Ultralight vehicles meeting these requirements (weight, single seater, etc.) are subject to NO airworthiness regulation by the FAA at all. So the FAA is making no statement on whether they are safe or easy to fly.
What these regulations mean is it is not a crime to fly something meeting these requirements (even if it was assembled by your crazy neighbor in their shed). That doesn't mean anyone would think it is a good idea, let alone the FAA.
In fact, unexpected clouds are among the top killers in general aviation with a fatality (!) rate of 86% - if you lose visual, you got 180 seconds to live on average [1].
Stay the fuck away from clouds, fog and other visual obstacles with anything that moves, no matter if it's a drone, a plane, a ship or a road vehicle, unless you are trained and certified in instrumental operation. You will either hit something you didn't intend to yourself, or you will get hit by something that could have avoided you, had your vehicle had collision avoidance systems (in aircraft, TCAS, in watercraft ordinary radar plus AIS - neither of which are a requirement in small vehicles).
[1] https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2022/june/pilot...
Broad Points:
1. The study was done in 1954, not 1991. 2. The AI, DG and VSI were covered. 3. The subjects had received NO prior instrument training whatsoever, typical for private pilots of that time period. 4. The study was performed in a real airplane, a Bonanza. None of the students had ever flown a complex high-performance aircraft prior to the study.
Yes, flying IMC as a non IFR pilot is dangerous, but the video/study is misleading. I can't find the original source for 86% but I'd bet anything that a PPLs today would not die 86% of the time if they flew into IMC, I suspect they mean it was fatal in 86% of the cases where there was an incident.
What IS going to kill a VFR-only pilot is things like scud-running under a marginal ceiling trying to press an airport because "I swear it can't be that bad based on the last PIREP and I have to meet Mom/Dad/spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend/buddies because X." Then they find out the ceiling IS that bad, they go inadvertent IMC, they freak out, and now we're off to the races. Maybe they wrap it up too tight trying to do a 180. Maybe they CFIT. Maybe they pop out again mid-turn and now they're lost AND freaked out.
One of the #1 rules of aviation is to KNOW YOUR LIMITS.
That said, as a lowly PPL, I think we PPLs should do foggle practice somewhat regularly especially if you intend to fly at night in a rural/coastal area. There've been a few CFITs into the ocean at a nearby airport because of non-instrument PPLs taking off out into the ocean with no references.
That means most pilots around here live a lot longer than 180 seconds if they meet a cloud, the 2 big problems are mountains and landings (if the cloud base is very low), there is no good training for that except things like AirNav Pro on a tablet with the right maps and 3D view but that is a measure of last resort, not a training.
But in the end I fully agree that if you are not trained, stay away from clouds and fog. I am just pointing the difference between being trained and being licensed, in Romania you cannot get licensed for IFR on planes up to 600 kg, nor are you allowed to fly at night (other EU countries allows it).
Holy shit, why!? Are these planes crashing into the ground? It seems to me (an ignorant layman) that you would exit the clouds and have some time to regain control.
I have no doubt that the planes are crashing, given the fatality rate, but why is it so unavoidable that they crash after entering clouds?
Edit: found a little on the link referenced: " often ends in an unrecoverable graveyard spiral or spin"...I guess I just didn't realize that there are unrecoverable situations (given enough altitude). I'm going to blame Hollywood.
People end up trusting their body reflexes that have evolved for very different situation and absolutely lie to you. When an airplane turns, the actual G forces upon your body are very different than, for example, in a car. So the body feeling we have that we are turning or going straight in a car, misleads us when we are flying.
When you learn to fly, typically instructor will have a lesson where they obscure your sight (usually something called a "hood"), and let you fly by the seat of your pants for a minute or two. Typically, after a little while, when asked, student will be certain they are flying straight and level. Instructor will then remove the hood and demonstrate they are e.g. in a steep turning dive - something that would result in collision if allowed to continue.
Airplanes themselves do not crash after 180s (in fact, most small GA airplanes are designed to level themselves if left unattended). People crash them after a couple of minutes with sight obstructed :<.
(the Instrument Flight Rating is similar in USA & Canada as well, FWIW - you need to obtain that additional certification on top of your private license, to fly in clouds. Otherwise you are formally and legally constrained to VFR - Visual Flight Rules. There are extremely specific details on how close you are allowed to get to a cloud in every dimension, when you are and aren't allowed to fly, and what you must do if you cannot obey. These are drilled, tested, examined, and taken seriously)
And if the cloud ceiling underneath you is low enough, by the time you realize this, you may not have enough time or maneuverability to recover. Also, in some areas of the country, clouds have been known to conceal large mountains and cliff faces, which are uniformly fatal to airplanes.
Of course there's also Special VFR but I doubt you'd get authorization for that in an Ultralight.
An example of someone who lived to tell the tale:
http://www.37000feet.com/report/879711/new-in-type-private-p...
It is certainly possible (and easy) to become disoriented in IMC.
But every private pilot has at least a couple of hours of simulated instrument time and should be capable of navigating their aircraft back out of a cloud.
You are taught, if you have a competent instructor, to ignore your senses and rely on the instruments in such situations, as well as recovery from unusual attitudes by instruments alone.
I don’t doubt that people forget their training or don’t keep current however.
Also, there is no such thing (for light aircraft) as an unrecoverable attitude that results in impacting the ground a minute and a half later.
Any properly loaded certificated light aircraft can be recovered from any attitude if you have that much time.
It takes a max of about 10 seconds to recover an aircraft from any unusual attitude and reestablish straight and level flight.
A spiral dive (the typical situation with loss of visual reference) it might take 15 seconds since you have to bleed off the speed you picked up.
There might be some extremely low drag aircraft that might be a bit more problematic in that regard, but they are typically also capable of much higher VNE limits.
And yes, in theory properly loaded certified plane can be recovered in most of the cases. But it is not going to help you to know that recovery takes 10k feet if you are at 8k AGL.
If you are a pilot and do not take recurrent training or actively practice -in the aircraft you fly- on unusual conditions, you are actively in abdication of your responsibility as a pilot and should not be flying anything heavier than a part103 aircraft. There is a reason why even landing at night requires a 90day currency before you can land at night with a passenger. Being a pilot is not like riding a bicycle. It requires constant skill maintenance.
There is no situation you can get into where the aircraft is still intact where a recovery in a light aircraft will take more than about 1000 feet if properly executed. Perhaps in some aircraft as much as 2000 feet.
The only way I can imagine anything so extreme is that you are already at VNE pointed straight down and you have to slip the plane a little to slow down before you can pull significant Gs on the airframe. That might take a few seconds. But it also assumes you already have been in an unusual attitude for quite some time and chose not to recover until now.
> There is a reason why even landing at night requires a 90day currency...
With passengers. I don't like to fly at night in a single engine plane and I go months if not years between night (solo) landings. Granted I don't fly to unlighted runways, but in my experience landing at night on a lighted runway is not that harder than landing during the day.
> ... in a light aircraft will take more than about 1000 feet if properly executed. Perhaps in some aircraft as much as 2000 feet.
Many planes have been modified after the spin certification had been done. E.g. on my A36 I have tip tanks, radar, TN engine, anti-ice, ... I have no idea if it will recover from spin as expected or not. And I have no interest in testing it. I can tell you that I lose 500-600 feet in a stall. This gives me a hint that recovery from a spin might be more than 1000 feet.
Aircraft that are deemed incapable of entering a spin inside their operational envelope may be granted an exception. (Some stall resistant aircraft like the ercoupe or some canards, for example )
In practice, although many light aircraft are not certified for intentional spins, almost all of them are recoverable from a fully developed spin inside 1000 feet. YMMV with a large transport category aircraft however lol.
A fully developed spin is like a seed helicoptering to the ground. It is a stable condition, with a low and constant rate of descent. It used to be taught as standard practice for c150 pilots to use a flat (fully developed, stable) spin to descend through clouds into a known safe ceiling if a non instrument pilot found themselves trapped above a cloud layer with sufficient clear space below the layer to descend into.
Spins are not, generally, a boogie-man… but accidentally entering one during a steep turn near the ground is a really bad idea. I have more than one friend who has tried it , 0/10 would not recommend.
One possible exception is when you have floats attached. I’m not sure of the spin recoverability of a light plane with floats, never tried it, but I do know mounting floats on many aircraft effectively voids their intentional spin endorsement and sometimes requires the installation of additional vertical stabilisers on the empennage.
I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to spin my old t-cart on floats with a kayak tucked under one wing and a pair of rifles strapped to the other. Don’t have to worry about VNE with that outfit though lol.
I have only been in actual instrument conditions once with an instructor who was certified to do so under and instrument flight plan. It's disorienting. It's turbulent. Its impossible to avoid other planes (IFR the tower keeps you separated).
Crosswinds and rain and landing are basically boring after a few tens of hours. But fuck clouds.
I don't think that's the reason. The reason is that they are unlikely to hurt anyone besides the pilot in a crash.
They can have an engine failure, stall-spin, or fly into a cloud just as readily as any other plane. Those are the biggest risks for GA, and they're no easier to handle in an ultralight.