As a sidenote a Swiss based Mustang was lost trying the Canyon Turn
P51 or C510? Hard to believe with the first …
A turn in a canyon has nothing to do with the “Box Canyon Turn” bush flying maneuver. Also it cannot be done in a Mustang, not in a 510 and not in a P51.
You are right. I thought Plzen was IFR.
Only Karlovy Vary then, which is not as nicely on the route.
Well, turn-in-a-valley if you wish. Semantics.
Here is the accident report: http://www.sust.admin.ch/pdfs/AV-berichte//1695.pdf
1695_pdf
Yes, i could fly to Prague and descend on their ILS but that’s 15 minutes farther east than my destination.
15 minutes farther east + another 15 minutes back is still only half the time it takes you to try one valley after the other.
Your 1000ft /1.5NM minimum sounds good though. However in a fast plane, the slightest distraction (like looking up a frequency, talking to someone, looking at charts, entering waypoints, …) will make you cover significant distances without much looking out.
Personally I don’t enjoy this kind of flying and what I don’t enjoy, I try to avoid. Rather break clouds at some instrument airfield or cancel overhead the field and descend through the hole in the cloud that only you can see.
There are no IFR aiports between LKKV and LKPR/LKVO.
Back to the original question- My recent exposure to scud running was back in June. I was aware of some rain patches with potentially lower clouds. Looking at the GPS logger later there was a time I was 200-300 ft AGL and this is not comfortable to be honest – I am fine with 500ft but this was too much. Apart from not being legal. Visibility was 5-6 km which kept me going. But I have plan B and C. Plan B was to turn south where cloud were at least 800 ft AGL if not above, Plan C was left climbing turn to 4000 ft to the east where I was comming from – OAT was 10°C so I would be ok from icing and it would take just few minutes to be in CAVOK weather again. Bottom line – when I parked and looked above – I would not depart into such conditions.
That reminds me – years ago when flying a very slot motorglider (60kts) lower and lower to stay clear of clouds I found myself wishing to slowdown as I do not have enough forward visibility It was lucky to wake up that moment and turn back. I guess the visibility was something 1-2 km but I´d rather forget about that…
Of course you are right. But since i will never lower than my limits and always have a way out … well with the EGPWS system on the MFD the risk to fly into a mountain is low … if there’s something higher than you and in front of you it starts screaming at you “do not descen!”.. “terrain! pull up!”
Although these warnings come very early i never had one – except on low approaches.
The more i fly IFR though the more i lose my old bush flying qualities … it feels less " natural" now than it did when i was still VFR only ,..
No, sorry, the “box canyon turn” is a precision bush flying maneuver – and has nothing to do with the generic term “turning in a canyon”
When we talk about very different things, then that’s not semantics :-)
If I knew the area along the route and was 100% sure of the wx OR was happy with an ILS somewhere where I would actually like to spend a night, and icing etc was not an issue, I would fly with a 700ft AGL cloudbase.
Good topic.
In my first twin I built up the resistance by stupidity. I caught myself out many times with not enough options. I can say that the class G minima here of 1 mile visibility is way below my comfort level these days, but I have done it. I would say that 3 mile and 1000ft ceilings are my minima today.
