Page 10 - April 20 TNT

Ground speed vs. turn radius (Source: Pilots of America). control movement to avoid the obsta- cle. It takes the airplane, on average, one to two more seconds to respond to the pilot's command." In the aver- age 12 seconds it takes, then, to detect and maneuver around an object, an airplane f lying at 90 knots ground speed covers 0.3 miles. Cruising at 120 knots, you'll fly 0.4 miles in that time. If you're flying 150 knots across the ground, you'll cov- er half a mile. At 180 knots ground speed, you'll f ly 0.6 miles in this decision-making time. That doesn't leave a lot of room for error when trying to avoid hard-to-see towers or hills in low visibility. Slow down! Practice power settings and con- figurations that allow you to cruise at slow- er-than-normal speeds while still maintaining a healthy margin above a stall. Use the configuration you use for downwind in the traffic pattern, maybe even gear down in retractable gear airplanes. The slower you're f ly- ing, the better able you'll be to see and avoid a threat. 5. Use your autopilot. I'm in favor of hand-flying the air- plane as much as possible, but MVFR flight is a time when a good autopilot is one of your best tools. Let the machine fly itself, with close monitoring by you. As pilot monitoring the autopilot, you have more bandwidth to address the MVFR functions of navigation and obstacle avoidance. 6. Plan your escape. Like any other go/no-go decision, MVFR flight requires you always leave yourself a way out. Because of the time you’ve put into planning your MVFR flight, you now have specific criteria to meet at all times: a minimum al- titude, perhaps a maximum altitude for cloud clearance or airspace, and a minimum visibility. If at any time it appears you may soon violate any one of these criteria, execute your escape at once. Do not wait to decide. It will not get better a little further along. The classic fix for flying into wors- ening weather is a 180-degree turn back from where you came – a good idea if conditions worsen, or you start to feel uncomfortable with your origi- nal plan. Here, too, you'll find a big safety advantage in slowing down and 8 • TWIN & TURBINE / April 2020 Covington Aircraft Engines