Instrument Current (sorta long)

[tonycondon]

Yesterday was beautiful IFR with 900 foot ceilings and 8 mile vis. I needed one approach and a hold to be instrument current. My 3 approaches on September 25 only got me legal to the end of september. I called up the new CFII at Haps and started preflighting the 182RG. A call to Flight "Service" was actually very nice. Our calls have been getting routed to Princeton AFSS instead of the major hub "Do you want fries with that?" AFSS. as the briefer was hanging up a strange number showed up on my phone and it turned out to be our very own Spike Cutler. He felt the need to remind me that his Texas Longhorns were currently beating the Iowa State Cyclones like a red headed stepchild (Hook em Horns!). That also explained the ramp full of miniature airliners (and some real airliners!). CFII showed up and we scrounged up some approach plates. A King Air full of Texas fans had just started up so we waited for it to get to the runway, then we taxied out and as they left got our clearance. Once they were on radar and clear of the area we were released and off we went. in cloud at 900 AGL and headed for the OM/Compass Locator for the home ILS to do a hold and then fire the approach. did a nice teardrop entry, detected a slight wind from the east on my inbound. As we crossed over the NDB headed outboud with a little wind correction to the east. Approach had asked us to report when we were turning inbound for the ILS, so as I began my turn inbound I reported we were headed in on the approach. 'cleared for approach, cancel on 126.0 on the ground, change to advisory' okie dokie. as i finished the readback i realized the turn inbound was only about half over but the needle was rapidly approaching center. doh!

another nice thing about this approach is that there are really big TV antennas about 5 miles east of the final approach course. because of this the hold is at 4000 feet as is the procedure turn if you choose to do that. BUT, the crossing height over the OM is 2700 so you have some major altitude to lose quick in order to get set up where you want to be. Also I had a slight quartering tailwind on the approach which had caused me to be a little closer than I wouldve liked out of the hold and also made it tough to get down. This is where I like the 182RG gear out and power off and down down down we came. I managed to get on the glideslope as we came over the marker and everything was nice and stabilized. Weather had deteriorated a little since we took off and vis was no down around 4 miles in mist. I was pretty focused on the 6 pack and NAV as I had to get everything stabilized from the overshoot and being high while turning inbound. the CFII announced he had the rabbits in sight as we came through 500 AGL so I looked up and wa lah there they were. I mentioned it seemed that the weather had gone down a fair amount, and he said we had broken out at 1800 but that the vis was worse. I had been so focused and everything in my peripheral was still white due to lower vis that I hadnt even noticed. Oh well with the conditions the way they were I decided to just land straight in with the 5 knot tailwind rather than circle to land and we made the first turnoff. Quick call to Des Moines to tell them we hadnt died and back to the ramp we went. took about a 1/2 hour but what fun!

All of this was in preparation to fly up to Decorah today with Leah for a fly in Lunch being hosted by the EAA chapter there. supposed to be a Fall Foliage type of thing. Heres the weather for the route:

KAMW 141306Z AUTO 13008KT 2 1/2SM RA BR OVC005 13/12 A2997 RMK AO2 P0003
KMIW 141311Z AUTO 12008KT 2 1/2SM RA BR BKN006 BKN009 OVC027 12/11 A2996 RMK AO2 P0004
[FONT=Monospace,Courier]KALO 141331Z 12016G21KT 2SM RA BR BKN006 OVC023 11/11 A2995 RMK AO2 P0008[/FONT]
[FONT=Monospace,Courier]KDEH 141335Z AUTO 10005KT 1 1/2SM -RA OVC008 11/10 A3003 RMK AO2 P0002[/FONT]

Decorahs NDB or VOR approach only goes down to 700 and with forecast of heavy rain and fog with the Terminals in the area looking at 600 OVC for the day I decided that maybe I should just stay in bed. Boy a IFR GPS and a 396 would sure be nice

 

[gismo]

My instrument currency expires at the end of this month (IPC at Simcom in April) and I've had only one approach since then. Guess I'd better find a CFII soon. Are you coming to this area soon?

 

[tonycondon]

Lance I may be able to work something out. Any chance you can come down to Ames for the Fly In? Otherwise, I may be able to get a day off work on the 25 or 29/30/31. Otherwise...if you wanted to fly down to CR on the 3rd or 4th we could do it then.

 

[Teller1900]

Heres the weather for the route:

KAMW 141306Z AUTO 13008KT 2 1/2SM RA BR OVC005 13/12 A2997 RMK AO2 P0003
KMIW 141311Z AUTO 12008KT 2 1/2SM RA BR BKN006 BKN009 OVC027 12/11 A2996 RMK AO2 P0004
[FONT=Monospace,Courier]KALO 141331Z 12016G21KT 2SM RA BR BKN006 OVC023 11/11 A2995 RMK AO2 P0008[/FONT]
[FONT=Monospace,Courier]KDEH 141335Z AUTO 10005KT 1 1/2SM -RA OVC008 11/10 A3003 RMK AO2 P0002[/FONT]

Decorahs NDB or VOR approach only goes down to 700 and with forecast of heavy rain and fog with the Terminals in the area looking at 600 OVC for the day I decided that maybe I should just stay in bed. Boy a IFR GPS and a 396 would sure be nice

That's gentleman's IFR right there One of these years, if I ever actually make some money, I'll have to have you check me out in the RG...I've always wanted to try that thing.

My instrument currency expires at the end of this month (IPC at Simcom in April) and I've had only one approach since then. Guess I'd better find a CFII soon.

I'll be in Ames for the fly in if all goes as planned, and will probably be flying through MSP...I think my CFII is still current, so long as you can tell me where the airport is

 

[gismo]

I'm not as likely to make the fly-in as I had hoped. My daughter has next Thursday and Friday off from school and my wife is talking about taking a long weekend trip to visit family.

Edit:

I'm getting a bit calendar challenged. The long weekend is Oct 18-21 so I'm still open for the fly in on the 27th. Might have to show up a day earlier to make time for the IPC?

 

[ScottM]

Sounds like fun.

I was up flying today and needed my instrument rating for a little bit. It was pretty good vis throughout the flight but coming back up the lake shore the vis started to drop. It was MVFR and was not looking good up ahead. It was just rain showers, no wind, great IMC. I called FSS and closed my VFR flight plan and then baffled '3 Courics of material' out him when I tried to file an IFR flight plan while in the air. I think he finally got it. But as the vis was closing down and I was getting closer to a 180 turn to stay legal VFR, I just went over to approach (chicago approach BTW) and requested my clearance. He treated it as a pop up and all went well. I can tell it was a pop up as I filed under my N-number but when I called approach I used my CG callsign and the flight does not show up in flightaware as they block government flights from showing up.

The WX did go IMC for a bit. I could not see anything forward at all and we only had some vertical vis downward. I hand flew the approach, first handflown one in IMC in a while. I usually practice hand flying approaches in VMC while under the hood but in actual I will use the autopilot. But seeing as this was 'easy' IMC I did it all myself. I did get 2 dots right of course though

We landed and rolled out. I decided to fuel and the poor line guy got wet since it was raining, I stayed in the cockpit. Gotta love 'full service' I got wet later when I put the airplane away.

I try to fly 1 or 2 approaches a month to stay current. I did do an IPC earlier this year and need to do some holds pretty soon. I hate holds. Not becasue they are hard, just boring.

 

[tonycondon]

I'll be in Ames for the fly in if all goes as planned, and will probably be flying through MSP...I think my CFII is still current, so long as you can tell me where the airport is

thatd be like your first hour of instruction given right?

 

[tonycondon]

That's gentleman's IFR right there

haha well i kept thinking that i would try the flight if i was getting paid, as there were plenty of outs and it wouldve been easy to just come back to ames and be home if we couldnt get into decorah. but i wasnt going to pay all that money to not have lunch with leahs brother! so you hotshot airline kids can shoot your ILS's with 100 OVC reported all day long, but i dont really feel that shooting an off field VOR or an NDB approach to below minimum weather is much fun.

 

[Teller1900]

thatd be like your first hour of instruction given right?

4th, actually! One of the TSA guys up here owns a plane, but only has his PPL and has slowly been working on his IR for the last 20 or so years, and hadn't been up in actual in a while...we've had more than plenty of that recently, so I went up with him so he could bore a few holes in some clouds and shoot a few ILSs. That, and I wanted lunch at a restaurant out on the coast, so it worked out. 3.2 hours dual given now! I feel like a real instructor now.

 

[Teller1900]

haha well i kept thinking that i would try the flight if i was getting paid, as there were plenty of outs and it wouldve been easy to just come back to ames and be home if we couldnt get into decorah. but i wasnt going to pay all that money to not have lunch with leahs brother! so you hotshot airline kids can shoot your ILS's with 100 OVC reported all day long, but i dont really feel that shooting an off field VOR or an NDB approach to below minimum weather is much fun.

We won't shoot them if it's below mins either, but I suppose I can't blame you for not wanting to push it....I know I wouldn't either if I wasn't in a twin with on board radar, TCAS and GPWS. I got to shoot a full NDB into Rockland a couple weeks ago...looks like that rainy afternoon on the computer at Hap's paid off

 

[tonycondon]

4th, actually! One of the TSA guys up here owns a plane, but only has his PPL and has slowly been working on his IR for the last 20 or so years, and hadn't been up in actual in a while...we've had more than plenty of that recently, so I went up with him so he could bore a few holes in some clouds and shoot a few ILSs. That, and I wanted lunch at a restaurant out on the coast, so it worked out. 3.2 hours dual given now! I feel like a real instructor now.

geez do you remember how to fly a single?

We won't shoot them if it's below mins either, but I suppose I can't blame you for not wanting to push it....I know I wouldn't either if I wasn't in a twin with on board radar, TCAS and GPWS. I got to shoot a full NDB into Rockland a couple weeks ago...looks like that rainy afternoon on the computer at Hap's paid off

yea im glad that skill came in handy for you. It would've been nice to have an airplane with a GPS today, as I wouldve been able to get lower minimums and wouldve been able to make the trip. oh well.

 

[Teller1900]

geez do you remember how to fly a single?



yea im glad that skill came in handy for you. It would've been nice to have an airplane with a GPS today, as I wouldve been able to get lower minimums and wouldve been able to make the trip. oh well.

I was definitely not SE current. Havn't flown once since I did my commercial/CFI-SE add-ons back in late March or early April...the whole fixed pitch thing confuses me now

 

[KennyFlys]

I was definitely not SE current. Havn't flown once since I did my commercial/CFI-SE add-ons back in late March or early April...the whole fixed pitch thing confuses me now

You could always install a phony prop control if it makes you feel better.

 

[Teller1900]

You could always install a phony prop control if it makes you feel better.

Hmmm...blue construction paper and some elmer's....that could work.

 

[bkreager]

Sounds like fun Tony! You might need a boat to get around Ames after tonight though. Does James D. still instruct at Haps? Last time I talked to him he had just left Ankeny and I think he was going to Simpson this fall.

 

[tonycondon]

yes there is a James that instructs at haps although i dont know that i have ever met him. I dont know his story.

it was fun, nice to get a little instruction every know and then.