rbridges
En-Route
sometimes you have to thread through things to get high enough for the minimum safe altitude. The airport will have IFR departure guidelines to safely get you to that altitude.
Using tablet to see the mountains?
- Thread starter bobmrg
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sometimes you have to thread through things to get high enough for the minimum safe altitude. The airport will have IFR departure guidelines to safely get you to that altitude.
brian];1838793 said:
Don't fly with SVT after your first hour under the hood, because you will "get it" again and be paying Garmin a lot more than $5k.
The infrequent IFR pilot is where SVT really pays off the most because it simplifies the data acquisition and processing required to maintain situational awareness by an order of magnitude if not more.
The fatal failure in this accident was an equipment failure. How many times you think it went ok before it killed them?
As well as get down to the airport. There are a lot of them, and high ones, in some places.
Everskyward
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But the pilot in this case did not have an instrument rating so he shouldn't have been there, in the clouds, in the mountains at all, SVT or not.
Correct. The reality though is that the SVT allowed him to do so, so that means it's the fault of SVT that he crashed.
exncsurfer
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I don't think anyone disagrees with that.
MAKG1
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OK, you're a student pilot. Let's work through that.
Around the area in question, OROCAs are 11,000 - 13,000 feet. OROCAs, not minimum safe altitude, give you obstacle clearance in IMC. The one Victor airway anywhere near the area (V120) has a minimum enroute altitude of 12,000. You find them on the IFR low charts. How long does it take you to get there in your aircraft? How about if there is a modest 200 FPM downdraft? Now, how about if there is a strong mountain wave with 1000 FPM downdrafts?
No, it isn't enough by itself. You need to be able to see the terrain. The real terrain, not just a representation of it. And in addition, you have to keep the blue side up, often not easy around mountain clouds, especially if it gets convective.
Tom-D
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North Cascade mountains the convective build up in the afternoon is the norm. what time of day was this accident?
early evening at best.
The day in question started with a light morning fog, on the west side, with a west wind pushing that moisture onto the cascades, what do you think he saw from the east side?
My rule of safety is simple, stay off the high country in the afternoon.
This pilot had many options that day, he simply made the wrong decisions, and probably would not have made them if he had the IFR training.
![brian]](/community/data/avatars/m/21/21096.jpg?1456258959){kind=avatar}
brian]
Cleared for Takeoff
Don't fly with SVT after your first hour under the hood, because you will "get it" again and be paying Garmin a lot more than $5k.
The infrequent IFR pilot is where SVT really pays off the most because it simplifies the data acquisition and processing required to maintain situational awareness by an order of magnitude if not more.
The fatal failure in this accident was an equipment failure. How many times you think it went ok before it killed them?
No doubt. But a VFR pilot with a tablet + SVT sounds like a crash looking for a location.
The more I learn, the more I respect what the airlines get done each day.
a VFR pilot with a GPS sounds like a crash looking for a locationbrian];1838869 said:
a VFR pilot with a VOR sounds like a crash looking for a location
a VFR pilot with an NDB sounds like a crash looking for a location
a VFR pilot with an attitude indicator sounds like a crash looking for a location
a VFR pilot with a [fill in the blank with every single technological aviation advance ever done*] sounds like a crash looking for a location
Change "a VFR pilot" to "a pilot who is improperly using the tools at his disposal" and you have an accurate statement.
[*actually it doesn't even have a technological advance]
brian]
Cleared for Takeoff
Agreed.
I'm just shocked how quickly the "pilot who is improperly" using (I'll insert trained) can quickly become "ME"!
petrolero
Pattern Altitude
This was poor judgment. It doesn't matter what tools were available to the guy. If he was willing to go flying VFR into IMC in the mountains then his judgment was poor and he was taking risks. Those excessive risks could have caught up to him in other ways as well.
It's easy to blame the technology, but the technology didn't put a gun to his head and force him to launch into those conditions in that place.
It's easy to blame the technology, but the technology didn't put a gun to his head and force him to launch into those conditions in that place.
brian];1838869 said:
It most certainly is, that's why it's not allowed and you give Garmin a lot more than $5k to get that capability in an allowed format.
The IR only begins with controlling the plane under instruments. The majority is about situational awareness and what to do in various situations.
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brian];1838901 said:
It can, it's the allure of being cheap. "Look at all the capability I get from this $2000 solution. I don't need an IR, and I don't need to spend $40k on my panel, and I get the same capability." I even heard that argument when I spent the money on my panel. To me it's a fool's argument.
There are however mid line solutions. Keep the 6 pack on one side, and use an Experimental SVT display on the other. With the right way of holding it in place and attaching the wires through a plug, this can be a legal piece of equipment in a Certified plane. You still need the expensive radio to drive it, but you save a whole bunch on the display technology. This is likely what I would do next time.
Regardless though of what equipment, the correct training is still mandatory not only by FAA law, but by The law of survival.
The technology is there to feed you more information to make decisions by, the IR is about teaching you to make the correct decisions.
brian]
Cleared for Takeoff
It most certainly is, that's why it's not allowed and you give Garmin a lot more than $5k to get that capability in an allowed format.
Totally understand that Garmin will collect more than the cost of may old -35 to provide SVT (ok, with other goodies). The $5K I need to spend is to "fix" my old 430 as it quit driving the OBS.
SVT on Foreflight sounds like a cool add for cheap - but well after I've been flying my "new" 430W for a while. But maybe that's me. (Although the though of another VFR joker flying around in IMC does make me worry a bit.)
Clark1961
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brian];1838934 said:
Your 430W has a very nice terrain page which gives a plan depicting terrain clearance in three colors. I consider it equal to the Aspen PFD plan view terrain presentation. I do dislike the 430Ws terrain warnings but I leave the warnings turned on 'cause someday it might really be a valid alert.
So far the only time I've been IFR over the mountains I've been at least 2,000' above the nearest peaks. I've never been in serious IMC in the mountains and intend to keep it that way.
brian];1838934 said:
When you 'fix' your 430, you may as well go W and get all the approaches, and add the FlightStream 210 so you can control it with Garmin Pilot using the 750 interface. You can't beat the deal, "spin push spin push spin push...push push.." gets replaced with a touch screen that lets you rubber band clearance amendments. The value of being able to do that single pilot IFR is worth every dime of $1000 and then some, plus I get V-Airways so I can enter clearances as received rather than looking up a bunch of stuff on a chart and entering it with that ridiculous interface. I hate the GNS interface with a passion.
Being able to get your clearance and build your flightplan inside the FBO, start the plane then simply upload the flight plan to the radio to me is a great value as well rather than sitting there idling programming it all either shivering or with sweat rolling in your eyes.
brian]
Cleared for Takeoff
When you 'fix' your 430, you may as well go W and get all the approaches, and add the FlightStream 210 so you can control it with Garmin Pilot using the 750 interface. You can't beat the deal, "spin push spin push spin push...push push.." gets replaced with a touch screen that lets you rubber band clearance amendments. The value of being able to do that single pilot IFR is worth every dime of $1000 and then some, plus I get V-Airways so I can enter clearances as received rather than looking up a bunch of stuff on a chart and entering it with that ridiculous interface. I hate the GNS interface with a passion.
I keep hoping to bump into someone with that combination. I still have a little time as I'm hoping to get the upgrade done next annual. Any more, I just give my A&P my wallet and then the keys to the aircraft.
brian];1839113 said:
If I still had the 310, I'd already have it.
peerlesscowboy
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The mountains are full of wreckages of VFR pilots who didn't seem to understand the simple fact that if you're gonna' fly over a mountain you gotta' get higher than the mountain.
Clark1961
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And ya can't fly into them white things where the mountains hide...
Same goes for IFR pilots...
FastEddieB
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"Mountains are where you find them…not necessarily where you think they are!"
If you paint the widows black so you can't observe the mountain, will it exist?
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shorty
FLIR is synthetic vision technology. Something running on a tablet or ipad, is not.
FLIR is not SVT, FLIR is Augmented Vision. FLIR is an optical camera with an IR sensitive CCD. I have seen FLIR as the background for a typical PFD overlay, and when there is good temperature contrast, especially in cold weather, it is awesome for punching through night and fog. Operating in homogenous warm temps, it's not so awesome. I had it on a boat in Indonesia where there are millions of guys paddling around in wooden canoes all night, and the water temp, canoe temp, and body temp are all around the same. You pick them up as shadows at maybe a 1/8 of a mile max except for one saving grace; they all smoke, you can pick them out about 1/4-1/2 mile away.
Everskyward
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I can see how it might be very seductive and it's a good thing for people to realize that it is seductive. There was bound to be an accident like this one of these days.brian];1838901 said:
As for flying IMC in the mountains, I'm happy with the plan view 3-color display. It's better than what we had before which was nothing. I think it's easier to estimate distances than on an oblique view. I have an iPad don't use it for navigation. Once in awhile I'll pull it out in cruise and look at the little airplane progressing over the sectional but just as a gee-whiz thing. Mostly I use it for preflight planning and looking up the locations of FBOs at the destination.
It is seductive. It's also true that we will use new technology to do things we wouldn't do without it. That's perfectly natural and elected. In fact, it's the whole idea of advances of any kind - to let us do things we could not.
Technology gives us options. ADM, judgement, good sense, wisdom, whatever you want to call it, is understanding how to use them.
rbridges
En-Route
I've never had my ipad fail on me. It's gotten warm, but it has never let me down. If it weren't for reading forums like this, I wouldn't have known that it was even possible. The pilot who crashed probably didn't know that either. Poor decision from start to finish, but maybe he wouldn't have relied on the SVT if he really was educated about it's limitations.
Paul Hamilton
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The tablet does not have to actually fail -- alll it has to do is lose GPS lock -- easy enough when the internal antenna lacks a good view of the sky. That's easy to do. A good way to use the SVT would have been to aid situational awareness while flying a 180 to exit the clouds.