Better to arrive alive

ArrowFlyer86

ArrowFlyer86

Pattern Altitude
Joined
Jul 17, 2019
Messages
1,567
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Chicago suburbs
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Display name:
The Little Arrow That Could
Decided to do a 1h flight under MVFR to MI for Xmas. Conditions would allow a low cruise. Lower than I'd normally do but still acceptable with plenty of obstacle clearance for my route. It'd been pretty stable so I wasn't that concerned about wx changing too rapidly on me.

So I took off and conditions were good at my airport. Fifteen mins into the flight and I notice visibility is decreasing, from 10 to about 6. Not ideal, especially since I didn't notice that in the forecast or current METARs. I was a little uneasy but decided to press on for a few more mins. Sure enough vis got down to about 4-5m. I tune into some ASOS/AWOS and hear "haze" as a recurring theme. It was at that point that I had a vivid feeling projected of exactly what would be going through my mind if things got any worse.

...... And you can pinpoint the exact moment I decided that getting there slowly via car is a superior outcome to arriving in a box. Maybe things would have worked fine, maybe they wouldn't have. I'll happily accept a safe landing and a long drive as a Christmas present over the alternative.

Time to embrace the suck and drive (but at least I'll get there)!

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PaulS said:
Two words, instrument rating.
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Receipts so you know I'm not just sandbagging you!

Me flying ILS, RNAV and holds (or trying to fly holds rather) in a bonanza from earlier this week (flyin' the bonanza is how I got the HP endorse).
After 18 months of putting the IFR rating on ice and leisurely chipping away at it, I picked it up in earnest last month and have been working on actually making it happen ASAP.

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Tom has been known to fly with this dog. Artics common that far north?
 
The oral can be tricky Tom. Study until you know the material stone-cold.
 
I flu VFR for many years before getting my ticket.
 
I did that in Wisconsin once. Landed, asked the locals when things might get better. They said to wait for October.

They said I should just go for it. The airplane I was flying did about 80 mph. As bad as the vis was I'd see whatever I was going to hit, so I soldiered on. Things improved markedly once i departed Wisconsin.
 
steingar said:
I did that in Wisconsin once. Landed, asked the locals when things might get better. They said to wait for October.

They said I should just go for it. The airplane I was flying did about 80 mph. As bad as the vis was I'd see whatever I was going to hit, so I soldiered on. Things improved markedly once i departed Wisconsin.
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I learned a long time ago never to fly in MVFR or worse in Wisconsin during Airventure week…the amateur scud runners are out in force.
 
MauleSkinner said:
I learned a long time ago never to fly in MVFR or worse in Wisconsin during Airventure week…the amateur scud runners are out in force.
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How else am I supposed to get to and from Airventure? ;-)

I've flown in some awful, but legal, stuff in and out of there.
 
kyleb said:
How else am I supposed to get to and from Airventure? ;-)

I've flown in some awful, but legal, stuff in and out of there.
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Yup…and I’ve seen a conga line airplanes following the highway at 300-400 feet under a 600-ft ceiling.

People fly at low altitudes and in crappy weather that they would consider blatantly dangerous otherwise.
 
MauleSkinner said:
People fly at low altitudes and in crappy weather that they would consider blatantly dangerous otherwise.
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The term "Oshkosh VFR" comes to mind. I remember once when we waited for hours for the ceiling to lift to VFR. As soon as the VFR call was made, we started and joined the departure line and subsequently headed South. It was miserable. We slogged down to somewhere in Illinois and called it a day due to tstorms blocking our path. Wherever we stopped, we met a couple of women flying a Christen Eagle towards Oshkosh who wouldn't go any further because of the MVFR. Interesting that they had successfully passed through the t-storms which stopped us and that we'd passed through the MVFR that put them on the ground.

I was a hundred hour pilot landing at Osh that year. It was amazing.
 
MauleSkinner said:
Would an instrument flight in an Arrow under those conditions worked out any better?

My experience in December in that part of the world would make me guess it wouldn’t.
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From his description he may have been ok, I wasn't there so I can't answer. I live in an icing region and there are times when visibility make vfr sketchy but ifr is just fine. Vfr pilots should not be scud running, as he found out. You can get away with it dozens of times until you finally don't. Except for the decision to try, he made good decisions during the flight.
 
PaulS said:
From his description he may have been ok, I wasn't there so I can't answer. I live in an icing region and there are times when visibility make vfr sketchy but ifr is just fine. Vfr pilots should not be scud running, as he found out. You can get away with it dozens of times until you finally don't. Except for the decision to try, he made good decisions during the flight.
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If it was the day he posted it, on that Wednesday… there was a lot of ice in the clouds. I was doing stop and goes at KPWK. As I taxied out a corp jet gave a pirep for mod icing.
 
PaulS said:
Vfr pilots should not be scud running, as he found out. You can get away with it dozens of times until you finally don't.
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VFR pilots (and IFR pilots who can’t go into the clouds for any number of reasons, not the least of which is the icing potential that it appears existed on the day in question) should not be scud running without at least a Plan B that doesn’t involve climbing into the clouds.
 
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