, free of the shackles of IMC. It was a calculated risk, and it paid off. My workload went down to near 0 for the next hour as I enjoyed the view. As it happens, the tops eventually dropped down to around 7k, but I stayed at 11k as the fuel burn was lower in any case and the winds were pretty light by that point.

3) best descent phase I think I've ever had...continuous descent from 11k down to 3600ft for the IAF, except for one level off at 6k to bleed off some speed prior to entering the tops again, in case the ride wasn't as smooth. Shot RNAV RWY 17 approach at around 180kias because I knew it would be VMC below 3k and I was planning on doing a low approach to greet my friend at the field anyway. Broke out, got 500ft below the clouds while remaining on the approach, canceled IFR. Spotted what I thought was the field, but the angle didn't quite right. It was close, but not quite. I was on the final approach course, but the airport looked slightly off center and the runway was about 20 degrees off. I double checked the plate to see how the final approach course related to the runway orientation and noted it was straight in. I looked more closely outside and noticed the airport dead ahead, about 1.5nm away. I left the power where it was, pitched down a little more and savored the 215kias low approach that followed. Slow pullup at the end (actually, at that speed, it was more a case of releasing some of the pressure on the stick, allowing the plane to do what it wanted to do which was climb). 700ft into the climb (a few seconds later), start the crosswind turn, power to 12" and set myself the challenge of not touching that again since the winds were practically dead, making for a very predictable pattern. Gear...flaps, base, more flaps, what an amazing view. Turned a 1/4 mile final (tight pattern today), one more GUMP check and a nice touchdown to end a truly interesting flight.

What struck me after landing was that this was a really challenging flight, not because of stick & rudder, but because of the thought process and decision making a long the way. I could've absolutely stayed at 4-6k the whole way, been miserable, flown slowly and gotten there in one piece, but took a calculated risk to get on top and then reaped the rewards with a much reduced workload.

It also occurred to me that flying by reference to instruments for 2 hours straight was tiring, but not especially difficult. I can definitely credit the simulator with having helped with that task. I fly a couple of times a week (enroute and approaches) and never feel rusty when getting in the airplane, even if I haven't flown in IMC for 4-5 months.

If you're thinking about getting an instrument rating but haven't done it...you're missing out on whole new world of sights, sounds, utility, challenges and fun. Do it!

Keith Smith