Personal minimums.....?

ryanmickG said:
I love ya Steve but why would you fly CATII to mins with 70 people behind you and not a 172 to 200' AGL on an ILS into FWS with you and your student? I dont understand that logic. Its IFR ABC's.
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Ryan, go back and re-read the post. I didn't have a problem doing it after I was comfortable instructing. When I first started there and was jittery with a PPL student doing landings on a VFR day b/c I had no clue if this guy was gonna kill me or not, I wouldn't fly to mins with the student. I'd do it myself if *I* were the one flying without a student since I don't have to worry about where we are, radios, flying the airplane AND watching the other guy. I wouldn't do it now in a 172 b/c I'd probably kill myself just trying to land the thing. When I say "personal mins" I'm talking a couple hundred feet. A couple thousand feet is re-friggin-diculous.

High mins CAs can't fly to published mins or shoot CAT II approaches. Does that make them bad pilots or does that mean the company makes them err on the side of caution until they're more comfortable in that seat and watching the other guy?
 
ryanmickG said:
So you're going to make a decision based on if you're going to lose an engine when you take off?

As a CFII I'm going to make base it on published mins.

I dont want to go telling students "Well, we could go up but what if the engine blows up on climb out? Lets just stay on the ground and wait for the airlines to teach you that mess".
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No, I'm going to make the decision based on all factors and information available. I'm not going to say I'll "kick the tires and light the fires" every single time just because the FAA says its legal. I won't hem myself in by saying I'd do X,Y,or Z every single time because thats what the book told me to do. I've read far too many accident reports that start out that way and they rarely end well.
 
In a local setting ceiling minimums should be more about "I want to make sure I actually make it home and don't get stuck somewhere else on a local flight" than being able to actually do an approach.


In the airline setting you are expected to fly the airplane down to the missed approach point. If you see the airport and can safely land you do so, if you don't then you either hold or go to your alternate.

Pretty straightforward.

There's not much reason to not even shoot the appproach just because it's calling near minimums. If you break out but can't see as well as you want to comfortably land then go missed. If you aren't comfortable shooting an approach where you never break out than you shouldn't ever be shooting it for real.

It's not like you won't ever have weather calling well above minums but the awos isn't accurate or it comes in while you're on the approach. If you can't shoot it to the MAP with a missed approach you shouldn't shoot it at all.
 
ryanmickG said:
Agree, 5 hours of actual should be a req. IMO

And simulated partial panel training is a joke. It compares nothing to a real vacuum failure in IMC....trust me :panic:

It takes about 30 seconds before your brain says "turn on the autopilot dummy"
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I always try to take my students up into actual, even if it's just an overcast layer.

Partial panel is fine, but at some point prior to checkride I fail the gyros in the sim....it much more real world.
 
cfii2007 said:
I always try to take my students up into actual, even if it's just an overcast layer.

Partial panel is fine, but at some point prior to checkride I fail the gyros in the sim....it much more real world.
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That's like a right of passage. My instructor did that to me, and I did it to all my students. It's so much more realistic to have your gyros slow spin down rather than just stop working altogether. I was dumbfounded when he showed me my ground track spinning off into no man's land. Same thing with every student I did that to. It's actually kinda sobering and causes you to cross check more often.
 
I agree that this is a bit extreme. In commercial aviation if it's legal and your airplane is certified to do it within all your ops specs ect and there aren't other circumstances (thunderstorms, X-winds, MELs, icing, maint issues) then you have no reason not to, that is what you are getting paid to do.

Doug does have a good point. I am a little nervous flying a single piston IFR with nothing for ice and no weather RADAR. Depending on the terrain ect you have to think about it. You're taught in flight school to always be thinking what would I do if the engine quit right now. If you're IMC in a low overcast layer you're screwed if the engine quits.

I used to fly a single engine turbine and we had a special procedure for an IMC engine failure, and in day to day operations flew the airplane to maximize our chances if we did have an engine failure.

All about risk management.
 
When I was doing my training in FL I first instrument flight we broke out a minimums. I think I had 5 hours of actual before I had 5 hours of hood time.

I have personal minimums but I base them more on thunderstorms and stuff like that. If visibility was my only concern I would never get to fly in the summer here in Atlanta.
 
mtsu_av8er said:
That's my point. If you can legally do it, and you've been trained to do it, there's no excuse not to do it.
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I'm going to reverse this and say that isn't always the case. There are cases where something is perfectly legal, but likely not a prudent decision.

For instance: I see a report saying 05015G25KT 1/2MI R28R3000V6000 +RA SCT003 BKN008 OVC030 22/22 29.56, I would have to really think about what I'm reading there. Is this a case of heavy stratus rain? Or is there a small cell approaching the field? How much of a crosswind would that be? How long is the runway? What will the braking action be? What are the minimums for the approach?

Now, this may be a legal approach to fly. The ILS CAT I visibility might be 2400 RVR, and I've flown airplanes in winds 15 gusting to 25 many times, but does that mean it is a prudent decision? Maybe not. You can't just make a blanket statement that says, "If it's PTS, then do it." You need to look at the big picture.

I do think the 2000 foot ceiling in the first post was quite silly. But, even discussing revenue Part 121 operations, we can't always say that "legal" is "safe."
 
kellwolf said:
That's like a right of passage. My instructor did that to me, and I did it to all my students. It's so much more realistic to have your gyros slow spin down rather than just stop working altogether. I was dumbfounded when he showed me my ground track spinning off into no man's land. Same thing with every student I did that to. It's actually kinda sobering and causes you to cross check more often.
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While on a instrument training flight in IMC I had an attitude indicator fail. It really was a learning experience. At first it seemed as if the plane was not rigged very well, as if it had a "pull" to the left. I would notice that the heading indicator was showing that I was off course to the left a few degrees then I would correct for that and a few moments later I was having to correct again. Then I realized the AI was failing.
 
FlyChicaga said:
I'm going to reverse this and say that isn't always the case. There are cases where something is perfectly legal, but likely not a prudent decision.
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I think people are currently talking straight visibility and ceiling limitations.

The point being that you need to be confident enough to be able to go to minimums and go missed. If you can't do that then you won't be able to handle it when the weather isn't as advertised.

Adding winds and storms in the area (IMO storms are a completely different factor to this context) isn't really in line with what they're talking about.
 
FlyChicaga said:
For instance: I see a report saying 05015G25KT 1/2MI R28R3000V6000 +RA SCT003 BKN008 OVC030 22/22 29.56, I would have to really think about what I'm reading there. Is this a case of heavy stratus rain? Or is there a small cell approaching the field? How much of a crosswind would that be? How long is the runway? What will the braking action be? What are the minimums for the approach?

Now, this may be a legal approach to fly. The ILS CAT I visibility might be 2400 RVR, and I've flown airplanes in winds 15 gusting to 25 many times, but does that mean it is a prudent decision? Maybe not.
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If I were flying an airplane that I had been trained to fly, in the type of professional aviation that I matured in (Part 135 single-pilot freight), I would not blink an eye at those conditions. Unless there was a storm on top of the airport, I don't see anything wrong with those conditions.
 
SmitteyB said:
There is a guy here in training with me at Colgan and he has 0 ACTUAL INSTURMENT.

1000 hours TOTAL!
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I have about 1000TT now, and about 5 actual. I didn't have any actual until I started instructing with the CFII! lol

I hadn't had an IPC since 2004 before I got my CFII a couple of months ago.
ryanmickG said:
Instructor..."Umm..we need to cancel our flight today. The ceilings are reporting 800'OVC.

Student..."OK"

Me ..."WTF? Yall are working on approaches right? Its perfect outside!"

It gets old
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Approaches! Hell, from Feb-May that was Class G touch and go weather.
 
i dunno about FAA mins.... 200 is good enough for me for ILS, but take G airsapce below 1200.... 1 mile visibility is all you need? dang dude, you ever try looking for an airpot with 1 mile vis? lol with 1 mile vis, you couldn't see alot of runway's other end!
 
taseal said:
i dunno about FAA mins.... 200 is good enough for me for ILS, but take G airsapce below 1200.... 1 mile visibility is all you need? dang dude, you ever try looking for an airpot with 1 mile vis? lol with 1 mile vis, you couldn't see alot of runway's other end!
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Last winter 200ft seemed VFR for me.
Try 6 approaches down to 0 and 1800RVR in one night.
 
you all talk about actual but alot of times it may not be because of the pilot. After a few years flying in SoCal there is no actual unless you go up to the altitudes and find it or you log your .1 as you hit the marine layer. Actual is there to be found but more often then not it never presents itself like it does out here in the North East where it is typically a few day per week event.

It is just the way it is, take a 1000 hour SoCal pilot and a 1000 hour North East pilot and look at their actual and the difference will be staggering
 
USMC-SGT said:
you all talk about actual but alot of times it may not be because of the pilot. After a few years flying in SoCal there is no actual unless you go up to the altitudes and find it or you log your .1 as you hit the marine layer. Actual is there to be found but more often then not it never presents itself like it does out here in the North East where it is typically a few day per week event.

It is just the way it is, take a 1000 hour SoCal pilot and a 1000 hour North East pilot and look at their actual and the difference will be staggering
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or a FL pilot compared to a NE pilot... down here the only actual you're gonna get is if you're in a thunderstorm which is not my thing haha
 
taseal said:
or a FL pilot compared to a NE pilot... down here the only actual you're gonna get is if you're in a thunderstorm which is not my thing haha
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If I didn't go up when t-storms or towering cumulus were in the area, I'd still be working on my commercial. It's do-able, you just have to be smart about it. Flight watch is your friend, and listen to what the other guys with radar are going around. Follow them. Also, stick with approach controls as often as you can. They have much better wx radar than center controllers.
 
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