White out

[stevek]

This is kinda cool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JAVTy5x ... r_embedded

[jclaytor]

I do my very best to avoid this kind of situation, so I have limited experience in the "white-out" environment. Think; only brief (seconds) encounters in my personal experiences.
Does it seem that he would have been able to avoid the cloud earlier in the video?
Why did he deploy? The trailing edge of the sail doesn't appear to have a lot of movement. Was this a panic deployment?
The initial chute opening shows a high speed deployment. Is there any use in releasing VG (he did), lowering his center of gravity with upright, legs down posture and letting the glider slow down?
Spiral dive or spin to reduce altitude? Was nearby terrain at issue?
Did the pilot make a safe landing under canopy?
So many questions... Thanks for sharing. I believe that an informed discussion on this forum and critical analysis by those experienced in such, will have a good effect on the rest of us if we should encounter the "white-out" situation.
JSC

[stevek]

This is what the pilot wrote:


"I was going to write about my thought process leading up to this incident, but I decided that it would be just an exercise in excuse making for my bad decisions, including my disregard of FAA rules regarding ultralight aircraft and clouds. The bottom line is that I wanted have my cake and eat it too: I thought I could scoot under that cloud line and purposely cut it close in order to maximize my altitude for the long glide out into the desert.

Once in the cloud the instinct was to fly fast and straight to get to the other side. However, afraid of PIO I popped the VG and tried to slow down. But the video doesn't capture the surge of lift I was experiencing. At one point the base tube was almost ripped from my hand. Soon after that I no longer had control of the glider and the G forces seemed to be building so I thought the safest course of action would be to throw the chute. Fortunately, it worked out."


I have always wondered if you entered the cloud flying straight and slow whether you could maintain a heading by using a gps.

[Joe Schad]

Cool you say. I would thinking: Sh** this is how I am going to die.

Joe

[jclaytor]

If we want to start the discussion with the decent rate variable, lets take a quick look at some numbers.
Cloud suck in the center of a developing cell, UP 1000'/min., 1500'/min., or 2000'/min. (*most variable)
T-2 at 46 mph, DOWN at 490'/min.
T-2 at 50 mph in spiral dive, DOWN +/- 800'/min.
T-2 under canopy Conar 18, DOWN (18'/sec.) 1080'/min.
Skydiver, DOWN 10560'/min.

This brief notation infers that you may not be able to make any progress DOWN under any of the three reasonable conditions. In a super cell, you may just be headed to unbearable altitude unless unhooked...
Wouldn't it make better sense to stick with the glider until it becomes tucked, fouled or broken?
I think the only time where a deployment should occur with an intact glider, is when the condition exist where you simply can not fly out of the situation. An example would be if you settled into a canyon or valley in fog, can't see and no where to go but down.
What is the longest duration that local pilots have experienced the "white-out"?
I know the rules governing VFR flight, but I am also aware of the weak visual field while judging cloud base and simultaneously climbing toward that base. Encountering cloud base can happen to anybody willing to fly close to clouds. With a 500' required separation, climbing at 1100'/min. would give 27 seconds to find a path away from the cloud base if any of these variables were known with certainty.

I really am interested in what the others have to share about thier experinces in the clouds.
JSC

[John Simon]

Not sure when is the right time to deploy there. Obviously, turning around as you hit the wispies with the vario singing would have been a better idea. He was not so far into the cloud when the first wispies come along, and he could still see the ground. Let's just turn around people!

In the absence of that, stuffing the bar will often not do enough. I have climbed at over 1000 fpm with the bar stuffed on a topless glider in Texas... I was fortunate to be aware of the potential for strong lift and was skirting the very edge of a cloud. When I got pulled straight up into this little monster, I turned left 90 degrees and flew for 20 seconds. Poof, blue sky. Lucky on that one. BTW, there was a pilot directly in front of me and as he climbed up and then disappeared into the cloud I thought... "why the hell did he do that?" Then... I knew.

I have not spent more time than that in a cloud without reference to the ground and would not like to. I'm not talking about wispies where you still have ground reference and some visibility, but complete white out. This episode seemed to me to be nearing the limits of spatial orientation for me, but that would depend on the level of turbulence you are experiencing so you may get more or less time.

This gent hit the wispies and was fairly near the edge... a 180 would have served him reasonably well if executed when he started tickling the clouds IMHO. With the g's building... I can't fault his chute toss, but would be very, very concerned about being sucked up while under the canopy as well. Easy to armchair fly... given a few beers I am pretty good at that.

Regards,

John

[Dave Proctor]

I have to agree with Big John. He was flying towards a big cloud with a big black center. First off, not the brightest idea. But, given that he made that bad choice...before he gets to the black part, he is climbing and getting whited out. Ding....time to get a clue...it is not going to get better once he hits the center. When he experienced strong lift and started whiting out, and still just on the perimeter, he should have hung a 180. He could have exited, skirted around the edge to the other side and still had his altitude. It is clear that his intention all along was to fly into the cloud and pop out the other side and go merrily into the desert. Now, once he made the second bad choice and decided that flying in white out was the best choice, he should have flown much slower. Problem is every little (and big) bump is going to make you feel like you are getting banked severely, and you tend to PIO. This is exagerated at higher speed. As someone posted about the flight, he should have tried to be a 'sack of potatoes' and just let the glider fly. If you can see your compass rose (big if) you should not try to fly a straight course, rather pick a heading and try to gently go between 10 or 20 degrees to the left of that heading and 10-20 degrees to the right. What this does is reduce the tendancy to PIO.
DaveP

[Dave Proctor]

PS He is lucky that he didn't get sucked up under canopy and spit out as a popcicle at 40 or 50K....real lucky. I would not throw the chute in a cloud unless the glider was broken and the cloud was close to the ground (mountain top etc) or broken and the G-forces were so great that I worried about passing out. At least with the glider you have some control. Once you throw the chute you have given that up.

[Danny Brotto]

Lots of good points and kudos for the pilot to post the video of his series of mistakes.

While we bristle at the series of errors that led up to the parachute deployment, let's look at the deployment itself. The pilot initiates the sequence with his side mounted chute at 4:16 with the deployment occurring at 4:28. That's 12 seconds to get his chute out! The pilot seemed to fumble with the rig for quite a while before finally getting it out, and this is with fairly stable conditions for a chute deploy (as opposed to being upside down, on the sail, being thrown around, etc.) Is this typical and characteristic of a side mounted chute?

While we can all learn about the potential power of strong lift near clouds from this video, it can also be a point of introspection about scrutinizing our parachute rigs and deployment procedures.

Danny Brotto

[RichH]

It is a very uneasy feeling being whited out..Having experienced this myself I can attest to the ease to which panic can start to set in..In my case I flew towards the side of the cloud to exit but was a bit nervous during that time..In the video it appears the pilot is in more extreme situation and was experiencing more turbulence leading him to make a very rash decision in throwing his chute.. I felt he could have tried several other options which have been mentioned by others in this thread..Your best practice is to maintain the appropriate distance from the the base..In stronger conditions the base will not be flat but curved upward allowing an inexperienced pilot to fly up above portions of the cloud only to have the cloud base enveloping the pilot into a white out..I think a good practice as you are coming closer to the base is to fly towards and edge cloud/thermal allowing you time and a path to exit.. Again, it can be difficult accessing the distance from the clouds base but in most conditions it is fairly easy to maintain your distance within plenty of time to avoid a white out..but occasionally a strong thermal can carry you quickly up into a situation that captures you off guard..having a mental plan in place for this type of situation is your best protection.. Rich Hiegel

[mcelrah]

To answer a question earlier, yes, a GPS with a synthetic compass (e.g. Garmin GPSMAP 76CSx) will provide a reliable heading reference IF you already have that as the display selected (no time to start cycling through displays when you're already in trouble) and you can even focus if you're getting jerked around. That would be the key to executing a 180 as Dave suggests, which I agree with. In Hawaii a few years ago I was able to hold heading away from the ridge using GPS when I got sucked up (smoothly) into a low cloud in a paraglider... Only took a few seconds, but felt like 60... - Hugh

[Dave Proctor]

It would have been easy to make a 180. He should have done that *before* he lost contact with the ground. He was already whiting out wayyyyy before he got to the 'good' part of the big cloud. It doesn't take a rocket scientest to see what was eventually going to happen. I think what this video shows more than anything is that we have to be able to alter plans. This pilot planned on going thru the cloud and coming out the other side stinkin high. He just lacked the ability to alter that plan when it was obvious that it was going wrong. We are human, some of us make plans and stick to them no matter what.... to the death sometimes..this is called evolution.

DaveP