Poll: how many times did you fly VFR into IMC

how many times did you fly VFR into IMC

  • 0

    Votes: 68 58.6%

  • 1

    Votes: 27 23.3%

  • 2

    Votes: 11 9.5%

  • 3

    Votes: 3 2.6%

  • 4

    Votes: 1 0.9%

  • 5

    Votes: 2 1.7%

  • 6

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 7

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 8 or more

    Votes: 4 3.4%
  • Total voters
    116
zaitcev

zaitcev

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Pete Zaitcev
(in order to make this more meaningful, the "Display votes publicly" setting is off, but remember that the forum's administration can know who posted what)

{Update: thanks everyone, very interesting!}
 
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you mean inadvertently?

edit: I guess that's implied since your poll is VFR into IMC, rather than VMC into IMC.
 
PPC1052 said:
you mean inadvertently?

edit: I guess that's implied since your poll is VFR into IMC, rather than VMC into IMC.
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Not to open this can of worms (again) but you can be IFR and fly VMC into IMC. I think VFR into IMC is correctly worded for his intent.
 
Once. Fayetteville, Arkansas KFYV to Oklahoma City Downtown, hmm, it ain't there no more. Just puttin along checking out stuff on the ground and after awhile I realized I didn't have a lot of forward visibility. Kinda snuck up on me. I remember thinking uh oh, I don't think Mr. Ranger is going to like this Yogi. Descended a bit and everything was OK.
 
I think a more meaningful question would be how many times over how many years or hours...My number might seem high in comparison to someone that has only flown for a year/100 hours, but I've got over 20 years of flying, nearly all of which were flying under VFR.
 
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If you include just passing though a pop-up cumulus cloud...
 
tawood said:
I think a more meaningful question would be how many times over how many years or hours...My number might seem high in comparison to someone that has only flown for a year/100 hours, but I've got over 20 years in the air, nearly all of which were flying under VFR.
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Also, there's no option for answering "don't know." (I've been flying for 27 years and haven't kept a count of inadvertent cloud penetrations.)
 
Once, at night. :eek:

No, really it wasn't a big deal. It was a very small cloud. Suddenly all the lights on the ground went away, and just as suddenly they came back on. Looked back and could kinda sorta see the cloud; mostly by where I couldn't see the lights on the ground. Changed plans from going to another airport and flew back to home airport. I was just out enjoying some night flight.
 
0 times, but I tend to be conservative about VFR flying and don't fly in circumstances that would leave this open.

One exception: taking off one night on an IFR clearance (I was in the right seat), ATIS and AWOS were reporting a ceiling much higher than it actually was, so we were surprsed to find ourselves on the gauges almost immediately after takeoff.
 
Once.

I had heard that if you can see through a puffy thing then it isn't a cloud. Well, I thought I could see through it but was mistaken. It was <200 feet in diameter (<1 second in IMC) but it was enough for me not test that definition of a cloud ever again.
 
asicer said:
Once.

I had heard that if you can see through a puffy thing then it isn't a cloud. Well, I thought I could see through it but was mistaken. It was <200 feet in diameter (<1 second in IMC) but it was enough for me not test that definition of a cloud ever again.
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If you can see through it, it's mist, not a cloud, IMO.
 
I flew into an area of decreasing visibility (snow) on my checkride. Pulled a u-turn, picked an airport to deviate to, and was good to continue on.
 
Most of my IFR trips are VFR at one airport or the other.
 
Got sucked into a cloud once in my Hang Glider. Couldn't dive fast enough to get away. Came out about a minute later banked 45 degrees, had no idea how far from level I was. No attitude indicator in my instrument pod. That cured me of any desire to be in IMC without proper instruments and made me pay a lot of attention to hoodwork during PP training. Have about 1 hour in actual from training.
 
Once, for just long enough to say, "son of a ..." and then I was out of it that quickly.

I was running a buddy over to another airport so he could pick up his truck. He'd moved his airplane and needed a ride back to get the rest of his stuff.

It was low overcast, but not bad at all. I'm pretty conservative on clg and this was low but not too low to be a bother. The problem was it was a really gray day, and not a really well defined clg, it was pretty ragged. I was starting to descend to TPA and a small line of low clouds was hanging below the rest. They were invisible against the background. I was looking down to get a good visual on the airport when everything turned gray. I never saw it coming, everything just blinked out. I got onto the instruments quickly, knowing that I'd be through it in just a few seconds anyway. My goal was "don't make any sudden moves". Sure enough, I was back in the clear and everything was fine. We both thought to ourselves, we shall never speak of this, but it was a good lesson for both of us. Neither one of us could see those lower clouds that day.
 
I did it once. With an instructor right after he got clearance.

Is that not what you meant?
 
Oh noooo, ain't replying to that trick Mr Fed.

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I have never flown into clouds while VFR but I do have trouble judging cloud distances so it is possible that I might not have always maintained proper clearances. Tough to say for certain about that.
 
For me it’s a zero. I don’t have a ton of hours and am pretty conservative with regards to my vfr flying. Although I might have come close to some clouds.
 
0 for me too, I am conservative, landed and waited out once.... now I don’t have a tape measure when I fly .... soooo May have been closer than ... I wanted to. Or not, who knows
 
I can honestly say I’ve never flown VFR into IMC.

On a few occasions I’ve found myself entering conditions that were less than legal VFR and I was able quickly extract myself.
 
I've been there twice. Once was a dreary day where I was flying between layers to "good VFR" about 30 miles away. I assumed that the weather would improve the closer I got to good VFR. And then the layers came together and I was IFR. A quick 180 and I was clear.

The other time, I was leaving Daytona and was below a thin layer in cruddy conditions. The tower was calling out all sorts of traffic that I couldn't see because of the haze. I requested a climb to on top of the layer, they gave me a squawk code, and I buzzed up through the layer to clear and a million.
 
kyleb said:
I've been there twice. Once was a dreary day where I was flying between layers to "good VFR" about 30 miles away. I assumed that the weather would improve the closer I got to good VFR. And then the layers came together and I was IFR. A quick 180 and I was clear.

The other time, I was leaving Daytona and was below a thin layer in cruddy conditions. The tower was calling out all sorts of traffic that I couldn't see because of the haze. I requested a climb to on top of the layer, they gave me a squawk code, and I buzzed up through the layer to clear and a million.
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Between layers is hardly VFR unless you had ground contact
 
MauleSkinner said:
Got a reference that says ground contact is required for VFR? (At Private Pilot level or above, anyway...haven’t delved into Sport or Recreational requirements)
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Have to look, but between layers with false horizon without very good grasp of instrument is a recipient for disaster. Legal doesn’t mean safe
 
I've posted before about my inadvertent VFR into IMC, on a trip up north in Michigan, stupidly believing a bad forecast until it was too late to do anything but descend to get out of it. As far as I know that was the only time. The only other possible time was flying with a friend to Put-in Bay from 76G in Michigan in a rental 172. We were over Lake St. Clair in very hazy conditions and I could not discern any kind of horizon, and I went on the gauges. Right then I decided I was pushing our luck, and we turned back uneventfully. This was before I had my instrument rating but after a good deal of training toward the IR. I'm not counting it because the visibility might have been, probably was more than 3 miles, but over water like that it might as well have been IMC.
 
69.81 a , for student pilots though.
 
WannFly said:
Have to look, but between layers with false horizon without very good grasp of instrument is a recipient for disaster. Legal doesn’t mean safe
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But someone's personal version of unsafe doesn't make an operation illegal, either.
 
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