Personal Minimums in Flight Sim

[crippy]

Interesting little topic.
Background: Flew a IFR refresher night flight tonight and I knew it was going to be foggy, with mist so I thought perfect night to do so.
(Was flown to the same airport as I took off from as a refresher{Yes P3Dv4 ATC does allow it, and isn't too bad actually with the vectors})

I load in with 5SM sky clear (Real world weather all the way through). By the time I take-off Vis was 3 miles, ceiling 200FT.
By the time I land: 1/4SM Visibility, Mist, Ceiling 100 Overcast YES 100FT overcast .

I shot the ILS down to minimums and then some...Wasn't awful considering my last IFR was ...... 8+ months ago.
Wound up shooting the ILS down to about 75FT below minimums and then the runway came into view.

The ILS called for 200FT and 1/2SM visibility, so the approach and landing was technically "Illegal", however it made for a very real and tense approach. I learned a lot from it.

This brings us to the discussion, when using real world weather in the sim do you have personal IFR/VFR minimums or you wont "Fly/Sim"?
I have a standard wind max of 18Kts depending on if it is a direct crosswind or not.

Interested to see the replies!

[Killratio]

I follow the minima set out under the CASA rules out here in Oz.

I have broken them at times due weather changes or getting "caught out" but never deliberately, or at takeoff or landing.

I also have a personal prohibition when GA flying in sim (and always had IRL) against using "sucker holes" when VFR.

For "war flying" photo recce then I only apply minima as they applied in wartime. (very few apart from takeoff).

[Hook]

For bush flying (in Alaska for example), without autopilot or radio nav aids, I prefer at least one mile of visibility and a 300 foot ceiling although I will fly through or land in less. My last flight was in the lower 48 in a Stearman, and visibility was so poor at one point that I was flying along a road and dodging trees. If I am not in the mood for scud running I prefer at least 3 miles of visibility and a 500 foot ceiling. I don't use IFR, but I often fly in instrument conditions.

I have found myself in situations without an artificial horizon where I temporarily had to use needle-ball-and-airspeed until I was out of the clouds.

Most of my flying is pure dead reckoning anyway, with minimal use of the GPS. I use real world charts courtesy of Skyvector.com and Active Sky Next. I will usually forego a flight or change to historical weather if ASN shows much yellow on the map, or large areas of green. I have also searched historical weather for poor conditions when that's the kind of flying I'm looking for.

Hook

[Hook]

Winds: I once flew the A2A Cub in the Aleutians with a 40 knot wind. I was looking out the side window to see the direction I was going. I did a "bush landing" at Dutch Harbor *across* the runway on that one. "That was the shortest runway I've ever seen, but look how WIDE it is!"

In a recent flight in a Stearman I was pointed 20 degrees into the wind. I had expected crosswinds at that altitude requiring a correction of about 10-12 degrees and the actual wind ended up being much higher. I recently bought a manual E6B which makes wind planning easy, as long as the actual winds are the same as the forecast. A flight in a DC-3 gave me over 50 knots of crosswind at altitude requiring a similar correction but I was flying with radio nav aids at the time. Flying any lower would have given me head winds and I was already pushing my fuel.

Sucker holes: I've read enough books where people had to use them to realize that they are important in the real world. I even talked to a real pilot who had to use one and he was still in training at the time, hadn't gotten his license yet: "I saw a hole and div[sic] through it..."

Hook

[thunderstreak]

The nice thing about flying in the sim is there are no real consequences! I use Active Sky and usually fly with real weather. Flying propliners in the VA I belong to I have encountered low ceilings, poor visibility and no ILS at my destination a bunch of times. I use my iPad and ForeFlight as a backup navigational tool. The charts in ForeFlight give you all the info you need to sneak in at low altitude, not hit anything and find the runway! In the real world I’m much less fearless!

[n421nj]

Not in the sim. In real life I’ll cancel a flight if a leaf is blowing the wrong direction. In the sim I only fly with real weather. The great thing is I can jump from place to place on the globe in an instant to fly in the weather I want.

[ClipperLuna]

I don' like to fly anyplace where the ceiling is less than 500' or the visibility less than 1 mile. I enjoy instrument approaches, but I don't practice them often enough to be comfortable with the clouds this low or thick.

[wblackret]

IRL, minimums plus a comfortable buffer zone. In sim, attempt to follow the rules but will bend the rules a bit. In sim, bending the rules, is used more for a training aid. It has bit me n the behind a few times, but it gives me a level of confidence for RL situations. I always use real weather though.

[Hook]

In real life I'd prefer not to get into a light plane unless the weather would be described as "a nice day." I don't mind turbulence in the convection layer but I want good visibility.

I just did Dubai to Karachi in the DC-3. ASN had most of the map in green, but at 6000 feet I could see fairly well flying along the coast. Dubai was experiencing a dust storm with about 3 mile visibility making departure interesting but not difficult. As I was approaching Karachi visibility went to near nothing, under 4 mile visibility and low clouds, and the airport disappeared. It was bad enough that I almost landed at the wrong airport, but at the end I was in a bad position, way too high. Still got landed OK. Thank goodness for radio nav aids.

If this had been in Alaska I'd have been at 500 feet.

I looked at the weather for the next Stearman flight (KRFD to KOSH) and SkyVector showed every station on the route and anywhere near it as either red or magenta. The entire area was also marked as IFR and Icing. Avoid icing at all costs. This is when I decided to fly the next DC-3 leg for an around the world flight.

Hook

[Mickel]

Yeah, kinda. If some place is fogged in and I'm going VFR, then I don't go. I do push it from time to time. If the AS16 destination report is bad and there is no ILS, then I'll go some place else. Have had two of those occasions you sometimes see on Y/T where minimums was called the moment I saw lead-in lights - once in a Dash 8 and once in a
737. They're pretty cool. Nearly smeared the B377 into a valley wall in Alaska getting cute flying into Ketchikan. The destination weather was ok, but made a bad call getting into Clarence Strait.

[Orlaam]

Yes and no. I almost never fly VFR since it's hard to accurately find landmarks or follow those rules. If I'm flying in Arizona from Phoenix Metro to Sedona or something I am familiar with, then yes, provided weather is good. Most of my flights are flown IFR despite the weather (e.g., zeroed altitude, in clouds, GPS, et cetera).

In a GA such as the Comanche or Bonanza, I try not to go below 200 feet VV and 1/2 mile RVR on ILS. I usually just follow CATI minimums on the plate. If it's an RNAV/GPS or other non-precision approach, the minimums are higher so I'm ok with trying it out. I haven't done an NDB approach in ages, so I don't even mess with those now much. Typically I'm more reluctant to allow myself to get too low or close to a runway if I can't see it. For IFR with IMC Wx I require an ILS and it's it's BCAT I'm not going.

Now, in the Boeing aircraft (e.g., 737, 747), I have no concerns getting to CATIII and landing with little or no RVR/VV. The Dash 8 I kinda bump it up a little, preferable CATII or just CATI. Horizon take their Dash 8 down to 50 feet VV, but I find the HUD doesn't play well in the clouds (e.g., motion) I use in the sim. I just think hand flying I want greater visibility in the Dash and GA.

[Hook]

I checked weather for the Stearman flight later and while visibility was good, the entire area was under clouds at around 1000-1200 feet. Even though I'd normally be flying at about 1500 AGL anyway I decided to hold off on that trip. I guess minimums depend on how I'm feeling at the time.

If I'm flying in Alaska, 1000 foot ceilings and 5 mile visibility are CAVOK. Remember: no autopilot and no navaids and no use of the GPS beyond situational awareness. I prefer the A2A map to the GPS anyway.

Hook

[avduarri]

Because I try to sim like I fly in real life, doing VFR I use the same personal minimuns in both cases. That's ceiling 1500ft AGL and visibility no less than 9km.

[avduarri]

I'm not IFR rated, so when simming an IFR flight I use the legal minimums depending on the approach at destination.

[CAPFlyer]

I do have personal minimums, but they vary depending on what I'm flying in the sim. Light aircraft and most turboprops, my minimums are 500ft. ceiling and 1/2 mile visibility (or metric equivalent) - basically RNAV approach minimums. That gives me enough time to see the runway and maneuver because I'm missing a lot of my real-world cues that make for safe approaches. For jets, it depends on what the jet has - if it's got Autoland and I've had practice with it in good conditions (i.e. I trust it runs well on my system) I'm comfortable with full CAT IIIc if needed and the plane is approved for it. I've flown in CAT IIIc conditions in the sim exactly twice in the last 19+ years of FS, so that is a good idea of how rare those conditions are anyway. Both times I was flying a 747-400 and both times it was the end of a long international flight where the forecast weather and what really happened were two totally different things (one of them it forecast CAVOK and I arrived to stratus clouds and dense fog at 3am local). Otherwise, it's 200 and 1/2 mile or whatever the chart says if it's higher. As most of my flights are for a Virtual Airlines, I tend to hold pretty fast to the minimums as I like to do things as I'd do if I were flying in real life. No "look see" approaches, especially with passengers onboard.