Flying through clouds during basic PPL training

what_next wrote:

This is simply not true, not even for the UK. Around here, there are very few days (maybe 50 per year?) on which you can not legally fly VFR.

I’ve been flying VFR only for four years now. Granted, some flights were local and planned on the day because it was nice and sunny. But many flights were planned trips and I’ve had very few cancellations and delays and – for the record – very few “inadvertent” IMC encounters (2).

Well, yes, it is a matter of degree or, to use the term some really hate the percentage despatch rate.

Maybe I remember the hassles more than the bits which worked, but pre-IR I was stuck at Biarritz for a number of days, BKN010 and a layer about 500ft thick…

The vast majority of my long VFR trips were done VMC on top, with me having a “mayday call” IAP landing option because I had the IMC Rating and knew how to use it. These trips could not have been done below the cloudbase – well not with any expectation of it being a low stress flight.

I think the “central continent” gets much better VFR flying wx than the southern UK.

I think the “central continent” gets much better VFR flying wx than the southern UK.

That is very true.

But it also is a reflection on the type of flying you want to do.

If you simply want to go for an hours flight this week, then no problem. You’ll almost certainly find some day (during the summer quite a number of days) where you can do a trip.

But if you want to go from A to B on Saturday morning and back Sunday, where B is a few hours from A, then your chances drop considerable. Especially so if you or any of your passengers wants to be 99% sure of getting back on Sunday.

It’s probably better the further south and east that you go in Europe. Out here on the North/West, it’s a lot less predictable!

dublinpilot wrote:

But if you want to go from A to B on Saturday morning and back Sunday, where B is a few hours from A, then your chances drop considerable.

As stated above, even when only considering my A-B-A type of flights, I had rather few cancellations in four years of doing that.

dublinpilot wrote:

Especially so if you or any of your passengers wants to be 99% sure of getting back on Sunday.

I think that’s the key… but you also don’t get 99% with IFR. Take a car or a train…

We have the PPL/IR with the 30k price tag

Hmmm we had a thread on the modular ATPL recently? The CBIR requires the TK exams (distance learning plus books at £2k?) plus 50 hours cross country and a PPL, and ideally a night rating. Then it is 30 hours in the SIM and 15 hours in an IFR Warrior or 172, or combination thereof – plus approach fees and the CAA exam fee – even with some contingency you should get change from £15k, not counting the post PPL x-country requirement.

In Northern Europe is it logical to invest in an SEP IR in a Warrior? this is where the UK IMCR makes more sense – getting the Warrior to an airway might take half the lesson – and in nearly half the year you would not be able to launch in actual IMC on airways due to the lack of de/anti icing equipment. But people do get their IR in a Warrior, sometimes for the challenge, sometimes to keep the validity of their ATPL exams.

I have used my IR in a 172 which required a slow climb to FL100 for a night flight from Southend to Coventry – not exactly practical, but I preferred to be in the system than flying Class G through the usual bottlenecks near London in IMC.

Hmmm we had a thread on the modular ATPL recently? The CBIR requires the TK exams (distance learning plus books at £2k?) plus 50 hours cross country and a PPL, and ideally a night rating. Then it is 30 hours in the SIM and 15 hours in an IFR Warrior or 172, or combination thereof – plus approach fees and the CAA exam fee – even with some contingency you should get change from £15k, not counting the post PPL x-country requirement.

Yes; I think there is however a difference between the absolute cheapest possible way to get a CPL/IR (which is what that thread was about) regardless of whether the pilot knows anything or is any good or most particularly even has the remotest interest in flying privately (most ATPL pipeline candidates have zero interest in GA), and the following:

To get a PPL/IR, via a route which is relatively convenient for the age bracket likely to be doing it (i.e. not living out of some crappy hotel for months) and learn the stuff needed to fly in the European VFR and IFR system, will take a bit longer. Especially if you buy a plane and do some or most of the IR portion in it, which is the best way for competence, currency on type, aircraft systems knowledge, etc.

Peter wrote:

That sort of thing needs to be done frequently – every week or two. In IMC you are only as current as your last flight

It was not being in IMC itself that made me uneasy. I am experienced enough to be past that.

It was being in IMC without a predetermined route, operational flight plan, clearance, IAP at the destination etc.etc. Simply that IFR flying is normally such a meticulously organised and pre-planned activity that I felt kind of lost doing it impromptu.

Airborne_Again wrote:

It was being in IMC without a predetermined route, operational flight plan, clearance, IAP at the destination etc.etc. Simply that IFR flying is normally such a meticulously organised and pre-planned activity that I felt kind of lost doing it impromptu.

This is an excellent point. For instrument rated pilots ad hoc IFR has historically been the cause of a lot of CFIT. You take away the protection that you get when either carefully planning IFR OCTA or being in the airway/controlled airspace system where ATC can take some terrain responsibility off you.

I never do adhoc IFR except in my local area in the south-east UK, where there is nothing to hit and maybe I do an ILS and a go-around at Lydd EGMD (£20). All actual trips are fully planned and done fully “Eurocontrol IFR”, 99% VMC on top.

I think the adhoc IFR CFITs done by IR holders mostly involved oddball factors like (in general terms)

• being forced by lack of an oxygen kit to fly low (someone I knew, Nice area)
• being “forced” by lack of a 2000kg STC in a Seneca to save IFR route charges (N2195B, Vercours)
• cancelling IFR pointlessly early and then having to look like VFR traffic to radar ATC while still in IMC (N403HP, LOAV)