I post any stuff which can be posted (and which I think might be relevant, interesting to others, etc) and if the source cannot be named then I say so. Obviously then the information is worth less but it is for the reader to decide. Better than not posting stuff at all because I have some dealer/warranty relationship to protect for my own personal benefit (one old thread is here) which is perhaps the biggest reason people don’t talk about stuff.
Regarding the topic, and the video, there are several quite separate angles:
Sure you can make an “IFR departure” legally in the UK from a farm strip. So that’s the UK legal angle. Elsewhere this may not be legal unless departing from an instrument runway, and then you will have a min vis. The 75m airliner case is one such example.
If the farm strip is say 1000m wide and 1000m long then you can just point the plane into wind and when the ASI shows 70 or whatever you pull up. Pretty safe, I would say… certainly no worse than many landing approaches where there is a time window where an engine failure would certainly kill you. So this is the “safety” angle. I don’t see anything inherently dangerous from the EFATO POV compared to many GA arrivals and departures where there are buildings under you. You are gonna get killed.
As regards that video, to me it looks like a grass field with no lights. I don’t think that in Europe this could be an instrument runway. But I may be wrong… what about the AOC flights which land on the beach in Scotland? Don’t they have a GPS approach?
Another angle, no pun intended, is whether zero-zero departures need centreline runway lights to be reasonably safe. I think they do, otherwise you are relying totally on the heading bug and it doesn’t take a PhD in geometry to see how critical this would be on a typical narrow runway
Even if needing only half the runway, you would need to hold the heading awfully accurately… and in real zero-zero conditions (e.g. fog, 5-10m vis)
you won’t see the runway edge until you are heading towards it and then it will need a lot of skill to correct. Whereas with centreline lights you get instant feedback on how you are doing. That is why, ahem, centreline lights exist…
PPL/IR Europe does not consider the blanket 400m restriction proportionate or necessary and is lobbying at various levels, mainly at EASA, to have it ameliorated.
OK. So I should have worded it differently. What I wanted to say is that I don’t know of any plans by EASA et al to change the current rules. That some pilot group is lobbying for it may of course well be.
PPL/IR Europe works very closely with EASA on the formulation of regulation. You could call us “embedded”. EASA (and indeed the NAAs) recognise that we have considerable knowledge and expertise that may not otherwise be available to them.
So lobbying may not be quite the best description. We have people sitting on the committees that make the EASA recommendations to the Commission and Parliament.
400m is one of many areas where we are having this input.
In terms of proportionality, there is little evidence of fatalities resulting from departures in RVRs between 175m and 400m that would have been mitigated by a longer RVRs.
There is a little evidence that aircraft operated by pilots who are not trained in LVPs operating at an airfield under LVPs can put at risk other aircraft, in that a serious misunderstanding by a GA pilot about where he should stop, and the function of the stop bar, might have been mitigated had the RVR been greater than 400m, but I’d have to be convinced that a 401m RVR would have made a significant difference.
Even if that accident were considered, it may suggest that crew operating in environments where LVPs can be imposed should be trained in LVPs (but really that comes down to “listen to your clearance, read it back, stop if you don’t know where you are and stop at stop bars”) it does not speak at all to the proportionate risk borne by a pilot and his private passengers at a small GA airfield or farmer’s strip where LVPs are not a factor.
There are lots of things that many of us would not do because we consider them dangerous – low level aerobatics, unpublished approaches, water skimming, racing, whatever – but that does not mean that:
In the world of the free, we should be as little constrained by law as possible, provided uninvolved third parties are not put at unacceptable risk.
People who do want to do them should be stopped
As long as they only pose a danger to themselves I don’t object.
The risks cannot be mitigated by proper training
The biggest (in terms of lives lost) ever low visibility accident involving a private aeroplane was caused by a runway incursion of a CitationJet in Linate. The crew consisted of two trained professional pilots. The biggest ever accident in aviation history was caused by a runway incursion in fog of a B747. Again flown by trained professionals. Training obviously does not take away all the risk.
Personally I am trained, qualified and current for 125m LVTOs. I have done only two of these in real life and found them scary enough. The idea of untrained pilots doing zero/zero takeoffs gives me shivers. I don’t want to be anywhere near to them when they commence taxiing. I don’t care what they do on their farm strip but please not at public airfields.
Timothy wrote:
In terms of proportionality, there is little evidence of fatalities resulting from departures in RVRs between 175m and 400m that would have been mitigated by a longer RVRs.
Linate – about 200m
Tenerife – about 100m at the PanAm end of the runway, something (significantly) more at the KLM end.
PS. I undertook a 400m departure from Graz some months back in and EFIS (G1000 Perspective) twin and, to quote what_next, that gave me the shivers. I wonder if a cost sharing passenger actually understands the risks under such circumstances.
Timothy wrote:
People who do want to do them should be stopped
I essentially agree but with the caveat that where passengers are being carried (I dont mean paying passengers) they neither understand the risk nor are they necessarily party to the risk. I think for that reason where certain practices are actually “banned” they are for a good reason because whatever risk the pilot may be prepared to take, the concensus is that any piot taking that risk is probably behaving unreasonably and a “ban” therefore protects him from himself and, perhaps more importantly, him from his passengers.
I accept that it is a matter of judgement, but, my view is departing in a single where a return is likely to be impossible and any departure from a normal take off roll likely to be life threatening is an unacceptable level of risk, and I cant imagine for private ops many occasions the need is so desperate as to depart in those conditions.
For a twin the risks that need to be managed are different and the criteria may be different with the correct training and avionics but no different in respect of the taxi and ground roll.
Timothy – and so what exactly is it that is being proposed – you can depart in a twin or single with passengers in what viz you like?
We need to distinguish between the zero-zero of the thread title with the 200-400m we are now talking about. There is a world of difference.
The question is whether either Linate or Tenerife would have been mitigated at 400m. From the speeds the aircraft were travelling, I would say probably not.
If a 400m departure gives you “the shivers” what does a 550m landing do to you?
It has been decided at a policy level that passengers in a private operation are considered to be involved in the risk taking, and that it is the duty of the pilot to explain the risks to them. I certainly do that whenever I have passengers who are not likely to understand, normally in writing.
This could easily turn into a debate about the nature of Freedom. It would save lives to ban aviation altogether, to ban private aviation, motorbikes, horses, cars, crossing the road, sex, living in tower blocks. There are risks in life, and, at least in my opinion, people should have the opportunity to understand risk and the freedom to expose themselves to it.
Fuji_Abound wrote:
and so what exactly is it that is being proposed – you can depart in a twin or single with passengers in what viz you like?
There are a range of options. My personal preference would be for there to be no specific ban, as that can have the effect of “granting permission” for anything above that number. A pilot who himself might conclude that 400m is his personal minimum might feel that if EASA say that 200m is OK, then 200m it is. A bit like a speed limit making people drive faster because they see the maximum as the norm.
I think it would be better to explain the risks and train people to plan according to circumstances.
Timothy wrote:
If a 400m departure gives you “the shivers” what does a 550m landing do to you?
It gives me the shivers, despite knowing precisely where I am. 
Timothy wrote:
The question is whether either Linate or Tenerife would have been mitigated at 400m. From the speeds the aircraft were travelling, I would say probably not.
Nonsense you cannot make such leap. To re-quote you:
Timothy wrote:
In terms of proportionality, there is little evidence of fatalities resulting from departures in RVRs between 175m and 400m that would have been mitigated by a longer RVRs.(my bolds)
The only assertion than can be made is that the reduced visibility contributed towards the accident. We can play “what if” anywhere between 401m and 9999m. In fact, reversing your argument, I can say with some certainty that both accidents would have been averted if the visibility had been ####m
Timothy wrote:
There are risks in life, and, at least in my opinion, people should have the opportunity to understand risk and the freedom to expose themselves to it.
I completely agree. Unfortunately, there is enough evidence out there to suggest that people are not always (made) aware of the risks.
PS. How many members does PPL/IR have? Do they really represent the average GA IR pilot?
I think “embedded” is over-egging the pudding ever so slightly Well, there is bookworm!
The biggest (in terms of lives lost) ever low visibility accident involving a private aeroplane was caused by a runway incursion of a CitationJet in Linate. The crew consisted of two trained professional pilots. The biggest ever accident in aviation history was caused by a runway incursion in fog of a B747. Again flown by trained professionals. Training obviously does not take away all the risk.
They were however not playing by the rules, and there were additional factors involved. I think the Tenerife crash would have needed a vis of 1000m to prevent.
A pilot who himself might conclude that 400m is his personal minimum might feel that if EASA say that 200m is OK, then 200m it is. A bit like a speed limit making people drive faster because they see the maximum as the norm.
I have seen, let’s say, something around 400m, and it was quite comfortable if slightly spooky to see always the same patch of runway ahead while the ASI is winding up towards the 75kt (I would have got it on “film” but forgot to turn the camera on, and anyway such footage could never be posted) but it was obvious that an EFATO would probably not have had a good outcome. But much depends on what is “around” and how well you know what is “around”. And what is “around” will equally affect an EFATO in CAVOK.
I had intended this thread to be as per the subject i.e. zero-zero, which is a different thing to 400m or 300m or 200m or 100m all of which are fine with decent centreline lights (at 75m you see only 3 ahead, I am told) and the risk is really according to your view of the engine failing.
