There is bush flying.
There is flying in Alaska.
And then there is flying in PNG.
I have flown in the PNG highlands as PAX and this is the wildest frontier of aviation you can imagine. This video is actually pretty harmless. The guy certainly knows his stuff and makes the right calls. He also has a great airplane with all the necessary gear.
Airborne_Again wrote:
The only real problem I can see is if the pilot lost visual references at low altitude and had to climb possibly into a Cb.Did the aircraft have radar?
Yes I agree that is the problematic part when doing VMC avoidance from below cloud base rather on top of the clouds, although not much choice other than a climb (except over water) if VMC is lost over terrain, thunder rain, ice, hail…are way softer than ground/trees
I could not spot anything weather on his PFD/MFD but seems no way to fly IMC in that part of the world without stormscope? or real-time radars?
The only real problem I can see is if the pilot lost visual references at low altitude and had to climb possibly into a Cb. Did the aircraft have radar?
I can imagine that in places like New Guinea (and e.g. Alaska) this kind of flying is standard practice for many operations and airports. I wouldn’t do it but for a pilot highly experienced in a given area, it doesn’t seem at all problematic to me, it’s just the way it’s done.
Don’t see a problem, good decision making, no safe approach possible, so back to origin after a climb to safe altitude, which in a Quest Kodiak isn’t an issue.
Saw that video, and to me it looks like he knows what he is doing. Not at any time was he in any kind of trouble, or potential trouble as I could see. Just pretty normal VFR in rain showers in slightly mountainous area by the looks of it.
He did exactly the right thing. He did not fly into the low visibility area, but turned back home.
Indeed: it looks like at any time he was either
a) above a defined IFR minimum altitude or
b) above the sea or
c) visual with the terrain
I saw nothong wrong with that flight. He had the option of going IFR. I didn’t see what I would call scud running.
Post moved to the general scud running thread.
Yes what he is doing is pretty impressive (not) 
I suspect he knows the area well, and knows there is nothing big sticking up ahead, otherwise this would be really dumb, even though he says he can always see the ground.
It is VFR in VMC, forward visibility (outside rain) is 10km & cloudbase is high enough, the rain water bit is irrelevant as far as the rules are concerned the aame can be said about haze, pollution, dust…
I think vertical visibility is always good in rain, so you can always keep sight of the surface, forward visbility depends where you cut through the rain & how much rain you get, if visibility out of the rain is 10km, the top half to cloud base is 0km, low half to terrain visibility will be 5km?
With patches of silver rain (cold fronts convective/thunder weather?), they do pop up & vanish in 10min, at 120kts that gives 20nm separation distance from the patches to guarantee a dry aircraft or runway, one is better sealing aircraft cockpit doors & window if they decide to go wet
I think he made a good decision waiting for that wet runway to dry up, I had to wait 15min once !
