METO Guido

Don't often hear douche-baggery during risk assessment exercises but I would say there's plenty of it to go around in this case. Starting with regulatory loopholes that authorized a Cat 1 approach attempt with RVR values that low. Pressure of no-showing a trip report critically distort the pilot's judgement? Deep doo doo for that, so didn't help with priority balancing anyway. All alone too. May have caught a peak over the ALS and lost orientation crossing the fence, who knows. The purpose of attaching this accident report was not to cast blame on its victim. Just a painful reminder taking it to the dirt, hunting for pavement, may include others in the wager.

skywatch

"I do it all the time" means that somehow it is less risky? Good that you would not do it in an unfamiliar aircraft, but again? Not throwing shade, promise, but it might be time for a self assessment. These sound too much like the kind of things those god-like, omnipotent pilots say before they kill themselves. Best wishes.

NeverHome

Out of pure curiosity, what is it that makes you believe this is risky?

Im making a prediction: Someday a captain will not take a flight because the GPS antenna is defered. Too risky he will say.

So what im getting at here is what we determine to be too much risk. Personally I would not say that single pilot IFR in a single engine aircraft is risky. Challenging yes. Risky, no. That said proficiency is important.

So to some up my thoughts: Do some of that pilot S$!t mav

CoefficientX

Here’s the risky part;

Single engine LIFR conditions leave you one option in the event of an engine failure. That option is to set up best glide and hope there isn’t a tree, house, cow, semi truck, bridge etc in your way if/whenyou break out.

Engine out dead stick landing in 0/0 at night 20 miles from the nearest airport isn’t any fun at all. Ask me how I know.

WHACKMASTER

Yup. Fook that chit! I was never fully comfortable flying single engine at night or LIFR.

Turbosina

I find that as I got older and gained more experience, my risk tolerance went down. In addition to 121, I still fly a lot of GA (I own my own single-engine piston.) I used to fly that airplane in LIFR all the time. Or across some very tall mountain ranges at night. A few times, across those mountain ranges, IFR at night. Even then, I knew that last one was foolish. But, amazingly enough in 25+ years and 6K hours of GA flying, I never once got iced up, as that was the one thing I avoided religiously.

I'll still fly single-engine pistons in relatively low IFR, and I'll still fly them at night. But at night I'll do everything I can to stay over the flatlands; I no longer fly over the mountains at night. As for the low IFR, I'll only do so in what I'd call 'soft' IFR, i.e. a marine layer that's clear above; I refuse to operate in 'hard' IFR where you're likely to be in IMC from takeoff to touchdown, and in conditions conducive to icing. And, I'll never again fly IMC in the mountains.

That said, even on perfect VFR days, there are times where an engine failure in a single is likely to end very badly. There are plenty of urban airports where if you lose the fan right after takeoff, you're landing on a busy freeway or a crowded neighborhood, none of which is likely to end well. That said, if you take that line of thinking to its logical conclusion, you'd never fly anywhere in a single.

So I just keep my airplane maintained as meticulously as possible (regular maintenance, oil analyses, digital engine trend analysis, borescopes every 100 hours, mag overhauls every 350 instead of 500 hours, vacuum pump replacements every few years, etc etc etc) and I accept the fact that yes, there are situations in which an engine failure has a high risk of injury or fatality. I just do my utmost to minimize the risk. And I think everyone's risk tolerance is understandably different.

And as for engine failures, I did lose one at night IMC (not in my airplane, but in a lousy flight school beater.) Amazingly enough, we happened to be on a LOC/DME approach to minimums at the time. The engine quit right at the FAF. Incredibly, we made it to the airport, just barely....thanks to a whole bunch of excess altitude my instrument student was carrying when we arrived at the FAF. Had she flown the approach at the correct altitudes, we'd have wound up in a shopping mall.

All that said, shooting an approach in a Saratoga at 600 RVR? YGBSM. No thank you.

NeverHome

Ok, How do you know?

Ile say this though, single engine is what it is. Day, night, vmc, imc: if you loose your engine you may be in a world of hurt. Mechanical things do give out, but thats the nature of the single engine beast. FWIW a PC12 or Caravan are single engine. They face the same prospect of loosing their 1 engine. Of course turbines are a bit more reliable. Point is that there is always some risk in flying, but where our personal minimums fall may be different. All that said, I wouldnt be doing an approach in less than 1800 rvr. If I think I can get in Ile hold for a bit and let someone eles prove my point.

labbats

You lost me at Ile.

tomgoodman

Gilligan’s Ile? Several others were lost there too.

NeverHome

Well dang I hope I find you soon! Poor thing, you must be scared. Alone. Cold.

How could I have done this!?!? Especially to someone with such attention to detail and punctuation?

I feel like a monster now