Gyros in IFR and/or control failures?

[barnstorm2]

Do I have to have my lights on for the inital inspection or can I just bolt them on anytime?

 

[Udi]

On

On

The inspector will look to see if your gyro is equipped with everything that is required for night flying, as per the FARs, before he can approve the gyro for night flying:

91.205

and

91.507

Udi

 

[Gary_in_Orygun]

My Operating Limitations says:

4. After completion of phase I flight testing, unless appropriately equiped for night and/or instrument flight as listed in FAR 95.201 (b through e), this aircraft is to be operated under day only VFR.

Nothing here says that I can't bolt the lights on after the initial inspection. I suppose the only thing you have to worry about is what kind of log entry and statement needs to be made to state that the machine is still airworthy.

 

[Bill Clem]

At last count, I had about 50 hours of night gyro local and cross-country flight time. Night flying is particularly attractive out West. Gone are the gusts and turbulence of the day. The air is cooler in the Summer, more stable. It's easier to see other traffic. When I had my initial inspection, I already had instrument lights (on a separate buss), nav lights, strobes and a landing light installed. So the DAR signed it off as night-capable. I often wonder about many things while flying at night. Like if the engine quits is it better to head for a lighted area with all of the associated wires or to the great black spots where there are no wires but you don't get a look at the terrain until the last few seconds. Haven't answered that one yet. I have worried from time to time about running into an unexpected cloud. Sudden IFR if you will. I have practiced solo hood flying, looking at the vertical compass card for yaw, variometer for pitch and a little of both for roll. Not ideal but it might keep me upright until I could descend or maybe even turn back. Better to practice and not need it than... well, you know. Actually, it's worked better than expected. Keeping the stick mostly centered and focussing on heading and maintaining a steady altitude has allowed me to go for 10 minutes or so. A long, long 10 minutes. Truly it would be possible to fly for a while with an artificial horizon and the other appropriate instruments but an approved IFR gyro? Nope. Just like a helicopter, it would need a 3 axis autopilot to reduce the workload. Got a spare $100,000? Two pilot IFR? Well maybe. But I doubt it.

 

[ToddP]

Wow Bill, 10 minutes of simulated IFR by yourself. You must be pretty certain there is no other traffic in the area.

 

[Caribean_gyro]

My OL said #28 when filing IFR the experimental nature of the aircraft shall be listed in the remarks section of the flight plan.

I also questioned FAA that in the original OL they said IFR permited in Phase 1?

The inspector said. If ou have an experimental jet. where you are going to test speed? Up there right so you will have to filed IFR.
Chuck P

 

[KenSandyEggo]

......."no person may operate a powered civil aircraft with a standard category U.S. airworthiness certificate....."

Udi, you're on dangerous ground as to interpetation when you try to quote regs for standard category U.S. airworthiness certificated airplanes and try to apply them to experimental aircraft and/or rotorcraft. Some apply and some don't. Experimentals do not have to have approved lights in their strobe or nav-light systems. When an FAR says "airplane," it does not refer to rotorcraft unless it says rotorcraft or makes a blanket statement that it applies to all aircraft. Some apply only to helicopters and some apply only to gyros and some apply to both if they say "rotorcraft." It's a can of worms, Udi, and you can't assume that a reg applies to airplanes, experimentals, helis, gyros, or rotorcraft, unless it's specified in some way. As an example, the rule for life preservers says "airplanes." As I recall, the mile limitations offshore are different for helicopters when flying over water than airplanes. We can make a career of arguing rules and regulations as to their meaning. Oftentimes you'll get several different answers to the same question from different FAA employees. They're confusing and nebulous, to say the least.

Bill, I am surprised at your lack of knowledge regarding night emergency procedures for a gyro suffering an engine failure. The black spot is preferrable to a lighted spot with all its wires (except if it's a lake). Once you determine that you're engine is not likely to restart in the approximately 10 seconds before you smack down, leave your nav-lights on and strobe if your electrical system (battery) has sufficient power. IMMEDIATELY extinguish your landing light(s). Set up your descent and aim for the darkened area. Estimate as well as you are able, under the circumstances, when you reach an altitude of approximately 40 feet AGL. Quickly turn on your landing light and look at the area below. If you don't like what you see, turn off the landing light and continue to your landing.

 

[Udi]

You are right!

You are right!

You are right Ken - experimental aircraft don’t have to abide by any rules and regulations written for "real" aircraft. You can fly with a Walmart bicycle landing light, Mickey Mouse nav lights, and orange strobes made for Halloween and sold in the Dollar store.

Just make sure you explain this to the inspector when they "ramp" you

Udi

 

[KenSandyEggo]

You are also right, Udi. However, I value my life and fly with a 3-strobe Whelen system, Whelen nav-lights, a panel-mount radio, and a transponder and encoder, and generally all aircraft equipment, save for the Subaru engine and the experimental craft. We are discussing the FARS and what is legal for experimentals. That doesn't mean that I advocate using a bicycle landing light, Mickey Mouse nav-lights and orange strobes from the Dollar Store, but experimental drivers are free to do so if they wish and if the conditions they fly in make this gear appropriate. I wouldn't see a gyro-driver flying out of his farm strip in central Illinois and nowhere else to be using the equipment I do while flying in the San Diego area.

If you're "ramped" while using the above components and you're flying in an experimental, you will indeed be legal and the "ramp-checker" will not have a leg to stand on if he writes you up. He or she will be wrong. What would there be to explain when the gear is legal? You're using certificated aircraft standards and attempting to apply them to experimentals and assuming the experimental pilot with his unapproved equipment is doing something illegal and will have to explain it.......if I'm reading you right. If not.........never mind.

 

[Bill Clem]

Uh, Ken, I think that there is one exception to your interpretation. It is true that the lights and strobes don't have to be STC'ed for aircraft. My nav lights, for instance, are from Newark electronics, the strobes are Whelan aircraft strobes and I think that the landing light is from a piece of farm equipment. BUT, you still have to meet the visibility requirements. I don't have the FAR's in front of me, but the nav lights have to be visible from specified angles and for specified distances. I think (emphasis on think) that those rules apply to all aircraft operating at night. And Ken, one question... do you still have the plastic Jesus on your instrument panel?

 

[KenSandyEggo]

I didn't say that the lights didn't have to meet the visibility criteria, I only said that they didn't have to be approved. I believe that you may be sort of, kind of, probably, most-likely correct.

Plastic Jesus? How dare you. Everyone (almost) knows that a good Catholic (former) boy would only sport a St. Joseph statue. I had a bobble-head St. Joe up there for awhile, but with my old blades, it shook him to pieces, and just before his head fell off, he jumped out over Loveland Reservoir, not wanting to endure the shame of being shaken to death while duct-taped to a cheap, Lexan instrument panel, let alone explaining how as a saint, he didn't know that was going to happen. I instituted a search and rescue effort, but he was gone. I think that I saw some coyotes gathering near where he jumped, so I just left the area, not wanting to endure further emotional trauma to myself as the coyotes loudly crunched the plastic between their teeth, not realizing at first that St. Joe was NOT an albino gopher.

 

[CLS447]

Ken, I thought it was supposed to be St. Christopher (Bearer of Christ).

 

[KenSandyEggo]

Well, actually there were also a lot of St. Chris' in my old Chicago neighborhood on the dashes also. Many times there were both. Sometimes saints were lined up on dashboards across the whole thing. But St. Joe is kind of a patron saint of the Poles, if I recall what the nuns pounded into......I mean, taught me..

 

[Hognose]

Guys,

I thought I already posted this. But to encapsulate, 14 CFR 91.205 lists minimum IFR equipment. The OLs usually say you must be equipped IAW Part 91. HOWEVER, the relevant sections of 91. including 91.205, don't say that equipment must be TSO'd. SO you can fly IFR with, for example, a Dynon EFIS as your primary attitude indicator, or even a Control Vision AI on a Compaq iPaq (Yeah, I am going to trust an attitude indicator that runs on Windows... would give a whole new meaning to "computer crash" or "blue screen of death". Oh yeah). So Ken is technically correct, and he is also instinctively correct (IMHO) in not desiring to test the outside edges of legality.

In the service they say that "regulations are written in the blood of good men," and in civil aviation this is also true. A departure from the extreme conservatism of Certified/TSO'd and PMA'd aircraft and parts can be perfectly safe, but the risk should always be assessed dispassionately.

The EAA has written an excellent treatise on equipping a homebuilt for IFR:

http://members.eaa.org/home/homebuilders/faq/Equipping a Homebuilt for IFR operations.html

Finally, just because a machine is LEGAL for IFR, doesn't mean it's a good idea. Many Lancairs are equipped for IFR flight and are IFR legal. That doesn't mean such as macchina nervosa is a good choice for weather flying, and the record of Lancairs in IMC is rocky. (Ditto Van's RVs. I've even seen a Pitts S-2 with IFR instrumentation -- oh yeah, I wanna fly that in hard IMC. NOT). In my family we had a known-ice-equipped plane for years, and we flew it as if that stuff wasn't there -- my plane might be equipped to fly in ice, but I am not; my brain is larger than either testicle.

cheers

-=K=-

 

[birdy]

Interest'n thread.
I remember when I first started fly'n I looked up to check the rotorhead for some reason and within seconds I was out of controle,dive'n to the right and gain'n speed real quick.Almost cra.ped meself.
Now,I can wach the rotorhead for alot longer in rough air,so long as I'm not think'n about fly'n. [Me ass cheeks are talk'n to me subconsios who is the REAL pilot most of the time anyway.]

I got caught in a no-visibility situation once [couldn't evan see the instruments] and it was probably the scariest few seconds I'v spent in a gyro.

I put it on screen on the Oz forum under "Flying Tails" ".Which way is up." ,if anybody is interested.