What is “flat hatting”?
Flying fast and low. I mostly have heard it called scudrunning. But that may be for those that are flying below a very low overcast sky.
Back in the early 80s a couple of fellows were scudrunning in a Cessna 210, about 100’ AGL over I-74 with bad visibility even then, between Bloomington,IL and Peoria. The vertical stabilizer struck a high tension line, which rammed the elevator down. They crashed into the back of a semi trailer full of tires. The shocked trucker managed to stop, unhook, and pull away from the inferno.
The guys in the plane probably didn’t feel the burn. There were teeth wedged in the cooling fins on one of the engine cylinders.