Imagine facing a fast moving train from eight inches away, while standing on a boat in turbulent waters -- that's what flying in night IMC can be like.
I filed my first NASA report. It was relatively minor: inadvertant VFR flight into IMC. By all indications, the situation was nearly unavoidable.
I had made a late departure for my flight from the east coast of Florida to the west. Before departing I called and got a standard briefing. The briefer stated the outlook was VFR for the entire trip with high overcast ceilings. It was going to be a starless night, but with light from the ground. I intentionally did not file IFR as I did not want to fly the FBO rental in night IMC. I had lost a vaccuum pump and a backup once before, though fortunately in day VFR conditions, and I had no intentions of entering night IMC.
Just over an hour into my trip into the lightless sky at 4500 ft, I notice a darker, jagged horizon ahead of me. I had just passed an airport and requested from ATC that I perform a 180 to avoid clouds. I was told to "do whatever I needed to do." I was in the middle of nowhere and it was 11 at night. I climbed from 4500 to 6500 and was still unable to see over the tops of the clouds so I elected to land. The airport where I landed was in the middle of a swamp. I waited around for about a half-hour and received a briefing which stated that there were no adverse conditions and to expect VFR. I decide to look in the tanks before I took off. Both tanks were well below the tabs. My way of thinking is that you only know what you can measure. If the tanks are below the tabs, consider them to be empty. As I pull onto the ramp to spend an uncomfortably hot and muggy night in a 4-seat single-engine airplane, I spot a self-service pump. I could not have been happier.
I gas up, take off and am on my way, crossing 30 miles of sparsely lit swampland under a lightless sky. Twenty miles into it, in spite of my briefer's statements, I spot that jagged skyline again. I was talking to the same controller that I had when I landed to avoid the clouds an hour earlier. Being farther from any city, I spotted the clouds with much less warning. I attempted to dive under them unsuccessfully and ended up in them. Between the mild to moderate turbulence and low overall visibility, I experienced the visual triggers that cause spatial disorientation. It wasn't like training under the hood, flying IMC during the day, or at night over a city with city lights shining through the bottoms of the clouds. Imagine facing a fast moving train from eight inches away, while standing on a boat in turbulent waters -- that's what flying in night IMC can be like. I always were a headlamp when flying at night in case I lose instrument lighting. I turned it on to reduce outside visibility.
I assume that the contributing factors were that the clouds must not have shown up on radar, that there are no reporting stations in the swamp, and that the moisture in the air over the swamp combined with heating and cooling contributed to the formation of clouds.
At the time, I was a low-time pilot with somewhere in the neighborhood of 150-200 hours of total flight time. The day after I completed my PPL, I elected to get checked out in a G1000 equipped airplane. The instructor asked if I had been taught how to perform a 180 in weather. I said that I hadn't, so he pulls up the weather and has me intentionally fly into a mid-summer afternoon dissipation. It wasn't what we have here in Florida; there were only two detected lightning strikes several miles away, but it did get me into zero visibility. It scared me quite a bit.
That night I weighed what I had been considering and thought of the many individuals that told stories of how they'd been working on their instrument rating for decades, or those VFR-only private pilots that refused to fly again after unexpected weather, and decided that, while it would be a time and financial stretch, to go through a 141 program and get my instrument rating, with safety as the objective. The day after completing my PPL, which took me 3 years, four flight schools, six instructors and nearly 90 hours to complete, I started my instrument rating. A month and 40 hours later, I passed my check ride without issue.
The wine I started drinking while writing the post has started to kick in and I'm about to pass out. I'm posting without proofreading, but I hope someone finds this useful.
I filed my first NASA report. It was relatively minor: inadvertant VFR flight into IMC. By all indications, the situation was nearly unavoidable.
I had made a late departure for my flight from the east coast of Florida to the west. Before departing I called and got a standard briefing. The briefer stated the outlook was VFR for the entire trip with high overcast ceilings. It was going to be a starless night, but with light from the ground. I intentionally did not file IFR as I did not want to fly the FBO rental in night IMC. I had lost a vaccuum pump and a backup once before, though fortunately in day VFR conditions, and I had no intentions of entering night IMC.
Just over an hour into my trip into the lightless sky at 4500 ft, I notice a darker, jagged horizon ahead of me. I had just passed an airport and requested from ATC that I perform a 180 to avoid clouds. I was told to "do whatever I needed to do." I was in the middle of nowhere and it was 11 at night. I climbed from 4500 to 6500 and was still unable to see over the tops of the clouds so I elected to land. The airport where I landed was in the middle of a swamp. I waited around for about a half-hour and received a briefing which stated that there were no adverse conditions and to expect VFR. I decide to look in the tanks before I took off. Both tanks were well below the tabs. My way of thinking is that you only know what you can measure. If the tanks are below the tabs, consider them to be empty. As I pull onto the ramp to spend an uncomfortably hot and muggy night in a 4-seat single-engine airplane, I spot a self-service pump. I could not have been happier.
I gas up, take off and am on my way, crossing 30 miles of sparsely lit swampland under a lightless sky. Twenty miles into it, in spite of my briefer's statements, I spot that jagged skyline again. I was talking to the same controller that I had when I landed to avoid the clouds an hour earlier. Being farther from any city, I spotted the clouds with much less warning. I attempted to dive under them unsuccessfully and ended up in them. Between the mild to moderate turbulence and low overall visibility, I experienced the visual triggers that cause spatial disorientation. It wasn't like training under the hood, flying IMC during the day, or at night over a city with city lights shining through the bottoms of the clouds. Imagine facing a fast moving train from eight inches away, while standing on a boat in turbulent waters -- that's what flying in night IMC can be like. I always were a headlamp when flying at night in case I lose instrument lighting. I turned it on to reduce outside visibility.
I assume that the contributing factors were that the clouds must not have shown up on radar, that there are no reporting stations in the swamp, and that the moisture in the air over the swamp combined with heating and cooling contributed to the formation of clouds.
At the time, I was a low-time pilot with somewhere in the neighborhood of 150-200 hours of total flight time. The day after I completed my PPL, I elected to get checked out in a G1000 equipped airplane. The instructor asked if I had been taught how to perform a 180 in weather. I said that I hadn't, so he pulls up the weather and has me intentionally fly into a mid-summer afternoon dissipation. It wasn't what we have here in Florida; there were only two detected lightning strikes several miles away, but it did get me into zero visibility. It scared me quite a bit.
That night I weighed what I had been considering and thought of the many individuals that told stories of how they'd been working on their instrument rating for decades, or those VFR-only private pilots that refused to fly again after unexpected weather, and decided that, while it would be a time and financial stretch, to go through a 141 program and get my instrument rating, with safety as the objective. The day after completing my PPL, which took me 3 years, four flight schools, six instructors and nearly 90 hours to complete, I started my instrument rating. A month and 40 hours later, I passed my check ride without issue.
The wine I started drinking while writing the post has started to kick in and I'm about to pass out. I'm posting without proofreading, but I hope someone finds this useful.
irate:......and.......cheers :beer:
