Informal poll for the IR's: do you fly single piston in IMC?

[mzaharis]

actually benwa is correct.... but that is only in the ga category

http://www.meretrix.com/~harry/flying/notes/safetyvsdriving.html

Here's a similar analysis . . .

http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/safety

This brings up an inevitable question for those who would not fly single engine in IMC - most people get their instrument rating before their multi, and it seems that many non-military professional pilots spend time flying IMC single engine piston before their careers progress to a point where they fly multiengine aircraft. So, does that mean that a pilot must take a risk early on in their career that, in retrospect, might not be a worthwhile one? How many of you flew single engined aircraft in IMC before you decided the risk wasn't worth it? If you had it to do over again, with the knowledge and wisdom you've accumulated, what would you have done differently?

 

[avbug]

Again, most pilots who feel single engine piston airplane instrument flight is okay, are too inexperienced to know better.

Personally, I didn't spend a lot of time in singles flying in the soup...I sat it out, went around, went under, or scrubbed the flights. Just like I do today.

Experience from early on, including an engine failure in a Cessna 182 IMC, has been a great teacher that this isn't the way to go...you hear about been-there-done-that-got-the-tee-shirt...some of us who counsel the less experienced in these matters are tee-shirt holders and have good reason for saying what we do.

 

[tathepilot]

Again, most pilots who feel single engine piston airplane instrument flight is okay, are too inexperienced to know better.

Experience from early on, including an engine failure in a Cessna 182 IMC, has been a great teacher that this isn't the way to go...

i would have to disagree on this one.., because i know very experienced pilots, one comes to mind, an examiener that encourages people to fly single engine imc.. and he prob has more experience than you

(let me put on my helmet)

your engine failure in the 182 has probably just scared you, thats why you wont fly single engine imc..
a great teacher? why did you survive this engine failure? luck? was the weather @ minimums? instead of saying don't do it maybe there was a lesson to be learned? an out?
don't fly is probably the worst advice one can give..

maybe some better advice would be, dont fly imc single unless you can breakout at xxxx feet or some other wisdom that you like to spew....

'im taking this part from another post'
if ga pilots were trained up to the standards of the airline people, would ga aircraft be 7 to 11 times more likely to kill you than driving??

probably not.. so what im getting at is this.. if you have a highly trained ga pilot that flies single engine imc than the likely hood of him/her dieing in a crash would be less because one would have to wait for his engine to fail to be considered a statistic.. (according to some here)

pilot error, that is why people die.

 

[tathepilot]

2001 accident stats

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviation/2001_GA_Annual_Review_Data.xls

in 2001 there were 57 fatal accidents in imc. there were 1750 accidents total in 2001, but we are only concerned with fatal imc accidents (57), more specifically single engine.(36)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
36 (fatal)involved single engine aircraft. 35 were from pilot error.
2 crashes (fatal) were undetermined, of the 2 undetermined 1 was single engine

out of the 36 fatal accidents involving single engine aircraft 1 (one) fatality was from possible loss of engine, the pilot from that aircraft
survived long enough to give a statement which was:
'The single engine airplane impacted terrain, 3 miles from the runway, while on final approach during hours of darkness. The pilot was executing a localizer instrument landing approach and the reported weather conditions at the airport were below minimums for the approach. The pilot, who died 25 days after the accident, told early responders "I lost my engine." A postcrash fire destroyed the cockpit area and inboard wings of the airplane and a large area of surrounding vegetation. Fueling records and a fuel consumption calculation showed that the airplane should have had sufficient fuel on board for about 3 hours more flying. The engine was peripherally involved in the fire and was subsequently run on an engine stand satisfactorily..

p.s i have a long layover

 

[tathepilot]

its funny.. on theses boards, you have these loud mouth know-it-all's but when a good point to argue comes up, they remain silent!! hahaha

 

[VNugget]

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviation/2001_GA_Annual_Review_Data.xls

The pilot was executing a localizer instrument landing approach and the reported weather conditions at the airport were below minimums for the approach. The pilot, who died 25 days after the accident, told early responders "I lost my engine."

So you gave us the scenario, but what's the point you're making? If the weather was above minimums, or he had diverted to his alternate, the engine wouldn't have quit?

 

[ackattacker]

Examining the accident statistics for fatal single-engine IMC engine failures is not very valid... there are too many variables.

Better to put it this way... on average, piston engine powerplants in air carrier use average 0.2 inflight failures per 1000 flight hours (one failure every 5000 hours). You can be sure that the failure rate in GA is much higher.

So if you fly 2500 hours in a piston single you have at least a 50% chance that your engine will quit inflight. And that assumes that your maintenance is up to air carrier standards.

Too me that is just not acceptable. I am not willing to play Russian Roulette with my life or the lives of other people. If I'm flying an airplane with only one engine then there always has to be an acceptable plan of action for when the engine quits. Period. And that includes turboprop singles, which have much better reliability (1 shutdown every 25,000 hours).

mzaharis brings up a very interesting point. It does seem that as civilian pilots we do go through a phase early on in our careers with a lot more risk. Of course the risk of engine failure early on is overshadowed by the risk of inexperience and general pilot error. But whatever the cause the statistics do show that it is risky. It's easy to peer down from the multiengine turbine perch and say those GA guys are dangerous. But most of us went through it ourselves. I don't know the answer. But honestly I do think there has to be a better way. It seems to be an issue no one really wants to confront.

And I think manufacturers of general aviation aircraft are themselves very guilty. You see small single-engine aircraft marketed with advanced glass cockpits and marketed almost as mini-airliners, including weeping wings and so on, and advanced avionics that can get you in very low on a GPS approach. They're basically encouraging people to hop into their Cirrus or Mooney and fly straight through all kinds of weather and shoot approaches to mins, with minimal training. All the high tech gizmos are supposed to keep to safe. But they conveniently leave out what happens when the big fan stops spinning...

 

[avbug]

36 (fatal)involved single engine aircraft. 35 were from pilot error.
2 crashes (fatal) were undetermined, of the 2 undetermined 1 was single engine

Brilliant...if no one dies, then it must be okay!

How many vacum pump failures, how many instrument failures? How many cirrus rained down when pilots lost control and deployed the parachute...merely because a failure does not occcur you think that this represents safety? How many radio failures, how many cases of disorientation? How many losses of control? How many system failures?

Statistics are meaningless, and can be used in various shades to mean nearly anything...but attempting to suggest that single engine piston engine IMC is safe because you haven't found evidence of many deaths is ridiculous. Much the same logic as putting a gun to someone's head, pressing the trigger, and when nothing happens walking away with a shrug and a "That was no big deal."

I'd say you don't have enough time on your hands at all if that sort of flawed logic is the best you can acomplish.

 

[mtrv]

And I think manufacturers of general aviation aircraft are themselves very guilty. You see small single-engine aircraft marketed with advanced glass cockpits and marketed almost as mini-airliners, including weeping wings and so on, and advanced avionics that can get you in very low on a GPS approach. They're basically encouraging people to hop into their Cirrus or Mooney and fly straight through all kinds of weather and shoot approaches to mins, with minimal training. All the high tech gizmos are supposed to keep to safe. But they conveniently leave out what happens when the big fan stops spinning...

And in the meantime, those full size, but less equipped airliners are still flying into terrain with all two, three, or four engines operating, because they don't have the on-board situational awareness that the new Cirrus or Mooney has.

Statistics work both ways.

 

[mtrv]

how many cases of disorientation?

For commercial airlines? Still too many!

But once commercial airliners are equipped with advanced glass, that we see in GA today, I can see the odds decreasing.