Tangier island and haze over the Chesapeake Bay

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JOhnH

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We flew the Bo up to KMFY and are spending a few days on Chincoteague island. We are planning a lunch run to Tangier Island for some crabs on Sunday if any wants to join us.

And I have a question for the locals:
We were over the Bay at 9500. METARS said visibility 10 miles and Clear below 12,000. But the haze was so thick we couldn't see anything. We couldn't see the water or the horizon or even clouds. It felt like IMC. Was that because there just wasn't anything to see? When we began our descent we could start to make out the horizon and feland features. It was our first time that far out over water.
 
JOhnH said:
And I have a question for the locals:

We were over the Bay at 9500. METARS said visibility 10 miles and Clear below 12,000. But the haze was so thick we couldn't see anything. We couldn't see the water or the horizon or even clouds. It felt like IMC. Was that because there just wasn't anything to see? When we began our descent we could start to make out the horizon and feland features. It was our first time that far out over water.
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Sometimes on the east coast you can get a haze layer with reduced vis that if you are in it you would swear that it is a cloud layer, but if you are above or below it, you can see right through.
 
We get a pretty good haze around here in the summer, which is why I try to get Flight Following even for short trips, and also value the ADS-B input to the iPad.

But yesterday was particularly brutal. Not sure if it was because it was the first humid day of the year or what, I even felt a little vertigo-ish on climb out. Did not clear at all as I did a test run at 5,500.
 
Now you know how JFK Jr. lost it. And you also now know how it's possible to be in actual instrument conditions (i.e., conditions in which reference to the flight instruments is necessary to maintain control) while you're still in VMC, and why the FAA requires a modicum of instrument skill for every PP-Airplane, not just for those wishing to get IFR privileges.
 
I used to run into this often in the summertime when I was working in GA and AL. I called it "flying thru skim milk." :)

I guess I'm kinda' surprised you don't regularly experience it in FL.
 
Ron Levy said:
Now you know how JFK Jr. lost it. And you also now know how it's possible to be in actual instrument conditions (i.e., conditions in which reference to the flight instruments is necessary to maintain control) while you're still in VMC, and why the FAA requires a modicum of instrument skill for every PP-Airplane, not just for those wishing to get IFR privileges.
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So therefore its loggable as IMC time correct?
 
Drop down to 100 AGL (AWL?) and you will be able to see the water just fine. No need for instruments.
 
JOhnH said:
We flew the Bo up to KMFY and are spending a few days on Chincoteague island. We are planning a lunch run to Tangier Island for some crabs on Sunday if any wants to join us.

And I have a question for the locals:
We were over the Bay at 9500. METARS said visibility 10 miles and Clear below 12,000. But the haze was so thick we couldn't see anything. We couldn't see the water or the horizon or even clouds. It felt like IMC. Was that because there just wasn't anything to see? When we began our descent we could start to make out the horizon and feland features. It was our first time that far out over water.
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That's typical vis some days. Look down, you'll see the ground just fine, but you're right, it feels like you're in solid IMC. That's one of the times I file is in those conditions if I'm not down low.
 
Yep, the thing that tends to kill in my opinion (like with JonJon) is not that people can't fly on instruments, but they fail to recognize when they HAVE to fly on instruments. Continuing to look out into the murk or the featureless night is not going to last very long.

Even before I got my instrument rating, we had a drill for low vis situations like crossing the bay in haze. The PIC got on the instruments while the right seat (my wife and I are both pilots) watched out the window.

Back before I got my GPS, Tangier was a bit interesting in poor vis as it was hard to spot. There's no convenient radial to follow. I'm on the instruments, my wife is looking for out the window and ATC calls up (I also like to have FF crossing the bay) and says "Are you having a hard time finding Tangier? Look out your left window." Sure enough, my DR was lust a few degrees off to the right and my wife hadn't spotted it and I was too busy working on the panel scan.

Chesapeake Bay isn't nothing compared to coming up on Lake Michigan on a gray day.
 
Flymeariver said:
So therefore its loggable as IMC time correct?
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No, because a) you are not in IMC, and b) there is no such thing as "IMC time" in Part 61. But it is loggable as "actual instrument time", which is used in Part 61.

Keep in mind that IMC and actual instrument conditions are two entirely different things. IMC has to do with cloud clearance and flight visibility, while actual instrument conditions are about maintaining control without reference to the instruments. You can be in actual instrument conditions without being in IMC (the situation under discussion over the Bay), and you can be in IMC without being in actual instrument conditions (e.g., 1900 feet laterally from the only cloud in an otherwise clear blue sky).
 
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Ron Levy said:
No, because a) you are not in IMC, and b) there is no such thing as "IMC time" in Part 61. But it is loggable as "actual instrument time", which is used in Part 61.
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Pretty sure you knew that's what I meant. :rolleyes:
Thanks for the answer though.
 
Flymeariver said:
Pretty sure you knew that's what I meant. :rolleyes:
Thanks for the answer though.
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It is, nevertheless, an important distinctinon. IMC/VMC is only about the separation of VFR aircraft from IFR aircraft. Actual instrument conditions is about the skills and proficiency necessary to maintain control of the aircraft when you have only your flight instruments on which to rely for that purpose (not to mention the recognition that it is necessary to apply those skills, as FRon pointed out above and JFK Jr failed to perceive).
 
I too fly the bay regularly in hazy hot summer months....Flight Following is a must in addition to eyes scanning for traffic.:yes:

an autopilot with a good instrument scan is good too.....:goofy:

flyingron said:
Yep, the thing that tends to kill in my opinion (like with JonJon) is not that people can't fly on instruments, but they fail to recognize when they HAVE to fly on instruments. Continuing to look out into the murk or the featureless night is not going to last very long.

Even before I got my instrument rating, we had a drill for low vis situations like crossing the bay in haze. The PIC got on the instruments while the right seat (my wife and I are both pilots) watched out the window.

Back before I got my GPS, Tangier was a bit interesting in poor vis as it was hard to spot. There's no convenient radial to follow. I'm on the instruments, my wife is looking for out the window and ATC calls up (I also like to have FF crossing the bay) and says "Are you having a hard time finding Tangier? Look out your left window." Sure enough, my DR was lust a few degrees off to the right and my wife hadn't spotted it and I was too busy working on the panel scan.

Chesapeake Bay isn't nothing compared to coming up on Lake Michigan on a gray day.
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JOhnH said:
We flew the Bo up to KMFY and are spending a few days on Chincoteague island. We are planning a lunch run to Tangier Island for some crabs on Sunday if any wants to join us.
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Enjoy the trip! Chincoteague is pretty cool, particularly if you have a 4X4 to get away from the crowd! Tangier is a good day tip, good seafood and kinda "quaint" place. Don't know if possible, but a low and slow flight over Wallops Island launch site is worth it. Controllers usually pretty accomodating through the restricted area, unless they have operations in gear.

JOhnH said:
But the haze was so thick we couldn't see anything.
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Welcome to the northeast and hot and hazy!

Gary
 
Typical for the bay at this time of year.

Made worse right now by the atmospheric smoke due to wildfires in Canada (used to have the same issue in Austin and San Antonio with dust storms in west Texas).

With the smoke, dew points don't tell you the full story.
 
Yeah. Legal VFR flight in IMC is not uncommon in that area, especially around water. You need to know how to keep the wings level, and fly by instruments, and NOT give in to your brain sometimes.
 
Anthony said:
Yeah. Legal VFR flight in IMC is not uncommon in that area, especially around water. You need to know how to keep the wings level, and fly by instruments, and NOT give in to your brain sometimes.
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That's a contradiction in terms again as the other Ron pointed out. If it is IMC, you can't be legal VFR. That's not to say you can't be VFR in VMC and still be in "actual instrument conditions."
 
Side note - what's the deal with Tangier Island? Google Earth'd it since I'd never heard of it and see all kinds of barges or house boats out in the water northeast of the island, many with smaller boats docked alongside. Are those residential barges/house boats or commercial fishing operations?

Looks like a cool, unique place.
 
Tangier Island was pretty much isolated for centuries. Until the runway went in, the only way to get there was an hour boat ride from the nearest town (and that was on the Eastern Shore in Maryland, Tangier is part of Virginia). The residents spoke (and still do when you're out of earshot) an almost Elizabethan English. There are three main families there: Cooks, Pruitts, and the Crockets. Not really any cars to speak of, just bikes and golf carts. The traditional industry there is the catching and processing of soft shelled blue crabs. The men go out a crabbin' and the women maintain watch on the crab tanks waiting for the peelers.

The barge things you see are actual crab tanks where they wait for the crabs to molt at which point they can be processed as soft shells.
 
JOhnH said:
We flew the Bo up to KMFY and are spending a few days on Chincoteague island. We are planning a lunch run to Tangier Island for some crabs on Sunday if any wants to join us.

And I have a question for the locals:
We were over the Bay at 9500. METARS said visibility 10 miles and Clear below 12,000. But the haze was so thick we couldn't see anything. We couldn't see the water or the horizon or even clouds. It felt like IMC. Was that because there just wasn't anything to see? When we began our descent we could start to make out the horizon and feland features. It was our first time that far out over water.
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Having flown in 5 miles vis at 2500, I'd say 10 miles vis at 9500 would have almost no horizon. Especially over water. I took off from Cedar Key to the west on a hazy day (probably 5-7 miles vis IIRC) and there was no horizon over the gulf.

John
 
jsstevens said:
Having flown in 5 miles vis at 2500, I'd say 10 miles vis at 9500 would have almost no horizon. Especially over water. I took off from Cedar Key to the west on a hazy day (probably 5-7 miles vis IIRC) and there was no horizon over the gulf.

John
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Correct, over water, 10 miles visibility is really not much, and the water and the sky tend to blend into a murky continuum. My first logged time in actual after my private checkride came over Lake Michigan on a hot summer day at 8500 feet. Visibility was fine over land, probably 10 miles or so, but over the lake it was unsafe to try to control the plane by visual reference. That first time I was with another pilot who helped to set up the nav radios, otherwise things might have been a bit dicey.

Recently minted PPLs should also be careful when flying at altitude after sunset (not even at night) over sparsely populated areas, especially flat expanses like in northern Michigan. Know your limitations and if you're not comfortable with flying on the gauges by yourself, take along a CFI or a trusted experienced pilot, or make the trip earlier in the day.
 
Typical conditions for that area this time of year,just finished coming up the coast from fla to Ma, used flight following all the way visa was horrible.
 
Here's what the area looks like when it isn't so hazy:

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Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Clear with three miles or less in haze is fairly normal Middle Atlantic summer weather. My Primary flight instructor likened the descent from 10,000 as "like stepping into a warm, dirty aquarium." Typically, 7-9 thousand puts you on top.
 
BTW, I never think of Tangier as a hard shell sort of place, although if you get to know the locals, you can pick up a bushel for a good price if you can make arrangements ahead of time. Crisfield is an excellent place to pick up crabs as well, and the seafood distributors will deliver to the airport. There used to be some good crab houses in town; not sure what the situation is these days. Linton's is just down the street from W41.

Btw, where y'all planning to fly in to to get to chingoteague? Too bad Wallops doesn't have a civilian terminal.
 
In the OP I said we flew into MFY. I meant MFV. So right now the plane is closer to Tangier than we are. We are staying in Chincoteague.

Leslie was planning on soft shells any way. I hadn't decided on hard or soft yet, but I guess it will be soft for me too.

We Have decided to go today instead of Sunday. First we are going to fly to New Jersey for a full stop and taxi back so that we can put another pin in our map.
Brad Z said:
BTW, I never think of Tangier as a hard shell sort of place, although if you get to know the locals, you can pick up a bushel for a good price if you can make arrangements ahead of time. Crisfield is an excellent place to pick up crabs as well, and the seafood distributors will deliver to the airport. There used to be some good crab houses in town; not sure what the situation is these days. Linton's is just down the street from W41.

Btw, where y'all planning to fly in to to get to chingoteague? Too bad Wallops doesn't have a civilian terminal.
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We made it to Tangier. That place is neat. Weird, but neat. The food was the least entertaining part of the trip. One of my memories will be of the museum where many of the pictures hanging on the wall were apparently taken with a smart phone and printed on 8.5"x 11' paper on an inkjet printer. Many of the details were handwritten in pencil.


All the pictures that Michael posted could just as well be ours. I don't believe the place has changed in a century or more, except that they now have electricity and golf carts.

I recommend this trip to others, but not for the food, although the soft shell crabs were ok. The crab cakes were fried and over cooked and had too much filling.
 
Anthony said:
Yeah. Legal VFR flight in IMC is not uncommon in that area, especially around water. You need to know how to keep the wings level, and fly by instruments, and NOT give in to your brain sometimes.
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This is why Ron clarified that, it's not IMC, and the distinction is critical in that you have a very hazardous situation here where you have conditions that simulate IMC operationally, but do not meet it meteorologically. That means there can be people out there not talking and not squawking flying around with you that you can't see and avoid.
 
flyingron said:
Even before I got my instrument rating, we had a drill for low vis situations like crossing the bay in haze. The PIC got on the instruments while the right seat (my wife and I are both pilots) watched out the window.
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Ron - that's a routine I also follow. The attached pic was taken early one winter afternoon while crossing the "ridge" from KSHD Shenandoah Valley back to the RDU area. Although beautiful, the misleading shadows had me "hunting" for the actual horizon which created some vertigo ... I had my buddy in the right seat keep a scan for traffic while I went heads down on the instruments until we were clear of the hills.
 

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JOhnH said:
I recommend this trip to others, but not for the food, although the soft shell crabs were ok. The crab cakes were fried and over cooked and had too much filling.
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Where'd you eat? I doubt Hilda Crockett would overcook the crab cakes.
 
RickG said:
Ron - that's a routine I also follow. The attached pic was taken early one winter afternoon while crossing the "ridge" from KSHD Shenandoah Valley back to the RDU area. Although beautiful, the misleading shadows had me "hunting" for the actual horizon which created some vertigo ... I had my buddy in the right seat keep a scan for traffic while I went heads down on the instruments until we were clear of the hills.
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IMO this entire line of thinking is largely in play in most VFR-IMC flights where the PIC has an IR, and that surprisingly is most of them. I learned my lesson on this long ago and luckily it didn't take my life in the learning. I can either comfortably fly by looking out the windows, or I file; period. It's rare that I am not comfortable with it, but I maintain my IPCs for those times, and I also fly equipment that gives me maximum advantage at those times. Is it expensive to do? **** yes, same answer for "Is it worth it?".
 
Ron Levy said:
As Henning noted, by regulatory definition, there's no such thing as "Legal VFR flight in IMC".
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True. The conditions are legal VFR, but without good visibility due to the haze. It certainly "feels" like IMC, but I do realize it is not.

Thanks for clarifying Henning, and Ron.
 
In the Northeast summer if you climb the top of the haze/smoggishness is usually 6-8K. You think it is a sunny day climb and see real blue sky and a haze/smog line on the horizon. It is kinda gross especially if you are making repeated trips through it, get outside the plane and you can smell as well as see it.
 
Anthony said:
True. The conditions are legal VFR, but without good visibility due to the haze. It certainly "feels" like IMC, but I do realize it is not.

Thanks for clarifying Henning, and Ron.
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The times Ron and I agree on some little detail thing, there's likely a point.:lol:;)
 
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