This was a private owned aircraft with working auto-pilot, I think the club rents it
I doubt AP is that useful in convective clouds, it has plenty of limitations on flying modes and out of trim: I had to handfly cruise & approach twice as AP could not hook, that was the “rock solid” GFC700 with “auto-trim” and it still felt like tricky experience but mangeable with plenty of flying currency (I did 20h on 2 weeks trip and I was current as on my way back, I would not dare attempting that today with barely 2h in the last 30days like today)
There is a difference between 180 in CAVOK and 180 inside TCU, I gather PPL training does not include kicks in heads from turbulence against aircraft roofs while scanning instruments, even IR pilots have to be reminded on how to keep flying their aircraft when that happens…
Regarding the 180deg – I was trained in this on my PPL, albeit in VMC, and I once had cause to use it and shocked myself…
Flying South round the Isle of Wight on a sunny day of small fluffy clouds I headed between two and as I proceeded the gap began to close and what had been blue ahead became hazy… “there’s always good visibility behind you” ran through my head and I began a gentle level 180, finding myself almost immediately IMC in the cloud beside me which had seemed so far away only seconds before – you forget how quickly a half-mile gap closes at 140kts.
Fortunately I have an IR(R) switched immediately to instruments and checked my MSAs and the location of the masts on the IoW and began a climb but I never did regain the clear channel between the clouds it took a good couple of minutes to exit cloud and while my passengers were completely unruffled I was thinking “f*** if I wasn’t IMC trained that would have been all over by now”.
I consider myself a pretty cautious pilot so it could happen to anyone… once “in the soup” if you’d don’t have the training the decision making required would overload most people in seconds.
To use the boxing phrase: you are only as good as your last flight 
So IMC has to be practiced fairly often; a few mins at a time.
I agree Peter, and having once trained a 180turn in VMC several years ago is pretty useless when it comes to the real thing.
They got to 7000 when the tops were according to one account were only 8000. Without the stupid class A they would have got clear.
@Aveling and at @Peter this is a very important safety point and I do hope any CAA lurker picks up on it. In the land of the free and the brave, USA, ATC is trained to help a crew which has stumbled into IMC, or is about to. If as you indicate they could have climbed to VMC, and a gentle climb is an easier inadvertent IMC encounter escape route (also ensuring you are climbing above MSA, if you happen to be below MSA), ATC should have advised that they are cleared to climb into a radar control service. Once in VMC on top they could have been vectored back to VMC and given a descent back into uncontrolled airspace. Yes this would all lead to an MOR and remedial training, but an infinitely better outcome all round.
The experimental loss of control is apparently 178 seconds for a pilot entering IMC and not using, or being familiar with instrument flying. The fatality rate for inadvertent VMC to IMC accidents is 86%. A gentle climb to VMC on top is an easier manoeuvre than a level rate one 180 degree turn.
If there is an ATCO on the forum it would be interesting to understand what training they receive in handling this scenario, and if it is of the avoid CAS at all costs, why are they not adopting a USA type approach?
“The experimental loss of control is apparently 178 seconds for a pilot entering IMC and not using, or being familiar with instrument flying. The fatality rate for inadvertent VMC to IMC accidents is 86%. A gentle climb to VMC on top is an easier manoeuvre than a level rate one 180 degree turn.”
Inadvertent VMC into IMC is not recorded unless an accident happens. Before doing the IMC rating I did 2 successful 180° turns in full IMC, below 1500’.
One certainly involved much longer than 3 minutes in IMC.
Maoraigh wrote:
Inadvertent VMC into IMC is not recorded unless an accident happens. Before doing the IMC rating I did 2 successful 180° turns in full IMC, below 1500’.
One certainly involved much longer than 3 minutes in IMC.
The 178 seconds is an average.
That 178 seconds thing is IIRC from some experiment somebody did some decades ago.
It will be heavily dependent on the details of the participants, on the avionics, and on the stability of the aircraft.
In 1999 a PA 28 Arrow lost control when it entered cloud off the Ile D’Oleron with a loss of 4 people.
This accident is included in a BEA report regarding accidents which had occurred over a period of several years around that time and was concentrated on the role that GPS might have played. IIRC both handheld and fixed GPS were a pretty new thing at the time, Garmin for instance were just issuing their portable PDA for GA.
Loss of control in IMC does happen fairly regularly but I would still say you need a number of holes in the cheese to line up e.g.
or some variation of the above.
I don’t think GPS makes any difference, unless using the “instrument panel” feature of the handhelds, which IMHO is pretty crap.
