Emergency descents in a light plane

[DeflectionShot]

I wanted to get some opinions on a technique I've read about a couple of times about how to get out of cloud in an emergency situation. Let's say you inadvertently fly into the soup, you realize you're in trouble and you're not sure what to do, the 180 turn hasn't gotten you out; another way to get out of it is throttle to idle, drop full flaps, and trim the nose all the way back and take your hands off the wheel, use the rudders for turns. The plane will then descend until you're hopefully out of the clouds. Anyone here familiar with this technique and does it work?????

[Chris]

Descend and hope you come out the bottom before hitting ground/towers/other things? I'd rather turn around and head back to where I know there is clear air than cross my fingers and wait.

[ScudRunner-d95]

:o never heard of that "technique"

I would invest in an instrument rating. And routinely practice it, keep your tools sharp!

First thing make sure Pitot heats is on if equipped. Get on them gauges.
Turn 180, if required climb to sector safe
Call for help, don't be afraid of ATC or even sqwaking 7700

Aviate
Navigate
Communicate

[David MacRay]

Good question. I am wondering if this more for if you start picking up ice?

My main worries in a cloud would be, where are the hard things I might hit? Not limited to, but including the ground.
Since we are suggesting I inadvertently entered clouds. I suspect I can't answer that.

I think in regular cloud I want to maintain my altitude, or possibly climb, unless I know some good reason descending will be much better.

If I can sort of see the ground I might decend but I'm going to watch my airspeed and get 'er down.

[David MacRay]

Yeah, it's a good coversation to have to help think a bit before it happens.

I have been known to hangout in a place far away, waiting until there are no clouds between me and home base. Or at very least between me and a fair distance beyond the next stop.

I am a bad WX chicken for sure.

[Slick Goodlin]

[quote author=ScudRunner link=topic=7359.msg20109#msg20109 date=1508950444]
:o never heard of that "technique"[/quote]
It's in the Cessna 150 manual, or at least it was at one time.  I believe they called for trimming a particular speed (I forget the speed they specified) and keeping the skid ball centred with the rudder.  It's technically possible but if I ever gave up on my present attitude of "I don't want to do that ever" I would only modify it to "I don't want to do that with less than a 3000 foot ceiling" at best.


A better bet if you get stuck in the clear blue sky above the clouds is to know where those clouds are broken.  Either have a good idea of where the better weather is through a good look at Wx before departure, or get on the horn with flight services and get headed that way.  Then you just have a VFR let-down between the clouds, although it may not be in a place you had originally planned on flying.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

I have always been of the opinion that VFR on top should not be allowed.