Half Moon Bay - going around in the marine layer

[Colonel]

A private pilot I know - you use what he does at his day job - doing a pretty serious RVAV approach to mins and going around at HAF on the coast.



We don’t get much weather here except wind and that marine layer, which sometimes will linger west of the Santa Cruz mountains all day.

I think even a cat one ILS woulda worked. Note the complete lack of any lighting which you guys take for granted in your part 121 ops.

[Colonel]

Now, a professional pilot will watch that video and say meh - just another day at the office.

But remember the saying about the bear waltzing. How well the bear waltzes isn’t the point - the amazing thing is that it waltzes at all.

Remember this private pilot flying approaches in his own airplane in IMC in February to mins is doing this part-time “for fun”, single pilot without the assistance of a second pilot with an ATP and 5,000 hours.

I don’t see a lot of pro pilots writing world class embedded software part-time “for fun”

If your consumer electronic devices in the cockpit work over 30,000 feet you can thank Bill - I filed the radar.

[Colonel]

I should point out that I actually know one decent stick that flies for Air Canada. He sold some software he wrote and used it to buy a new Pitts S-2C which I checked him out in.

[Nark]

Thankfully he had the wherewithal to go around at minimums.

Also, why no lights? I swear I saw the runway environment as he went around. Isn’t that part of the “system?”

[Colonel]

Apparently the lack of lighting is both a financial and real estate issue at that airport.

I was so proud of him that he didn’t duck under when stuff started to appear. That transition to visual flying is fraught with danger and has killed many people, especially during non-precision approaches.

Pilots that learned to fly out here often have zero experience with low visibility flight so common east of the Rockies. I tell people they need to be skilled and experienced VFR pilots before they commence IFR training, but no.

Kids out here don't believe me, when I tell them this is VFR where I come from. See, I have a mile vis north, a mile vis east, a mile vis south, and a mile vis west. That's 4 miles visibility!

[Colonel]

In this candy-ass state, when vis drops below 100 miles, or if there is any cloud below 18,000 feet, a SIGMET is issued. I tell them, we need a California-only pilot certificate which is invalid anywhere Gavin Newscum isn't emperor.

[Eric Janson]

Good decision to make a go-around.

When playing this in slow motion - I can see taxiways on the right but no clear runway.

Turning the runway lights (if the airport has them) to maximum intensity may have helped as well. From experience you need to ask the controller to do it.

Tip:- Once you're visual and the lights are too bright you can ask for the intensity to be turned down.

[Colonel]

Bill did good. The urge to duck under is powerful, when the visual cues start to appear.

BTW, You and every pilot you know, use his stuff every day. Check out his LinkedIn.