BTW, I have a training technique that I virtually guarantee is one where you'll put yourself in the graveyard spiral, even if you're a multi-thousand hour IFR pilot, within about 90 seconds. The longest I've seen someone last is about 150 seconds. I got it from a very wise pilot examiner and use it as an object lesson about how unreliable seat-of-the-pants piloting is.
I'm all ears or all eyes. Can you describe it?
Off topic, but since I'm heading you off at the pass in linking the ebil gubbiment killing JFK, Jr. and somehow linking that to non-existent conspiracies about Apollo being faked, 9/11 being a US Government Job, and the Holocaust not being real, I'll tell you.
IMPORTANT SAFETY NOTE: Do NOT do this by yourself and only do this under daytime visual conditions with a qualified instructor. All you need to do is set up the airplane in normal cruise. Put the airplane in a coordinated two minute turn. Now stare at your left or right foot, preferably with a view limiting device. This simulates trying to fly the airplane with no visual cues, such as looking out the window on a dark, moonless night with no visible horizon. Maintain the two minute turn using your vestibular and kinesthetic senses. Most people will be in a descending, accelerating 50 degree bank within 270 degrees of turn. You can start from straight and level, but it takes a little longer for events to unfold.
That's how JFK, Jr. flew a PA32 into the ocean.
ETA and back on subject: If I know the airplane has been tested at the factory, been properly maintained, know the G-load and V-speed limits, and have learned the techniques for flying an aircraft in an inadvertent thunderstorm encounter, then there's no good reason to actually go into a cell. But your logic says my training and the testing of the aircraft is only valid if I do so.
Did my logic actually say that? I thought we agreed not to fly into the thunderstorm.
Why, yes, your logic says that. The only way of knowing something works is to do it yourself (astronaut needs to go into a vacuum chamber in a full suit to prove it works).
Now, that usually a self-induced emergency, so it doesn't match up precisely with the spacesuit/sublimator issue. But take icing as an example. I have flown light GA airplanes with known icing equipment, notably the Diamond DA-42 with a "weeping wing". I've read the approved flight manual, know how the system works, read the relevant training material from the FAA, Jeppesen, ASA, ad infinitum. Because of this training, I know how to fly the airplane in icing conditions. Never happened, because, even when conditions were favorable, I never was '"lucky" enough to pick up ice in the airplane (oddly enough, I picked up a boatload of ice in Cherokee when it was supposed to be too warm, but I digress). Yet, even though I never had the experience of flying in ice I knew the system (not that particular aircraft) had been tested and approved, both at the component level and as an integrated whole. Thus, I had confidence in it and did not have to take the plane to a full scale icing tunnel to test it before I flew it.
So you actually wanted icing because you were trained to deal with it? If you had gotten icing and dealt with it, would you have more or less confidence the next time you got it? If you could simulate icing under controlled conditions and train your students under those conditions, would you do so?
No, I didn't
want icing (unlike the NASA test pilots in the Twin Otter). I was saying that I was confident in the aircraft and its systems along with my skills to handle it. BTW, I would never linger in icing conditions (and neither do 747's).
I simulate icing very easily with my students. I say, while they're in simulated IMC, "OK, I see [rime/clear/mixed] ice forming on the leading edge of the wing - what are you going to do about it?" I want to see if the training kicks in, depending on what I "saw". No need to risk my student, myself, or the aircraft by actually getting ice.
