Scary Near IFR Encounter

[Ryan B]

This is all XP10... just a disclaimer hehe.

As I'm very new to XP10 and it's (lack of) scenery, I had a not-so-great time flying to ONT today.

I tried to go VFR, in an experimental that doesn't have anything cool except a compass. To make matters worse I had to climb initially to get above what I'd call a broken layer. The METAR at ONT called for broken at 2800 I think... Anyway as I continued NW (departed KRNM) the broken turned to really broken, which turned to overcast. So I climbed higher to see if I could find some holes. For the next part I'm not sure if it's an XP10 weather bug... but I found a hole, tried to descend, and then all went to white. (Let's say it's a XP bug instead!) So I climbed back up on top. I then told approach I was disoriented and asked for a vector back towards RNM. The clouds looked even thicker than when I left the Palomar area... so now I'm thinking great...."Mr N8068C (my fsx callsign), typically very good at flying is doing horribly with XP10 (N24242) and about to die (virtually thank goodness!)"

I stay where I'm at at 7500 and thankfully the skies clear back to FEW, of course by this point I'm not even close to the heading approach suggested me back to RNM. But I ask for that again and get established, and finally find where I am... get the airport in sight and come in for landing with sweaty palms (yes for real HOW LAME!).

Anyway it was semi hectic for a few minutes. The hardest part was turning around back to RNM. Then asking for help cause I was lost. I still wanted to go to ONT so I picked up the Baron and flew IFR without many issues.

And a little off topic. I've been using the photoreal background scenery for socal from SimHeaven.de. It's great near the metropolis of downtown LAX... but further out it turns to a blurry mess. What are the XPers using for socal scenery? It has to be 64 bit compatible too.

[julio.elizalde]

I was the controller for your VFR flight. Your story is a great lesson and reminder about flying in borderline IMC. Get back, get help, get out. You don't ever want to end up like this guy:

http://youtu.be/rnDmqgtrEL0?t=1m5s

[Ryan B]

Yeah I've heard that audio before. Chilling, to say the least.

[seippg]

I'm still working on improving my IMC skills. I was flying IFR in the Duke a while back and had my view isolated on the cockpit but could see a sliver of the ground out the side window. Weirdly, seeing that and only that, I felt like I was turning. I sat there flying by hand, half looking at it, observing the feeling and monitoring my AI...just holding on to the AI...getting to know vertigo even in a sim. Glanced down at my gyro compass, my turn coordinator...they agreed with the AI. Airspeed steady, altitude steady. I knew the instruments were right...engine sound steady. But that weird, weird feeling.

[rgrazian]

Flying real IMC in a plane is much different than a sim. Disorientation is a real deal and requires real training. The sim helps immensely with procedures, radio, and navigation. However, real IMC flying can make you sweat on the coldest day. I had no idea. It certainly takes practice. Safe flying.

[Daddy O]

A good enough simulator will do a great job of recreating the disorientation of suddinly finding yourself in hardball IFR weather. I've felt it in my own sim a few times, and in both the 727 & Lear simulators. It takes some practice to get used to. Then just when you do you try it at night and you get a real surprise.

Night IFR in the clouds is fun because you see nothing, except for when your strobes reflect off the clouds around you. The effect is like a phaser on stun. It really drives you crazy fast!

Even more fun is making an ILS or VOR approach through the soup. White knuckles all the way down until tyou break thru. That is the beauty of the simulator--it lets you practice crazy stuff that you would never do in a real airplane.

[seippg]

Flying real IMC in a plane is much different than a sim. Disorientation is a real deal and requires real training. The sim helps immensely with procedures, radio, and navigation. However, real IMC flying can make you sweat on the coldest day. I had no idea. It certainly takes practice. Safe flying.

I have flown about 5 hours of real hood time (old story...low on money). During that brief time I didn't experience any real vertigo. Different circumstances, I know...I did have someone in the right seat.

[seippg]

A good enough simulator will do a great job of recreating the disorientation of suddinly finding yourself in hardball IFR weather. I've felt it in my own sim a few times, and in both the 727 & Lear simulators. It takes some practice to get used to. Then just when you do you try it at night and you get a real surprise.

Night IFR in the clouds is fun because you see nothing, except for when your strobes reflect off the clouds around you. The effect is like a phaser on stun. It really drives you crazy fast!

Even more fun is making an ILS or VOR approach through the soup. White knuckles all the way down until tyou break thru. That is the beauty of the simulator--it lets you practice crazy stuff that you would never do in a real airplane.

I think I can understand that. The mind uses visual queues a lot (closing my eyes I lose my balance much quicker than when they're open). Clouds and lights making shapes off of clouds can through your mind off. Your mind might attach to something that, even instantaneous, looks like the ground. With nothing else to grab hold of, it probably keeps believing it. Add to that the effects flashes of light can have on the brain. The 'trick' for me is to line up the AI and, while I'm checking the other instruments to see if they agree, listen to the engine. If the engine is humming along I'm rock-solid. I don't know how well that would work in a thunderstorm...don't really care to find out.

Oddly, I was flying pop-eye in the Duke again recently and, when I throttled up after a decent, the engines began to oscillate weirdly. Airspeed rising and falling about 20 KIAS. Never seen that before. I clicked on all the anti-ice and alternate air, just to be certain. I got a break in the clouds and reset the yaw damper and it smoothed out. Seemed like a bit of a dutch roll, maybe. Dunno. I didn't see any oscillation on the AI. Everything was fine after that.

[Keith Smith]

Flying real IMC in a plane is much different than a sim. Disorientation is a real deal and requires real training. The sim helps immensely with procedures, radio, and navigation. However, real IMC flying can make you sweat on the coldest day. I had no idea. It certainly takes practice. Safe flying.

That's a tricky one. The physical sensation is different, agreed, but the actions you take are identical. I have racked up a healthy amount of IMC now in a wide variety of weather conditions, most of which I never encountered during my real training. The actions that I take in the airplane so far haven't been different to what I do in the sim. I've had my inner ear disagree with the instruments a small number of times, but thousands of sim hours have my instincts following the gauges every single time. Shortly after, the inner ear begrudgingly goes along with what the gauges are telling me.

One thing that X-Plane really helped me with was night IMC. My first experience with night IMC was solo and in moderate precip to boot. I think the strobes would've absolutely freaked me out had it not been for the fact that it's modeled so well in X-Plane, I just smiled at how similar and unsurprising it was, switched 'em off and got back on the gauges.

If you are only moderately confident in your ability to fly in IMC and you hit IMC...it's not a fun experience, and precision approaches to minimums are a full-on nightmare. If you do them enough in the sim (I'm talking hundreds and hundreds of them), then doing them in the airplane requires concentration, but is not inherently stressful. It is simply not cost effective or a good use of time to become proficient using an airplane. The sim is the way to go. I feel strongly about it as I know there is 0% chance I could fly the airplane that I do with the pitiful time that I have in my logbook in the conditions that I've experienced. If you get the most out of your simming, it really is as good as the real thing....not in the sense that it can replicate all the physical sensations, but more because if you do it enough, the physical sensations don't matter a whole lot (just my opinion).

Adam, I'd say the most useful aspect of a sim is that it lets you practice challenging scenarios that you might encounter in real life. An approach to minimums in actual is not 'crazy stuff that you would never do in a real airplane'....it's exactly what a precision approach will safely let you do. Every instrument rated pilot out there has to demonstrate the ability to do it, or they don't get the ticket. If it's a white-knuckled event every time then something is amiss. I would get back to the fundamentals in a slow airplane and build on that until it's no longer a challenge to fly the approach, then step up to faster airplanes where the performance envelope is a lot wider. I can't tell you how much time I have in the Chandler Piper Warrior, and how many approaches I flew in that puppy before moving into the faster, heavier planes like the Piper Saratoga.

[rgrazian]

Hi Keith,

I completely agree. The sim is a great tool and in conjunction with PE has made my instrument training fun and rewarding. Frankly, discovering xplane and PE was an unexpected gift. It is a blast flying online with everyone here. My meaning was that the first couple times in real hard core IMC flying a real airplane is something I will not forget. I cannot lie, it was intimidating the first time. The sim made me much better prepared and I performed well (thanks again to good training and a lot of practice on PE). In fact, I just practiced shooting an ILS partial panel down to minimums in nasty wind. I did it about a dozen times. It's great for practicing the really hard partial panel stuff. That kind of practice is just not practical in a real plane.

We lose too many pilots who get caught in inadvertent IMC. My opinion is that all pilots should be proficient in BAI. Even if only in a sim.

Safe flying!