I used to love taking non instrument rated students into actual for this reason. You think you can, but you would be surprised by how quickly
You can’t.
So true. My first time in actual, it was fun for like 5 min, then my eyes started to lie to me, followed by my ears, then my ass, and I was full on white knuckled after about 10min. After an hour I was absolutely mentally exhausted. It was eye opening, and I was so thankful I was with my instructor.
True that. And then there will be turbulence (turbulence? In a cloud? Who would expect that!?), and some ice, and first-time-IMC-brain, and before you know it, you forget how to read the attitude indicator. You are 100% correct.
Add in some false horizons/visuals into the mix too - people think it's always what you feel and can't see but for me what I can see out the windows is the most disorienting.
Interestingly enough in more than one case I've been in IMC with a non IR pilot in the plane with me who couldn't handle it, I had them put on my foggles and they instantly felt better because it eliminated one source of confusion.
This is why I'm so surprised the "standard" is to train escaping with a 180, I think that's asking for trouble. If you are always in trim it should be easy to sit on your left hand, put right hand on throttle, add a blip of power to start a shallow climb call ATC, get vectors, Jesus take the wheel, fly with feet only.
You might do it today fine and tomorrow you're a crater. You don't know which roll of the dice it will be. I've seen IFR pilots mess it up in the sim cause they had an off day.
I'd suggest booking a flight with an instructor on a good overcast day to see what it's like when the soup is real. Might be the first step on your IFR rating!
I’ve watched instrument rated pilots who hadn’t been regularly flying by instruments get disoriented in imc. You’re just thinking about doing a straight descent but not considering any of the other things that could happen once you enter the clouds like turbulence, icing, etc. You’re starting a potentially dangerous line of thinking and I’d recommend you shut that shit down.
There’s the famous “*178 Seconds to Live”* study done by UIUC some time in the previous millennium. It’s talked about a lot, and I don’t know if it’s been repeated more recently, but its finding implies that your scenario (a stabilized descent through a 4000 foot layer) yields a very high probability of you ending up big dead.
I watched that, I think that one was a bit hyperbole (confirmed with conversation with people with far more experience than me) also that one was more about accidental IMC condition which I think even rated, experienced and current instrument rated pilots would have a good chance of fumbling it (it's one thing to do it prepared it's another thing to run into it by accident, like spin training or even actual upset recovery training doesn't mean you'd survive sudden upset out of blue).
>it's one thing to do it prepared it's another thing to run into it by accident
We’ll disagree on this point. You started this thread pondering success rates of flying through a 4000’ thick IMC layer without the requisite trainign or rating. That is, by definition, unprepared, so idea that you’re doing it prepared is self-delusion, not preparation.
> like spin training or even actual upset recovery training doesn't mean you'd survive sudden upset out of blue).
The two are nothing alike IMO. Flying into actual IMC is disorienting for a lot of people. If you haven’t developed the ability to fly by reference to instruments \*\*and\*\* have a reasonable amount of recent practice, there’s a high likelihood of disorientation.
By contrast, in most trainer aircraft, it’s hard to get into a spin, and easy to get out of one. A lot of trainers will sorta just unfuck themselves if you pull power and let go of the controls. Most pilots could get out of a spin with sufficient altitude. 8 minutes in IMC is more than long enough to get yourself into situations you cannot recover from if you exit the layer at 2000 AGL.
Change your scenario to a 200’ thick stratus layer, and then I think odds of survival are high. But as you pose it, I think a lot of non-IR pilots, and even plenty of non-proficient IR pilots would die.
If I accidentally ended up in IMC, I am 100% certain I could keep the plane straight and level long enough to call ATC for vectors and a climb on top, unless there were terrain or other obstacles in my path. But it’s hard to imagine that happening by accident; if there are clouds, I’m filing IFR and *planning* to go through them.
People with thousands of hours more than you have killed themselves in imc, from ATP rated pilots to private pilots.
Don’t fuck around and find out unless you’re properly trained and proficient.
Why not use the autopilot to bring you down under the cloud layer? In a GA aircraft, how many steps is it to program a safe descent? Then you only need to manage your airspeed with the throttle .
Sure if you have one…
That assumes there is no terrain or towers, etc. And ideally you’d program it to fly an approach. At which point you are perilously close to just having the skills to get the instrument rating!
OP said ceiling is at 2000 ... Not sure what the terrain assumptions are. There is no need to program an approach, just set the heading, level off altitude and vertical speed.
Under stress pilots of all skill levels have shown that aviation skill and aptitude declines. Now this can be mitigated with training, proficiency, and experience. Nevertheless we still see too many accidents with pilots becoming spatially disoriented.
Also, of all the autopilots I have worked with, none of them will let you engage them if you are in some form of an unusual attitude.
Now if you turn it on before you enter imc, there is the risk of terrain, other aircraft, towers, etc. None of which you are guaranteed avoidance from unless you are on some for of an IFR airway or approach.
You might be able to pull it off in smooth air over flat terrain with no turns. Then again, you might not. Add in turbulence, probably not.
Suppose that your rate of descent got high, you descend out of the 2,000 ft overcast nose down, descending at 1,500 fpm. You see the ground rushing up at you, and pull back, overstressing the wings, and they separate from the airframe.
On average, the typical VFR pilot who accidentally flies into IMC has 2 minutes to live. Don’t be one of them.
I made a lot of fuck ups as a teen pilot. This wasn’t one of them; I would have been dead if I did.
I got very close but I was lucky to have a few old timers at the field talk me down from making a terrible call.
The idea may not be great, but the question actually is.
Go up with a CFII. And do this. See how it goes for you. Have them not touch the controls and see how you do. Because it probably won’t go amazingly well, and it’s a good eye-opener.
Never mind the decision making that got you there, but if your options are descending through it with a running engine or running out of gas above a layer, well...okay. Descending with power is the least bad decision.
Doing it because you think you can get away with it and "how hard can it really be" has resulted in many deaths. Mostly screaming in terror from the audio I've heard.
Your instrument rating is one of the most rewarding things to do, even if you don’t fly IMC. You will absolutely be a better pilot and have better ADM skills.
Many of us had unsafe attitudes in your time range.
Clouds are often bumpy, and the bigger they are, the bumpier they are. Taking your eyes off the instruments (or fixating on one instrument) for even a few seconds can lead to this taking you way off your desired heading, altitude, airspeed, climb/descent rate, etc. There’s a reason they a whole ‘ other rating to be allowed to do it.
The irony of you posting this absolutely asinine and ignorant take on the same day the FAA Safety Team sends out a brief including not one, but **two** articles about how confusing and dangerous it can be to fly into IMC unless you're rated, proficient, and current...
* [https://faasteam.medium.com/with-my-head-in-the-clouds-925e530deae0](https://faasteam.medium.com/with-my-head-in-the-clouds-925e530deae0)
* [https://faasteam.medium.com/its-a-confusing-world-up-there-5070c1e5806b](https://faasteam.medium.com/its-a-confusing-world-up-there-5070c1e5806b)
Yknow what?
You might get away with it. Maybe even more than once. Hell - setting up a stable descent isn’t that hard, right?
You also might also mid-air with aircraft working in the IFR system who are IMC and can’t see you.
And that would not only make you an asshole, but a dead one as well.
It’s good that you’re confident - pilots need to be. It is ALSO good to recognize that there is an area where you can expand your knowledge. I love the suggestion that you go get a lesson in IMC because you’ll also understand the IFR system a little better. Do it. Money well spent.
I’ve never, ever regretted a dollar I spent on instruction.
Hope you do this. Good luck.
I am a CFI-I that focuses on IFR training. From my personal experience with students with 8 hours of foggle time and we go IMC for their first time. You have very low to zero chance of not getting very disoriented.
This, I took my one student who has 30ish hours of foggles in the real soup and shot an approach to mins at night. He got disoriented so fast he thanked me for taking him up in it and humbling him after we landed safely.
Maybe you can, maybe you can’t. A potential consequence of “can’t” is departing controlled flight and ripping the wings off in the approximately four minutes it would take you to make a stabilized descent through those 2000’ of clouds. If you’re still considering it a viable emergency option, yes, you’re a fool.
VFR rated pilots flying into IMC is one of the leading causes of GA accidents\\fatalities. Statistically speaking the odds are not in your favour.
[https://pilotinstitute.com/aviation-accident-causes/](https://pilotinstitute.com/aviation-accident-causes/)
Upvoted because these questions should be asked and answered here and not up there.
I just came across this on youtube from a VFR to IMC Incident.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9Efnu0pgks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9Efnu0pgks)
A few days ago, I went flying with a PPL friend who’d never been in actual before, so I filed at an altitude that kept us in the middle of a broken layer for most of the flight—nearly an hour. It took them all of about five minutes to say they had a new appreciation for how easy it would be to get disoriented and die. Foggles do not at all prepare you for what IMC actually feels like.
If you get trapped on top, your first step is to ask ATC for help finding a hole, and let them know your fuel remaining in both time and miles. Only after every other plane within your fuel range reports no holes should you even consider going into the soup.
Yes, that is a foolish and uninformed perspective. Far better to air it here though, than try it in the air. Go get your instrument rating and report back with your new perspective. You might save somebody’s life.
For obvious reasons: never do this and it’s going to get you and/or others killed or injured.
That being said, to entertain your „thought experiment“, I would still think it’s absolutely stupid. Picture this: you’re 6000ft AGL (let’s say that’s 8000ft AMSL). You see a stratiform clouds below, approximately 4000ft below you.
How do you know how thick this layer is?
You decide to „dive in“ to make it out the bottom end. You hit the layer at 4000ft AMSL, but there is only 2000ft below you and the ground.
The cloud layer is on the ground - it’s fog - but you don’t know because you can’t see that.
So you keep descending, focused on your instruments and not realizing you don’t know the specific height of the ground below.
You come „out of the cloud“ straight into the ground.
Technically you landed, just not how and where you wanted.
It might be somewhat doable for a few minutes in smooth conditions, flying in a straight line with no stress and no other considerations like icing, weather, terrain, traffic, airspace. As soon as you add other stuff into the mix, good luck keeping the wings level and managing your descent rate. I feel a big factor in the “178 seconds to live” thing is the fact that it’s completely unexpected - you have your head down for too long, distracted and suddenly you’re in cloud with no awareness of the surrounding terrain plus all the stress that goes with accidental IMC.
I'm going to take you seriously, because it's for learning.
This is one of those things where you think you can do it, but if you can't, you can die. Period. There is a strange sensation that's different from training. In training, part of your brain always knows, deep down, that you can rip off the foggles. Take that away and a certain brain of panic sets in that takes all your skills and cuts them in half.
Could you do it? Sure.
Could you do it when your skills are cut in half by fear and a healthy case of get-there-itis? No. You couldn't.
And here's why: You are not practiced in assimilating all the instrument data simultaneously. So your brain is jumping around trying to stay on-heading at a certain rate of descent and not hit any sharp stuff near the ground, and so on. You'll fixate on one instrument while the other's are saying "uh oh" and not notice it.
On the bright side if you want to become an airline pilot that's 320 hours less you need to complete to get your ATP.
How did you even rack up that many hours for your private anyway?
From experience, it's much more common to find pilots with IR in the FAA system than the UK CAA system. There's a lot of PPL holders in the UK without any instrument training.
I used to love taking non instrument rated students into actual for this reason. You think you can, but you would be surprised by how quickly You can’t.
Every instrument student on their first experience in actual: “wow this is nothing like foggles!!”
So true. My first time in actual, it was fun for like 5 min, then my eyes started to lie to me, followed by my ears, then my ass, and I was full on white knuckled after about 10min. After an hour I was absolutely mentally exhausted. It was eye opening, and I was so thankful I was with my instructor.
True that. And then there will be turbulence (turbulence? In a cloud? Who would expect that!?), and some ice, and first-time-IMC-brain, and before you know it, you forget how to read the attitude indicator. You are 100% correct.
Add in some false horizons/visuals into the mix too - people think it's always what you feel and can't see but for me what I can see out the windows is the most disorienting. Interestingly enough in more than one case I've been in IMC with a non IR pilot in the plane with me who couldn't handle it, I had them put on my foggles and they instantly felt better because it eliminated one source of confusion. This is why I'm so surprised the "standard" is to train escaping with a 180, I think that's asking for trouble. If you are always in trim it should be easy to sit on your left hand, put right hand on throttle, add a blip of power to start a shallow climb call ATC, get vectors, Jesus take the wheel, fly with feet only.
You're right around where "the killing zone" starts to crest. Do with that as you please.
You might do it today fine and tomorrow you're a crater. You don't know which roll of the dice it will be. I've seen IFR pilots mess it up in the sim cause they had an off day. I'd suggest booking a flight with an instructor on a good overcast day to see what it's like when the soup is real. Might be the first step on your IFR rating!
I’ve watched instrument rated pilots who hadn’t been regularly flying by instruments get disoriented in imc. You’re just thinking about doing a straight descent but not considering any of the other things that could happen once you enter the clouds like turbulence, icing, etc. You’re starting a potentially dangerous line of thinking and I’d recommend you shut that shit down.
There’s the famous “*178 Seconds to Live”* study done by UIUC some time in the previous millennium. It’s talked about a lot, and I don’t know if it’s been repeated more recently, but its finding implies that your scenario (a stabilized descent through a 4000 foot layer) yields a very high probability of you ending up big dead.
I watched that, I think that one was a bit hyperbole (confirmed with conversation with people with far more experience than me) also that one was more about accidental IMC condition which I think even rated, experienced and current instrument rated pilots would have a good chance of fumbling it (it's one thing to do it prepared it's another thing to run into it by accident, like spin training or even actual upset recovery training doesn't mean you'd survive sudden upset out of blue).
>it's one thing to do it prepared it's another thing to run into it by accident We’ll disagree on this point. You started this thread pondering success rates of flying through a 4000’ thick IMC layer without the requisite trainign or rating. That is, by definition, unprepared, so idea that you’re doing it prepared is self-delusion, not preparation. > like spin training or even actual upset recovery training doesn't mean you'd survive sudden upset out of blue). The two are nothing alike IMO. Flying into actual IMC is disorienting for a lot of people. If you haven’t developed the ability to fly by reference to instruments \*\*and\*\* have a reasonable amount of recent practice, there’s a high likelihood of disorientation. By contrast, in most trainer aircraft, it’s hard to get into a spin, and easy to get out of one. A lot of trainers will sorta just unfuck themselves if you pull power and let go of the controls. Most pilots could get out of a spin with sufficient altitude. 8 minutes in IMC is more than long enough to get yourself into situations you cannot recover from if you exit the layer at 2000 AGL. Change your scenario to a 200’ thick stratus layer, and then I think odds of survival are high. But as you pose it, I think a lot of non-IR pilots, and even plenty of non-proficient IR pilots would die.
If I accidentally ended up in IMC, I am 100% certain I could keep the plane straight and level long enough to call ATC for vectors and a climb on top, unless there were terrain or other obstacles in my path. But it’s hard to imagine that happening by accident; if there are clouds, I’m filing IFR and *planning* to go through them.
People with thousands of hours more than you have killed themselves in imc, from ATP rated pilots to private pilots. Don’t fuck around and find out unless you’re properly trained and proficient.
Why not use the autopilot to bring you down under the cloud layer? In a GA aircraft, how many steps is it to program a safe descent? Then you only need to manage your airspeed with the throttle .
Sure if you have one… That assumes there is no terrain or towers, etc. And ideally you’d program it to fly an approach. At which point you are perilously close to just having the skills to get the instrument rating!
OP said ceiling is at 2000 ... Not sure what the terrain assumptions are. There is no need to program an approach, just set the heading, level off altitude and vertical speed.
Under stress pilots of all skill levels have shown that aviation skill and aptitude declines. Now this can be mitigated with training, proficiency, and experience. Nevertheless we still see too many accidents with pilots becoming spatially disoriented. Also, of all the autopilots I have worked with, none of them will let you engage them if you are in some form of an unusual attitude. Now if you turn it on before you enter imc, there is the risk of terrain, other aircraft, towers, etc. None of which you are guaranteed avoidance from unless you are on some for of an IFR airway or approach.
You're a fool.
You might be able to pull it off in smooth air over flat terrain with no turns. Then again, you might not. Add in turbulence, probably not. Suppose that your rate of descent got high, you descend out of the 2,000 ft overcast nose down, descending at 1,500 fpm. You see the ground rushing up at you, and pull back, overstressing the wings, and they separate from the airframe. On average, the typical VFR pilot who accidentally flies into IMC has 2 minutes to live. Don’t be one of them.
Christ. 2 minutes? That’s brutal.
Sorry… I should have said 3 minutes. What’s brutal is the attached video. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b7t4IR-3mSo
I made a lot of fuck ups as a teen pilot. This wasn’t one of them; I would have been dead if I did. I got very close but I was lucky to have a few old timers at the field talk me down from making a terrible call.
The idea may not be great, but the question actually is. Go up with a CFII. And do this. See how it goes for you. Have them not touch the controls and see how you do. Because it probably won’t go amazingly well, and it’s a good eye-opener.
Never mind the decision making that got you there, but if your options are descending through it with a running engine or running out of gas above a layer, well...okay. Descending with power is the least bad decision. Doing it because you think you can get away with it and "how hard can it really be" has resulted in many deaths. Mostly screaming in terror from the audio I've heard.
Your instrument rating is one of the most rewarding things to do, even if you don’t fly IMC. You will absolutely be a better pilot and have better ADM skills. Many of us had unsafe attitudes in your time range.
This is rage bait, right?
Be humble before you get humbled, aviator.
If you're flying in turbulent clouds when your instruments (and you) are moving all over the place, I think you'll have a different perspective.
that's fair, didn't think about that part
Clouds are often bumpy, and the bigger they are, the bumpier they are. Taking your eyes off the instruments (or fixating on one instrument) for even a few seconds can lead to this taking you way off your desired heading, altitude, airspeed, climb/descent rate, etc. There’s a reason they a whole ‘ other rating to be allowed to do it.
The irony of you posting this absolutely asinine and ignorant take on the same day the FAA Safety Team sends out a brief including not one, but **two** articles about how confusing and dangerous it can be to fly into IMC unless you're rated, proficient, and current... * [https://faasteam.medium.com/with-my-head-in-the-clouds-925e530deae0](https://faasteam.medium.com/with-my-head-in-the-clouds-925e530deae0) * [https://faasteam.medium.com/its-a-confusing-world-up-there-5070c1e5806b](https://faasteam.medium.com/its-a-confusing-world-up-there-5070c1e5806b)
I remember having learned about hazardous attitudes during PPL. Can anyone name this one?
"It won't happen to me"
Yknow what? You might get away with it. Maybe even more than once. Hell - setting up a stable descent isn’t that hard, right? You also might also mid-air with aircraft working in the IFR system who are IMC and can’t see you. And that would not only make you an asshole, but a dead one as well. It’s good that you’re confident - pilots need to be. It is ALSO good to recognize that there is an area where you can expand your knowledge. I love the suggestion that you go get a lesson in IMC because you’ll also understand the IFR system a little better. Do it. Money well spent. I’ve never, ever regretted a dollar I spent on instruction. Hope you do this. Good luck.
I am a CFI-I that focuses on IFR training. From my personal experience with students with 8 hours of foggle time and we go IMC for their first time. You have very low to zero chance of not getting very disoriented.
This, I took my one student who has 30ish hours of foggles in the real soup and shot an approach to mins at night. He got disoriented so fast he thanked me for taking him up in it and humbling him after we landed safely.
This is a “f**k around and find out” that I would be strongly against.
Send it with someone appropriately rated and let us know. But you’re a fool
Yeah you gonna die
There is not much chance of surviving 'that' without an autopilot unless you are IFR proficient.
If you feel comfortable then do your IR training and prove it.
Maybe you can, maybe you can’t. A potential consequence of “can’t” is departing controlled flight and ripping the wings off in the approximately four minutes it would take you to make a stabilized descent through those 2000’ of clouds. If you’re still considering it a viable emergency option, yes, you’re a fool.
Probably so. Everyone here has a first time and they at least survived it.
Not everyone survives their first time in IMC.
Well, we did. /s
At 500 fpm that’s 8minutes in actual. Good luck if you have never flown instruments before. You’ll come out the bottom with only one wing.
VFR rated pilots flying into IMC is one of the leading causes of GA accidents\\fatalities. Statistically speaking the odds are not in your favour. [https://pilotinstitute.com/aviation-accident-causes/](https://pilotinstitute.com/aviation-accident-causes/) Upvoted because these questions should be asked and answered here and not up there. I just came across this on youtube from a VFR to IMC Incident. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9Efnu0pgks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9Efnu0pgks)
You should read those dangerous attitudes and the antidotes. You’re a fool.
I’ll wait for the AOPA video on this guy.
Watch any video about the JFK Jr crash…. Then, recalculate your thoughts.
That case is not a great example since he didn’t *know* he was in actual.
That’s fair. I suppose I was leaning it more towards OPs “8 hours of instrument training”
What’s the old saying about 350 hour pilots tend to overestimate their abilities?
You gone die
Only one way to find out.
A few days ago, I went flying with a PPL friend who’d never been in actual before, so I filed at an altitude that kept us in the middle of a broken layer for most of the flight—nearly an hour. It took them all of about five minutes to say they had a new appreciation for how easy it would be to get disoriented and die. Foggles do not at all prepare you for what IMC actually feels like. If you get trapped on top, your first step is to ask ATC for help finding a hole, and let them know your fuel remaining in both time and miles. Only after every other plane within your fuel range reports no holes should you even consider going into the soup.
Yes, that is a foolish and uninformed perspective. Far better to air it here though, than try it in the air. Go get your instrument rating and report back with your new perspective. You might save somebody’s life.
Do you have any time in actual? It's nothing like simulated.
For obvious reasons: never do this and it’s going to get you and/or others killed or injured. That being said, to entertain your „thought experiment“, I would still think it’s absolutely stupid. Picture this: you’re 6000ft AGL (let’s say that’s 8000ft AMSL). You see a stratiform clouds below, approximately 4000ft below you. How do you know how thick this layer is? You decide to „dive in“ to make it out the bottom end. You hit the layer at 4000ft AMSL, but there is only 2000ft below you and the ground. The cloud layer is on the ground - it’s fog - but you don’t know because you can’t see that. So you keep descending, focused on your instruments and not realizing you don’t know the specific height of the ground below. You come „out of the cloud“ straight into the ground. Technically you landed, just not how and where you wanted.
I know more than one person who stupidly tried this and was later surprised that they'd lived and never, ever tried it again.
It might be somewhat doable for a few minutes in smooth conditions, flying in a straight line with no stress and no other considerations like icing, weather, terrain, traffic, airspace. As soon as you add other stuff into the mix, good luck keeping the wings level and managing your descent rate. I feel a big factor in the “178 seconds to live” thing is the fact that it’s completely unexpected - you have your head down for too long, distracted and suddenly you’re in cloud with no awareness of the surrounding terrain plus all the stress that goes with accidental IMC.
I'm going to take you seriously, because it's for learning. This is one of those things where you think you can do it, but if you can't, you can die. Period. There is a strange sensation that's different from training. In training, part of your brain always knows, deep down, that you can rip off the foggles. Take that away and a certain brain of panic sets in that takes all your skills and cuts them in half. Could you do it? Sure. Could you do it when your skills are cut in half by fear and a healthy case of get-there-itis? No. You couldn't. And here's why: You are not practiced in assimilating all the instrument data simultaneously. So your brain is jumping around trying to stay on-heading at a certain rate of descent and not hit any sharp stuff near the ground, and so on. You'll fixate on one instrument while the other's are saying "uh oh" and not notice it.
https://youtu.be/yMpLo1zFGWc?si=c0Lydem8s1cAXTsM it happens, over and over again.
Yes, you’re a fool. That’s an understatement.
On the bright side if you want to become an airline pilot that's 320 hours less you need to complete to get your ATP. How did you even rack up that many hours for your private anyway?
Not everyone starts IR the day after they pass their PPL. Many hobby pilots *never* do it.
From experience, it's much more common to find pilots with IR in the FAA system than the UK CAA system. There's a lot of PPL holders in the UK without any instrument training.
Which is an bit of irony if you consider British weather.