Scudrunners

Two stage amber actually improves the outside visibility for the instructor in exactly the same way amber glasses improves vision for skiers.


How can you put any value in the opinion of any instructor about two stage amber if they never used it.


I learned to fly IFR with two stage amber and used it as a flight instructor for years, it is the next best thing to actual IMC.


Wearing a hood is unorthodox and I refused to wear one during my re rides when I flew for a living.

I asked for a 0/0 in my last recurrent sim.  They said "your airplane isnt authorized for 0/0". I said "so does that mean that 0/0 could never happen to me? Isnt this the exact place to do it, so the first time I see it isn't when my ass is on the line?"


I wish I could say I executed it perfectly, but with a slight bounce and a solid second touch, it got down.  I'm glad I did it too, cus that is a weird sight, even in a sim.

If you fly long enough the odds are you may be forced into landing with zero zero visibility.


It happened to me and having practised it it made it easier to do the approach and landing when I had no choice.


It is far better to be able to do it and never have to than have to and not be able to.

Like I have already said...wearing a hood is unorthodox and I refused to wear one on my instrument check rides...


...only one TC inspector said he would not do tjhe ride with me if I would not wear the hood.


I called TC's head office and told them to send a competent inspector to do my ride and when I explained my reason they sent another inspector.


They can not force you to fly in an unorthodox manner.

But Chuck - aren't you worried that if the wx
went to shit and you were forced to do a 0/0
landing that TC might send you a registered
letter afterwards?

I mean, wouldn't it be better to crash and die
than to hear from Enforcement?




Ain't stupid funny?  :))

TC fixed the issue. No one should ever miss an approach anymore since the approach ban came into our lives - oh wait - north of 60 and ops specs - sorry gents -- carry on - lmfaoooooooo - WOXOF GPS approaches is where it's at now.

Why did 'they' stop using two stage amber?  Too much of a hassle to apply to the interior windows?  Hoods are cheaper and easier?  Did it just fall out of style?  I guess that the advances in flight sims since the Link Trainer, probably contributed to its end.

https://disciplesofflight.com/zero-zero/

Zero/Zero: Flying the C-124by Charles Svoboda

[center][/center]
It happened sometime in 1965, in Germany . I was a copilot, so I knew, everything there was to know about flying, and I was frustrated by pilots like my aircraft commander. He was one of those by-the-numbers types, no class, no imagination, no “feel” for flying. You have to be able to feel an airplane. So what if your altitude is a little off, or the glideslope indicator is off a hair? If it feels okay then it is okay. That’s what I believed.

Every time he let me make an approach, even in VFR conditions, he demanded perfection. Not the slightest deviation was permitted. “If you can’t do it when there is no pressure, you surely can’t do it when the pucker factor increases,” he would say. When he shot an approach, it was as if all the instruments were frozen – perfection, but no class.  Then came that routine flight from the Azores to Germany.  The weather was okay; we had 45,000 pounds of fuel and enough cargo to bring the weight of our C-124 Globemaster up to 180,000 pounds, 5,000 pounds below the max allowable. It would be an easy, routine flight all the way.

Halfway to the European mainland, the weather started getting bad. I kept getting updates by high frequency radio. Our destination, a fighter base, went zero/zero. Our two alternates followed shortly thereafter. All of France was down. We held for two hours, and the weather got worse. Somewhere I heard a fighter pilot declare an emergency because of minimum fuel. He shot two approaches and saw nothing. On the third try, he flamed out and had to eject

We made a precision radar approach; there was nothing but fuzzy fog at minimums. The sun was setting. Now I started to sweat a little. I turned on the instrument lights. When I looked out to where the wings should be, I couldn’t even see the C-124 navigation lights 85 feet from my eyes. I could barely make out a dull glow from the exhaust stacks of the closest engine, and then only on climb power.

When we reduced power to maximum endurance, that friendly glow faded. The pilot asked the engineer where we stood on fuel. The reply was, “I don’t know— we’re so low that the book says the gauges are unreliable below this point.” The navigator became a little frantic. We didn’t carry parachutes on regular MAC flights, so we couldn’t follow the fighter pilot’s example. We would land or crash with the C-124.

The pilot then asked me which of the two nearby fighter bases had the widest runway. I looked it up and we declared an emergency as we headed for that field. The pilot then began his briefing. “This will be for real. No missed approach. We’ll make an ILS and get precision radar to keep us honest. Copilot, we’ll use half flaps. That’ll put the approach speed a little higher, but the pitch angle will be almost level, requiring less attitude change in the flare.”
   
Why hadn’t I thought of that? Where was my “feel” and “class” now? The briefing continued, “I’ll lock on the gauges. You get ready to take over and complete the landing if you see the runway – that way there will be less room for trouble with me trying to transition from instruments to visual with only a second or two before touchdown.”

Hey, he’s even going to take advantage of his copilot, I thought. He’s not so stupid, after all. “Until we get the runway, you call off every 100 feet above touchdown; until we get down to 100 feet, use the pressure altimeter. Then switch to the radar altimeter for the last 100 feet, and call off every 25 feet. Keep me honest on the airspeed, also. Engineer, when we touch down, I’ll cut the mixtures with the master control lever, and you cut all of the mags. Are there any questions? Let’s go!”

All of a sudden, this unfeeling, by the numbers robot was making a lot of sense. Maybe he really was a pilot and maybe I had something more to learn about flying. We made a short procedure turn to save gas. Radar helped us to get to the outer marker. Half a mile away, we performed the Before Landing Checklist; gear down, flaps 20 degrees. The course deviation indicator was locked in the middle, with the glide slope indicator beginning its trip down from the top of the case.

When the GSI centered, the pilot called for a small power reduction, lowered the nose of the C-124 slightly, and all of the instruments, except the altimeter, froze.  My Lord, that man had a feel for the C-124! He thought something, and the airplane, all 135,000 pounds of it, did what he thought. “Five hundred feet,” I called out, “400 feet … 300 feet … 200 feet, MATS minimums … 100 feet, Air Force minimums; I’m switching to the radar altimeter … 75 feet nothing in sight …. 50 feet, still nothing … 25 feet, airspeed 100 knots.”

The nose of the C-124 rotated just a couple of degrees, and the airspeed started down. The pilot then casually said, “Hang on, we’re landing.” “Airspeed 90 knots….10 feet, here we go!” The pilot reached up and cut the mixtures with the master control lever, without taking his eyes off the instruments. He told the engineer to cut all the mags to reduce the chance of fire.

CONTACT! I could barely feel it. As smooth a landing as I have ever known, and I couldn’t even tell if we were on the runway, because we could only see the occasional blur of a light streaking by. “Copilot, verify hydraulic boost is on, I’ll need it for brakes and steering.” I complied. “Hydraulic boost pump is on, pressure is up.” The brakes came on slowly—we didn’t want to skid this big beast now. I looked over at the pilot. He was still on the instruments, steering to keep the course deviation indicator in the center, and that is exactly where it stayed.
   
“Airspeed, 50 knots.” We might make it yet. “Airspeed, 25 knots.” We’ll make it if we don’t run off a cliff. Then I heard a strange sound. I could hear the whir of the gyros, the buzz of the inverters, and a low frequency thumping. Nothing else. The thumping was my pulse, and I couldn’t hear anyone breathing. We had made it! We were standing still!

The aircraft commander was still all pilot. “After-landing checklist, get all those motors, radar and un-necessary radios off while we still have batteries. Copilot, tell them that we have arrived, to send a follow me truck out to the runway because we can’t even see the edges.” I left the VHF on and thanked GCA for the approach.

The guys in the tower didn’t believe we were there. They had walked outside and couldn’t hear or see anything. We assured them that we were there, somewhere on the localizer centerline, with about half a mile showing on the DME. We waited about 20 minutes for the truck. Not being in our customary hurry, just getting our breath back and letting our pulses diminish to a reasonable rate.

Then I felt it. The cockpit shuddered as if the C-124 nose gear had run over a bump. I told the loadmaster to go out the crew entrance to see what happened. He dropped the door (which is immediately in front of the nose gear), and it hit something with a loud, metallic bang. He came on the interphone and said “Sir, you’ll never believe this. The follow-me truck couldn’t see us and ran smack into our nose tire with his bumper, but he bounced off, and nothing is hurt.”

The pilot then told the tower that we were parking the bird right where it was and that we would come in via the truck. It took a few minutes to get our clothing and to button up the C-124. I climbed out and saw the nose tires straddling the runway centerline. A few feet away was the truck with its embarrassed driver.

Total damage—one dent in the hood of the follow me truck where the hatch had opened onto it. Then I remembered the story from Fate Is the Hunter. When Gann was an airline copilot making a simple night range approach, his captain kept lighting matches in front of his eyes. It scarred and infuriated Gann. When they landed, the captain said that Gann was ready to upgrade to captain. If he could handle a night-range approach with all of that harassment, then he could handle anything.

At last I understood what true professionalism is. Being a pilot isn’t all seat-of-the-pants flying and glory. It’s self- discipline, practice, study, analysis and preparation. It’s precision. If you can’t keep the gauges where you want them with everything free and easy, how can you keep them there when everything goes wrong?

For those interested, here are the specs for the C-124:
General characteristics

• [li]Crew: five[/li]
  [li]Length: 130 ft 5 in (39.76 m)[/li]
  [li]Wingspan: 174 ft 1¹â„₂ in (53.09 m)[/li]
  [li]Height: 48 ft 3¹â„₂ in (14.72 m)[/li]
  [li]Wing area: 2,506 ft² (232.9 m²)[/li]
  [li]Empty weight: 101,165 lb (45,984 kg)[/li]
  [li]Loaded weight: 185,000 lb (84,090 kg)[/li]
  [li]Max. takeoff weight: 194,500 lb (98,409 kg)[/li]
  [li]Powerplant: 4 × Pratt & Whitney R-4360-63A “Wasp Major” radial engines, 3,800 hp (2,834 kW) each[/li]

Performance

• [li]Maximum speed: 304 mph (264 kn, 489 km/h) at 20,800 ft (6,340 m)[/li]
  [li]Cruise speed: 230 mph (200 kn, 370 km/h)[/li]
  [li]Range: 6,820 mi (5,930 nmi, 10,975 km)[/li]
  [li]Service ceiling: 21,800 ft (6,645 m)[/li]
  [li]Rate of climb: 760 ft/min (3.9 m/s)[/li]

I did once under the hood during commercial training I think it was... anyway the instructor talked me through it, turn right/left 5, reduce decent, when to flare.  Perhaps not a true 0/0, but more of a 'even a blind person can land an airplane with proper guidance.' 
There was also another time years ago, where shallow fog and lighting at 5 produced a near white out condition that was about 0/0 about 30 or so feet up, the rad alt cued when to flair.

I think 0/0 should be taught.  There is a fine line though, as there'll be those who'll abuse it.

The trick is to avoid a PIO in pitch near the ground.

The ILS GS is going to become unbelievably senstive
below Cat II mins and it's easy to get suckered into
chasing it.  Bad Things (tm) follow.

Runways with ILS's are generally pretty long and are
a good target to have a controlled crash - think of it
that way - onto.

No shame in a firm landing with 0/0.  Go glassy
water (or black night landing) and freeze the pitch
attitude with a gentle rate of descent.  The aircraft
will descend, enter ground effect, reduce it's FPM
and give you a pretty nice touchdown.


When I taught IFR, decades ago, I noticed that most
people were ok with the ILS needles until around 500
AGL.  Below that, they got more sensitive and people
started chasing them.  With no auto-pilot, that's what
people generally need to work on.  Hand-flying.  Sound
familiar?

It's worth noting that the FAA will grant hand-flown
CAT II approval to Category A aircraft.  I am not making
this up.  Go look up the FARs.  It's perfectly possible to
hand-fly down to 100 feet.

Once again, the pilot is the weakest link.  Be
embarrassed about that.  Do something about it.

Couple of tricks I have learned over the decade:

Regardless of the moving map and magenta line,
the GPS track is the answer in the back of the book.
You can even use your phone for this (I have, in IMC).

Intercept the LOC and turn until the GPS track is
what it should be, from the plate.

If you do this, the LOC needle will remain frozen,
at least until you descend and the wind changes.

You feel any bumps, look at the GPS track and
push on the rudder pedals to put it where it should
be.

WRT technique for keeping the needles in the
donuts ... one lesson that people really responded
to, was to go flying at night (so the hood was much
more realistic, no peripheral cues) when it wasn't
too bumpy, so we could fly the ILS all the way in
the yellow arc, to Vne.

Here's what you do.  Full (or max allowable climb
power during the PT or vectoring.  Flaps up.  Nose
down at GS intercept, gear stays up.  Trim nose
down.

Yes, we are going downhill wide open, and we
are going to do it fast.  The ILS needles are
going to be trembling and keeping them centered
below 500 AGL is going to take all of your World
of Warcraft skills.

Overshoot at 200 feet, you've got the flaps and
gear up and lots of power and airspeed, pop right
back up to PT altitude, leave the aircraft configured
like that (you might open cowl flaps in the climb
if you've got them) and do it again.  And again.
And again.  And again.

Once you get used to flying an ILS at twice the
normal speed, you will find it a cinch, keeping
the needles in the donuts at normal approach
speed.

Like the forced approach, people are shitty at
it because they don't practice it enough.  With
some practice, you can ace it like a TC Inspector!

TC is certain to disagree, but a high speed ILS
is also handy if you have a moderate icing layer
that you're on top of, when you arrive at your
destination.  TC wants you to spend as long a
time as possible in icing.

My father flew a T-33 all over Canada in all kinds
of weather, and all it had for de-icing was a heated
pitot.  He said it didn't build much ice as long as
you kept the speed up over 300 knots in the descent.


More stuff TC doesn't want you to know:


www.pittspecials.com/articles/RamAirTempRise.htm