AOPA Video Question.

[Richard Ruminski]

Question here from a Desk Top Pilot.  What was the aircraft doing in this video that had the pilot so confused.

VIDEO

[Bruce Clingan]

IT is all about a VFR pilot with very little instrument experience getting caught in an IMC situation and getting into a position where they can't recover.  It is not really that the airplane was doing something unusual it was that the pilot was caught off guard.  True IMC flying is very difficult to do for someone with little experience or training.  FS doesn't really give IMC flight justice.

[Harold Rutila]

This is one thing that you can't really simulate well in the desktop simulation. In this airplane, the mind tells the brain that the instruments are indicating something is not right with the attitude of the plane, but instead of relying on instruments, our body's physiological sensations are what many pilots rely on. This is the ultimate trap in aviation. Part of training for the private pilot's license is learning to recognize and recover from unusual attitudes. Instructors have us place view-limiting devices (like Foggles) over our eyes, they take the controls and give the plane some crazy climbs/descends, banks, and yaw action, and expect us to recover just by looking at the instruments. When I opened my eyes for the first time, I was thoroughly disoriented. It's amazing how you can think the airplane is doing something completely opposite of what is actually going on.

In this particular video, the airplane may have actually been inverted, because when the pilot pulled back, the airspeed increased. This is not a normal thing. This video is primarily aiming to tell pilots to make good go/no-go decisions before getting into the air. But once you get into the air in IMC, ALWAYS trust your instruments.

[Thomas King]

Well, you always trust the right instruments. coming out of a unusual attitude, you never look at the attitude indicator because it can tumble.  Then the Pitot-Static system can have some errors such as being iced over.  So being vigilant about turning your pitot heat on while in IMC would be a good idea so that you know you are reading correct information from the Airspeed indicator, because if not, and the pitot tube is iced over, the airspeed indicator would indicate an increase in airspeed.  Generally pilots would pull back more and more to reach the desired climbout speed but that only puts them into a stall.  Thats what I believe happened if this is talking about an inexperienced Private Pilot.  They never put there pitot heat on because thats something you aren't trained enough when going through PPL.

Its only when you get to insturment is when you learn to trust the right instruments.

[Harold Rutila]

I see your point, but at least in my instruction, both from the King Schools videos and in the actual airplane, the attitude indicator is the primary instrument that you look at when recognizing and coming out of an unusual attitude because it shows you what your attitude is, not what you think it is. Trying to compile data between the airspeed indicator and the altimeter to try and derive an attitude estimate is not the proper course of action in such a dire situation.

[Tim Farrell]

Holy Crap!

As a student pilot on my solo legs flight, I experienced this exact same thing, except I didn't crash. As soon as I went IMC, I went into a brief panic only to hear GOD through my instructor's voice (not in the plane at all) telling me "Forget your head and believe in your eyes". I did just that. Knowing that vertigo was evident. Panic soon turned to "fly the airplane". I focused first on the turn coordinator to make sure I was not in a turn, then looked at the v/s and atttude indicator to make sure I was level, straight and true. I then carefully mastered a 180 turn (IMC) and got out of the IMC, found the first water tower I saw and vectored my way home. I for one can say the Turn Coordinator saved my freaking life! I definately learned from the experience and yes, I am a private pilot. That day GOD was my co-pilot.

[Harold Rutila]

Holy Crap!

As a student pilot on my solo legs flight, I experienced this exact same thing, except I didn't crash. As soon as I went IMC, I went into a brief panic only to hear GOD through my instructor's voice (not in the plane at all) telling me "Forget your head and believe in your eyes". I did just that. Knowing that vertigo was evident. Panic soon turned to "fly the airplane". I focused first on the turn coordinator to make sure I was not in a turn, then looked at the v/s and atttude indicator to make sure I was level, straight and true. I then carefully mastered a 180 turn (IMC) and got out of the IMC, found the first water tower I saw and vecotred my way home. I for one can say the Turn Coordinator safed my freaking life! I definately learned from the experience and yes, I am a private pilot. That day GOD was my co-pilot.

That's pretty incredible! I'm assuming the weather deteriorated between planning and getting up in the air, is that right?

[Tim Farrell]

Harold,

Yes. I was under the impression weather would be okay from FSS. Little did I/FSS know that the front that was supposed to have moved through my flightplan path stalled at a really bad time. Do not take the FSS weather at its word. The pilot needs to be vigilant at all times especially with weather.

[Tim Farrell]

Question here from a Desk Top Pilot.  What was the aircraft doing in this video that had the pilot so confused.

VIDEO

Richard,

I believe the pilot experienced vertigo from the get go once in IMC and ended up in really steep bank descending spiral or he went inverted. During vertigo, your mind thinks something is happening and instinctively you respond in what feels right instead of what IS right. Example: You may have the sensation you are straight and level when you are anything but.

Try this experiment and you'll experience vertigo without the risk of killing yourself:

You'll need a chair/stool that pivots and a friend. You sit on the chair/stool. Now close your eyes. Have a friend turn the chair to the right or left at a nice rotation. If the friend (without telling you)gradually slows the rotation to a crawl, you fell as if you have stopped turning but in reality the chair/stool is still rotating. This is Vertigo. When you think you have stopped turning. open your eyes and you will see you are still turning.

This is what made me think "forget what my head is saying and believe in my eyes".

[Don Desfosse]

Tim's interpretation of vertigo and subsequent assumption of steep spiral and/or inverted flight is spot on.  I have instructed several dozen pilots leading to their instrument ratings, Instrument Flight Instructor ratings, and conducted several hundred instrument flight checks, and been able to induce vertigo in all but one pilot (I'll get him yet one of these days...!  ).  

It's amazing how much the mind wants to override what the instruments are telling you.  When placed into a situation where you are suddenly in inadvertent IMC, you must simultaneously trust the instruments initially while also error-checking to ensure all the instruments are functioning properly, thus leading you to the right conclusion.  In such a situation (inadvertent IMC, where the pilot is taken surprise) , it doesn't take much for a RATED pilot to get behind the airplane, never mind a pilot who hasn't received adequate instruction and developed the requisite experience to 1. identify the situation, 2. take initial corrective action, 3. evaluate the effectiveness of the corrective action while simultaneously error-checking the instrument indications to ensure all instruments are functioning/indicating properly.  And getting behind the airplane can get deadly.  Many flight instructors drill into our students and pilots seeking recurrent training that inadvertent encounters with IMC for untrained, unqualified, and/or non-current instrument pilots result in a sobering outcome:  178 seconds to live*.

Hope this helps,

Don

Don Desfosse, ATP, CFII, FAA Safety Team Lead Representative (FAA Boston FSDO)



* "An AOPA-funded study conducted in 1954 by Jesse W. Stonecipher, then chief flight instructor at the University of Illinois, Urbana, indicated that the average life expectancy of a non-instrument rated pilot in IMC was 178 seconds from the onset to loss of control due to spatial disorientation. Of the 20 subjects tested, 19 entered graveyard spirals and the 20th stalled his aircraft. None of them lasted over eight minutes and all had the same skills training. There’s no reason to believe those figures have changed in the past half century."

— Illusions: Spatial Disorientation and Loss of Control by Dick McKinney. Business & Commercial Aviation magazine, March 2008 pg. 63.

[Richard Ruminski]

Thanks for all the info.  I guess you have to be put into such a situation to understand the out come.

[Harold Rutila]

...There’s no reason to believe those figures have changed in the past half century.

Gasp! But Don, how could they say this with the advent of the Cirrus parachute system and the Garmin G1000?!

[Don Desfosse]

That's a really good point.  A few different ways to answer that, but the first couple that come to mind:

1. Given the recency of the introduction of TAA aircraft and parachute-equipped aircraft, adjusting the extrapolated 20 samples to the thousands of opportunities over the past 60 years where pilots encountered inadvertant IMC and then adjusting/biasing a percentage of them to account for the injection of TAA and/or parachute-equipped aircraft would yield a dramatically small increase (like, say going from 178 to 178.4 seconds....).

2. The study should be reaccomplished (this time with a statistically significant sample of at least 30 subjects), and should utilize a statistically accurate percentage of TAA vs. non-TAA aircraft, plus a statistically accurate percentage of parachute-equipped aircraft.  Further, to increase the statistical accuracy of the model, the number of TAA aircraft and parachute-equipped aircraft used in the experiment should be more than 30, thus driving the overall sample size to nearly 900 (as the current industry estimate of GA TAA to total GA population is 3.5%. However, the estimate includes all GA aircraft, including turboprop and turbine, and is not limited to simply piston aircraft, as was the 1954 study).  Using these rules under the guise of seeking statistical accuracy gives a lot of people an opportunity to participate in a way cool study.  Unfortunately, it would likely be cost prohibitive.....     My guess is you'd see the average go from 178 to something higher, but not much higher.  Just pure guess, but I betcha it'd still be less than 200 seconds.

And y'all thought I was just another pretty face.....  

[Paul Byrne]

[!--quoteo--][div class=\\\'quotetop\\\']QUOTE [/div][div class=\\\'quotemain\\\'][!--quotec--]And y'all thought I was just another pretty face.....[/quote]
Em....yeah....

[!--quoteo--][div class=\\\'quotetop\\\']QUOTE [/div][div class=\\\'quotemain\\\'][!--quotec--]FAA Safety Team Lead Representative (FAA Boston FSDO)[/quote]
Thanks for that. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.

Cheers!