UdoR wrote:
Boy, departing on a 600 meters runway in such conditions would scare the shit out of me. The 210 gets a bit quicker into the air than a Comanche, but nevertheless it’s a high adrenaline situation, yes, definitely. I was mentally trying to visualize this. Would be of course a lot easier on an IFR field with a defined departure route and so on, best on a 2000 meters runway where you even could land straight ahead in the first seconds of flight.
Well 600m visibility during ground roll (or anything bellow 2km) would be scary, let alone 160m and will trigger some heart beats, but let’s not make a whole dinner out of it once you lift off, the whole magic is gone and you are like any takeoff in IMC or Night, then there are two type of schools:
A) If you are fan of those steep slow climbs bellow – -Vx, well you should expect some confusion between climb & turn, lot of control loads and trim changes at slow speeds (even AP tend to disconnect on those speed ranges as they can’t keep up bellow min AP speeds), you have to watch the aircraft bank & balance every second and I do agree that one could “lose it” in IMC on these “unstable steep climbs” (people do it regularly in blue sky VMC days: turn, pull, slip, pull…)
B) If you are fan of faster shallow faster climbs toward Vy+ +, there is not a lot of worries the aircraft takes care of itself, even if you let it go it stays in trim, I actually forgot to plug AP once at 1000ft agl after my turn and aircraft kept flying on heading at 120kias & +600fpm until it reached 2000ft while I was doing other low priority stuff, I don’t see any reason why the aircraft “could slip from your hands” in IMC
Obviously, B needs lot of runway and clear path ahead but at LOIH there is plenty of this going north
The scary part is engine failure in IMC, especially in A
Ibra wrote:
Well 600m visibility during ground roll (or anything bellow 2km) is scary and will have some heart beats, but let’s not make a whole dinner out of it once you lift off, the whole magic is gone and you are like any takeoff in IMC or Night,
The takeoff itself might be exactly the same as “any takeoff in IMC” (not like at night – in night VMS you typically have some kind of lights and therefore references to ground after takeoff) – with a handmade procedure on an airfield that is not created for IFR with entering IMC directly after takeoff…
However, the pilot is in a completely different state of mind – and might have applied much less diligence as it felt like "the dangerous part of flight is over).
and might have applied much less diligence as it felt like "the dangerous part of flight is over
That could be the case indeed, pressed wrong AP button and went to sleep…
Even better! So Snoopy’s original statement: “LOIH is approved for VFR operations, however that might be based on national law which is second to EU law.” is obviously pointless.
@Airborne_again just clarified that operational certification on EU regulations level doesn’t apply to LOIH. So, according EU law it might indeed be legal to take off in airspace G?!
Anyway, I hereby clarify that I am genuinely interested in the precise legal situation (out of curiosity) and my posts were strictly aimed at that (highlighting inconclusive parts of national vs. eu law).
Yes, legal doesn’t mean safe or wise, but that’s another subject.
lets do a little experiment of thought (and imagination)
(including the facts we seem to know until now)
you are sitting in parking on the southend of the runway.
loih is your home base for many years (beyond 100 landings/takeoffs)(good estimate)
you do more than 50 flights/year (good estimate)
you got the given weathercondition (see pic of the takeoff).
we assume that you have prepared an ifr takeoff (otherwise you would be completely crazy)
plane is fully ifr equipped. you got if rating.
you plan to go to edja. so you have a more or less straight way out north.
you have about 5 to 7 minutes of flight time thru imc until cloudless sunshine above fog.
you got (required) permission to takeoff before 09:00 lt (coroborated).
you have considered to go out 23 (for whatever reasons).
finally you decide to got out 05.
so you roll from parking unto runway some 50 meter or so and turn north.
you take off 05.
you are imc. you knew that.
you are prepared for it because you just wanted to go thru and above the fog.
(personal information from the pilot).
and yet you think you taxied all the way down the runway and turned around 180
to go out on 23 ?
AND you start turning right after takeoff WITHOUT looking at your instruments ??!!
(thats actually the only way you could look. because there is only fog outside).
i know the best pilots have done the most irrational things and everything might be possible.
any hypothesis could be looked at. but it should withstand at least some critical examination.
Malibuflyer wrote:
Therefore it’s hard to believe that avionics had anything to do with it.
I disagree. The airplane was recently upgraded to a sort-of glass cockpit and IME this takes some learning. Also, the touch-screen interface of the 650/750 isn’t very intuitive (and I find the 750 much worse) and it is VERY easy to mess things up by trying to touch one part of the GUI but inadvertently hitting another one. Whoever thought touchscreens are a good idea in light GA….
We also don’t know if the pilot flew several airplanes with different avionics. I do, and they range from a G1000 twin (Tecnam) to a BE55 with avionics straight out of Jurassic Park (the latter should really be in a museum for old avionics – works, though!) with a range of others in between. These have 650s, 750s (which I rarely fly), 430/530Ws, G5s….. you name it.
What that has taught me, especially for the two twins at the ends of the spectrum is to
- prep the flight at home before by re-reading pertinent POH pages and sometimes doing a quick sim flight
- sit in the airplane for a few minutes and make sure everything is set up the way I want it
One classic gotcha in an airplane you don’t own is the map orientation. I always fly North up, but many pilots prefer track up.
In any case, as there was no discernible input from the pilot during the climb-out I suspect he had no idea what was about to happen. Perhaps (hopefully….) didn’t even realize he crashed.
This whole sad episode should really drive home the point that gets emphasized a lot during commercial training: brief any maneuver and use checklists. Take-off, TOC, TOD, APP. A spoken departure brief might well have saved the guy.
Peter wrote:
On that basis, measuring to the furthest visible trees, I make the vis about 120m.
To determine met vis via a webcam is quite difficult, particularly if you are not familiar with it.
We use some webcams to get an idea of conditions at remote places on the same airport, I would not dream of using them to determine visibility as a sole reference. What the cam shows and what you see if you are there are two very different things. And while it is the wet dream of finance gurus in any met department, not a lot of agencies have used webcams for this and gotten a product they want to live with. In order to do remote sensing/autometar, you need at least a proper visibility gauge. And even those can’t replace the eye of an observer reliably. In foggy conditions transmissiometers will create RVR, which is a very accurate measurement of a pre-determined stretch of runway. Even with those, if you try to extrapolate meteorological visibility out of it, the results are quite “interesting”.
So while it is tempting, don’t.
just clarified that operational certification on EU regulations level doesn’t apply to LOIH. So, according EU law it might indeed be legal to take off in airspace G?! Anyway, I hereby clarify that I am genuinely interested in the precise legal situation (out of curiosity) and my posts were strictly aimed at that (highlighting inconclusive parts of national vs. eu law). Yes, legal doesn’t mean safe or wise, but that’s another subject.
I think no point digging in SERA/NCO for this takeoff, departing from VFR airfields (on Z-FPL or no FPL) with 1.5km visibility and ground in sight then transiting IFR into clouds in Golf is legal, this was not the case here as visibility was in LVO ranges (not even even legal for 400m takeoff for IFR departure on I-FPL, apparently, you also need runway lights for IFR takeoff in Austria with visibility less than 5km)
The real question is there something in Austrian AIP that make it an “illegal” flight path? I mean “serious things” other than off-airways IFR flying in Golf clouds by private IR rated & equipped pilots !
For instance, UK AIP require SEP to factor engine failures in weather minima on takeoff (remember this is not required in NCO neither in SEP nor MEP), this is interpreted as 2km visibility & 1000ft ceiling in most ATO manuals, actually, some ATO & IRI don’t even teach IFR in IMC in SEP (mostly as it’s unacceptable risk and also partially due “commercial nature” of training with applicability & briefing of CAT rules where “IFR trajectories” need to account for engine failures) and most will teach MEIR in twins as they are way safer in IMC and naturally complies with CAT rules (except from runway lengths where they may revert it to NCO)
The Austrian AIP AD1.1 is “very light”, there is not much around AD minima or conditions of use, it seems like a very relaxed & liberal country to me: there is no “AD ATZ” (view that as you can start IFR from 1ft if you wish 
) and as long as you keep your engine noise to minima and a default left turn on takeoff if nothing in the way
- In UK, we have “AD ATZ” that AFIS/AG seems to own, overhead joins
- In France, we have “straight-in” ban on landings without ATC/AFIS
Emir wrote:
The fact that you do that regularly doesn’t make it safe. I’m happy that such practice is not possible in Croatia where legally you can’t take off from VFR-only field in VMC conditions.
You CANNOT take off, VFR, in VMC Conditions?
You sure about that? I’ve flown to Dubrovnik and taken off VFR, in VMC….
….or do you mean IMC conditions
