(UPBEAT MUSIC)
Since we first took to the skies, pilots have faced bad weather
and sadly, not all of them have come through unscathed.
So in this program, we'll look at how to deal with the problem.
We'll talk to professionals from around Australia,
including chief flying instructors, meteorologists and investigators.
You'll learn why pilots should plan thoroughly and make timely decisions.
So what happens when a pilot enters cloud?
According to aviation medical expert Dr David Newman,
it doesn't take much to lose your bearings.
Normally, we orientate in space by reference to the horizon -
visible horizon -
and the force of gravity,
which is 1 G on the surface of the earth.
Now, when you go flying, of course,
you can get into a situation where the horizon is not clearly visible.
And of course, if you manoeuvre the aeroplane
you can get more than 1 G.
So we can alter our natural references very easily
in the aviation environment.
Now, if you lose visual reference outside the aircraft,
then 80% of your orientation information has gone.
Visually based cues
are responsible for most of our orientation information.
Now, the remaining 20% is split equally
between the inner ear balance mechanisms
and the...what they call the seat of the pants -
the proprioceptive system.
So those two systems alone without visual cues are not that accurate
and it's quite easy in IMC conditions to become disorientated.
Why would anyone fly into cloud?
The ATSB has released a report
about pilot behaviour in the face of adverse weather.
Let's hear about it.
As we described in the report,
basically, weather-related decision making
isn't a one-off static decision.
It's really a dynamic, ongoing process.
And what I mean by that is that during a flight,
a pilot will have to continually make a series of related decisions
about the weather.
And they might make four or five good decisions in a row.
They might initially take off and then turn back.
Then later, they might try a second time,
they might go part of the way, they might divert.
But again, at each point,
the flight is only safe as that last decision that the pilot makes.
So in a way, you know, you'd like to think that there's...
You get a bit of credit. You made five good decisions.
You get a bit of credit
and you're not judged so harshly on the next decision.
But, you know, unfortunately, it doesn't work like that, does it?
So it's that idea of always being
continually mindful of the situations,
looking and planning ahead
and continuing to make good decisions.
As you can see, good decisions are essential,
but they must begin at the planning stage.
Proper flight planning reduces pilot stress and increases safety margins.
I think it's very important
that before a flight commences
and probably even before the planning commences for a flight
that the interested parties, if you like,
should sit down and discuss what the no-go situations are.
The best advice is do your preparation.
Collect all your met data,
look at the Bureau of Met site,
through NAPE submit your flight plan,
plan your trip as carefully as you can,
doing as much homework as you can,
planning by the safest route and not the most direct route.
Using things like the Bureau of Meteorology website,
Airservices Australia,
local knowledge by calling people along the route.
A lot of aerodromes now have automated systems
whereby they're actually giving you reports.
Study the reports.
Talk to someone at your destination - maybe the CFI of the flying school.
HOST: Do you know how to interpret a TAF?
The Bureau of Meteorology has a fantastic e-learning section.
There's a weather decoder for all your TAFs and METARs.
All of the products that we send out,
which includes the observations, warnings, forecasts -
and forecasts include the area forecasts for general flying -
the TAFs - so for landing and taking off, those sorts of things -
as well as airport warnings, sig weather charts,
anything you could possibly need for planning and preparing for a flight
can be found on the Bureau's website.
Weather does change. There seems to be...
And it's not just in aviation - it's in all areas.
We often get people that get the forecast for next weekend on Monday
and assume that it's gonna be the same.
Weather does change and it can change quite rapidly.
So most of the products that we do are issued routinely every six hours
to take account of that change.
And of course, updated in between those six hours if necessary.
MAN: It's also good for pilots
just to keep a good weather outlook for what's happening.
I know a lot of pilots generally don't fly every day of the week.
But it's always a good policy to tune in to the evening weather services
on the television stations,
where you get a satellite image and the surface weather chart.
And with time, looking at those
and looking at the weather, what's happening the next day,
you'll build up a feel for
what weather situations create what conditions
and what situations particularly create conditions
where visual flight rules do not apply.
HENDERSON: There's only so much information
we can put into a TAF or an area forecast.
If pilots are a little bit uncertain about conditions
or want a specific wind forecast for a certain flight
or just really want to know a little bit more information
or any uncertainties that might appear in the forecast,
they are more than welcome to ring the forecaster directly.
You've covered all your bases,
your planning has included weather, fuel, alternates and safe altitudes.
You've briefed the passengers and decide to go.
Once airborne, though, you have to remain vigilant
and be prepared to make decisions early.
When you come to the conclusion
that the weather is not as good as you thought it was,
and that you're not going to be able to get through,
then now is the time to make a decision.
And the decision is best made early.
It's no good leaving it until the last possible moment
and saying, "Oh, I'm going to keep on pressing on
"and maybe I'll get there, maybe I will, maybe I will."
And then in the end, you'll find that you're in cloud
and then that's not a happy place to be if you're a VFR pilot.
A great decision-making tool to have as a day VFR pilot
is to have considered your lowest safe altitude for the route
that you're about to take.
I suggest that you just run along 10 nautical miles
either side of your track
and add on 500 feet to the highest terrain.
This becomes your lowest safe altitude.
In flight, if you're not going to be able to continue seeing the horizon
at this altitude,
that's the point at which you need to make a decision
of either diverting or returning back to base.
Safest group -
that's the pilots that took
some sort of proactive weather avoidance action -
took that action in the first half of the flight
and in actual fact, often took it quite near their point of departure.
So they might've, you know, taken off
and then realised that the weather wasn't perhaps as good as forecast
or that they were heading towards adverse weather
and so they've made a decision perhaps to return
to the aerodrome that they departed from.
When in contrast, the VFR to IMC group,
those occurrences occurred far later in the second half of the flight
and often quite near the destination.
Pressure for pilots as they get close to their destination
to, you know, press on and think like, "I'm almost there.
"If I just keep going, I can probably get through..."
Whereas in that case, they're probably better -
if things really have deteriorated to quite an extent -
to carry out a precautionary landing.
Above all, it is not closing the back door,
not closing a side door,
and if little voices inside you are telling
that it's not a good situation,
then when in doubt, turn about.
It's the push-on-itis
that will end up putting you into jeopardy.
Making the decision early is the important thing.
Most of these things occur because we don't make a hard decision,
we don't make the decision to turn
and land at an airfield that's in the clear
simply because it's not the destination.
We always want to get back, that's where our family is
or it's where our car is -
it's the familiar place.
Whereas, if you have to make the decision to go to another airfield,
there's all these complications when you get on the ground
as to "How do I get the aeroplane back?
"Where will I stay?" Et cetera.
But they're sort of complications that are easy to fix on the ground.
These VFR pilots tend to push on.
5km is a very little distance.
And a good judge is
if you're sitting in the aeroplane, flying the aeroplane,
and you're actually having to
look out the window on the side to see where you are
instead of looking forward
and the forward visibility you've got is no longer any good,
then you should consider turning around
or diverting to where there's better weather.
MAN: A lot of the time, people get into cloud
when they didn't mean to
is they didn't make a decision,
and all of a sudden they're in it.
Again, we need to give them practice in this defensive idea
that "Could I get through there? What could go wrong?
"Have I got an escape route? It's OK to turn round.
"It's OK to consider that I won't make my destination."
If it's a VFR pilot who's trying to fly somewhere
and there's a deteriorating weather situation in front of them,
that's going to concentrate their attention to an extent.
As they approach the bad weather, or even enter the bad weather,
they're likely to experience a stress reaction to this event.
Heart rate will go up,
their blood pressure's going to increase,
they'll start to sweat,
they'll start to become quite concerned about their situation.
Now, this can affect their decision-making process.
As their stress reaction goes up,
their ability to make a clear rational decision
may become impaired.
Now, that point is quite dangerous
because the pilot may not make a clear, accurate decision
to turn around and go back out of the bad weather.
HOST: You're in the air,
but you have some concern about whether you can remain visual.
It's simple - talk to air traffic control.
And if you get into cloud, they can be a lifeline.
On average, around once every 10 days, a pilot declares an emergency.
And that equates to around 60% of them are basically on top of cloud,
where they can't get down through it,
and the rest are basically through... either in cloud
or reduced visibility through things like smoke and fog
and things like that.
And luckily for us, most of them get away with it
with the help of air traffic control.
And these are also only the reported occurrences as well.
The best emergency is the one that doesn't occur.
And if there's any doubt or whatever, ask for assistance.
We're there to help, and if we can, we will.
And we'd rather prevent it becoming a full-blown emergency
than actually have a full-blown emergency.
Airservices and the military -
we operate off the same documents.
So we do air traffic control the same way.
So from a pilot's point of view, it should be seamless.
So whether or not you're flying into a military-controlled aerodrome
or a civilly controlled aerodrome,
the procedures are exactly the same.
The first thing you do
is the controller will try and ensure
that the pilot's flying the aeroplane -
like, if it's in cloud, monitoring instruments, et cetera.
And we will try and ascertain from the pilot
how much instrument flying time they've had,
look at things like if the aeroplane's got an autopilot
and whether the pilot's able to use it
to help assist flying the aeroplane.
That's the first thing we need to sort out.
Then we'll use other pilots or other aircraft around the place,
Bureau of Met and other information that we can get hold of
to try and find out
where other VMC conditions are,
such as if you're on top looking for holes in the cloud base.
If they're in IMC,
you'll be looking at sort of
where that we could navigate the aircraft to.
We may ask the pilot questions as well
about when was the last time he was in VMC, et cetera,
because it may be the closest place
is actually to go back on a reciprocal track to where they were.
So the first point is to try and ascertain the situation
and then we'll use all variety of different sources
to obtain or work out where the best place is to help the aircraft get to.
HARFIELD: If you happen to find yourself in trouble
or looking at diminishing options when it comes to weather,
please don't hesitate to call.
There are all sorts of air traffic services out there.
You don't have to be in a controlled environment,
like a military aerodrome.
You can be OCTA and still be able to get flight watch
and other control agencies on HF and VHF.
They're all there to help.
And you're not alone out there,
so make sure you speak up if you're likely to get into trouble.
HOST: Once you're in cloud, things can quickly go wrong.
It could help if you have instrument experience.
But remember, it takes instrument-rated pilots
more than 40 hours to become proficient.
So it will take you more than a little luck to survive.
First thing you've got to do is stay calm, stay on your instruments.
Your instruments won't lie to you.
Stay on the artificial horizon, maintain wings level.
Then get on the radio and ask for help
through the relevant ATC section.
If you have someone beside you, get them to help you as well.
Use air traffic control
as basically your copilot where necessary.
DR NEWMAN: A pilot entering IMC
may go into a turn that they don't recognise.
And this can occur for many reasons.
One wing may drop some degree,
so the pilot may be preoccupied in the cockpit
with trying to work out what's going on.
May not recognise that the wing's dropped
and it's gone into a turn.
Now, the balance mechanisms in the inner ear
have a threshold
below which they won't pick up any motion.
Now, that can occur
when a pilot goes into this one-wing-low type situation.
As the pilot then recognises that they're in a turn and recovers,
that recovery's likely to be quite quick.
And the inner ear mechanisms will then get some input
that they're turning.
And that can create a mismatch
between what the pilot feels in their balance system
compared with what the instruments in the aircraft are telling them.
Now, that inner ear mechanism
can give very strong impulses to a pilot
to the extent that, in some cases, the instruments will be ignored
and the pilot will simply follow what their head is telling them.
Now, that can clearly result in
a significant spatial disorientation event.
Now, pilots need to look at the instruments
and make the instruments read correct -
you know, straight and level -
and try to ignore the sensations that their head is giving them.
That can be very difficult because the sensations can be very strong.
But clearly it's important to believe the instruments
rather than what the pilot's head is telling them.
Other factors can make disorientation more likely.
What the pilot's been doing in the one or two days prior to flight
can have an important effect on the risk of disorientation.
Alcohol can make disorientation more likely.
Even the hangover effect can make it more likely.
That's also going to interfere with
the pilot's decision-making abilities and overall flight performance.
Any medications the pilot may be taking for whatever reason
can interfere with their inner ear balance mechanisms,
the decision-making process.
And, of course, the reason they're taking the medication -
if it's an illness for whatever reason,
even a simple one like a cold or some respiratory tract infection -
can impair not only their overall flight performance
but their risk of disorientation.
One of the big things that pilots don't do
is they don't slow their aeroplane down.
That is very important.
When you get into bad weather -
the cloud base is lowering, the visibility is decreasing -
put the aeroplane in the precautionary mode.
Every aeroplane has a precautionary mode -
usually a couple of stages of flap, slower speed -
and this gives you time to think.
This also decreases your radius of turn
when you turn the aircraft.
So slow the aeroplane down.
Get away from the cloud. Slow the aeroplane down.
Basically, subregulation 4 of regulation 157 gives you an out
for not being permitted to fly below 500 feet or 1,000 feet over towns.
And that is that it says "through stress of weather"
you may descend to a lower altitude
if it's essential for the safety of the aircraft.
And 'essential' means
that there's really no other safety option available to you.
In other words if you don't do this,
then there's great risk to the aeroplane and to yourself.
Most people learn to fly in blue skies,
but it's worth experiencing bad weather.
So go on a flight with an instructor and experience marginal conditions.
This will help you in the future
to make decisions that could save your life.
The best thing we can do is
we try to encourage people to continue their training.
Most of them, once they have their basic,
ready to do an aerobatics rating afterwards or a night rating.
By that time, maybe the weather will change a little bit
and things like that.
Or we encourage people to come back
and maybe do a back seat with somebody
when the weather is a bit different as well
so they get the real exposure to the weather, really, you know?
I think the biggest thing we can do
is give people practical experience of what it's like
so they can see it coming for themselves.
And rather than it being a theoretical, abstract thing
they've talked about and read about
but it will never really happen to them,
they are put in the situation and realise what it's like
and will either then decide themselves
that it could happen to them and they'll get instrument-rated.
Or at least they've been put in the situation with an instructor
and they'll see it coming
and hopefully be prepared next time to turn around before it's too late.
So there you have it -
if you're unsure about whether to fly, don't go.
But if you're well prepared and proactive,
you'll have less stress and greater safety.