This weekend launched the fourth month of commuting almost 500 miles each way between Minneapolis and the ND oil patch. My friend & student started his flight training with me a year ago January (only flying Saturday mornings when he was home on the weekends), and finished his license last June. In January of this year he bought a turbo-normalized A36 and hired me as their pilot/instructor, as well as an opportunity to work for the company when not flying.
We started commuting the third week in January and despite weekly flights out on Sunday and back on Friday I've been somewhat amazed at how much of the time we're in severe clear, or only need IFR for a few minutes on either end. Out of all those flights we've only had to shoot 3-4 approaches to anything even approaching minimums. But today, we got in some good real-world IFR training.
I awoke to rumbling thunder. Throughout the morning I watched the progress of the weather system on ForeFlight (see first image.) Around noon I determined we'd have a window of opportunity around 3:30p or so between major rounds of TS.
We met at the airport a little before 3:30p. The rain had stopped and the ceilings lifted slightly, so we loaded up and launched. We were picking up ADS-B data on the ground at KFCM so had a good picture of the weather.
Turbulence was moderate-plus after takeoff and continued pretty steady to our initial 3,000' altitude. Bases for the scattered layer were 2,800 putting us IMC shortly after takeoff. They then bumped us to 4,000' which put us between layers. There was a finger of orange jutting north adjacent to our flight path so I asked for a deviation which was readily given.
Soon they bumped us to 6,000' which put us in solid IMC where we'd remain for most of the trip. We had about ten minutes between layers at one point, but most of the 2.5 hours flight was solid IMC.
We were painting some heavier returns along our route. Originally I thought they might pass to the north before we got there, but we had 38 kts on the tail and a ground speed initially of 203 kts, so decided that wouldn't work. About the time I arrived at that decision we were handed off to Mpls Center. The first thing the controller did was suggest a northerly routing that would get us up and around the heavier stuff. I confirmed that would work well for us and he promptly cleared us on the new routing. We reprogrammed the 430 as we turned northward to the new route.
As we approached our destination the ADS-B METAR for Stanely (08D) was almost three hours old, so we asked Minot Approach for the updated weather. The automated weather was saying 400' OVC, 2 miles, wind 080 at 10G17. The only approach into Stanley is a GPS 27 with a straight-in MDA of 500' and a circling minimum of 700'.
As we were approaching our IAP we started picking up some mixed ice in descent. I told my student to hit full defrost. Outside air temp had been mid-40s for most of the flight, but was starting to drop as we proceeded northwest and began the descent while night was approaching.
At the final approach fix we dropped the gear and started down. He was struggling a bit tracking the HSI requiring a bit of intervention on my part. Shortly after reaching the MDA we began seeing ground features associated with the approach area, allowing us to descend the additional 100'. The defrost and drizzle had begun clearing the windshield and about five seconds after reaching 400' AGL the runway was in sight. We were committed to the straight-in since we were 300' below circling minimums.
We planted the Bo on the runway about 300' beyond the numbers and she dutifully slowed down without excessive braking by the halfway mark despite the push from the tailwind. Stanley has 3,900' of good runway so that wasn't a huge concern.
A few take-aways my student got from this flight:
1) 2.5 Hours of hand-flying in IMC can be pretty demanding. Even slight distractions had him off altitude or off heading, or both!
2) ADS-B is a god-send for IFR flying. While not perfect (three hour old wx at destination), the accuracy of the weather depicted vs. what ATC was saying they showed was remarkable, making in-flight decision-making much easier.
3) ATC can be REALLY helpful when battling the elements. Having the center controller offer an excellent alternative routing before we even asked was a nice touch.
4) A downwind landing is sometimes the better option when a circle-to-land is not an option.
These are the types of real-world flights I like to expose students to during training, but don't always get the chance since they sometimes are hard to come by during the course of IFR training. But when they do, it's a great learning experience.
We started commuting the third week in January and despite weekly flights out on Sunday and back on Friday I've been somewhat amazed at how much of the time we're in severe clear, or only need IFR for a few minutes on either end. Out of all those flights we've only had to shoot 3-4 approaches to anything even approaching minimums. But today, we got in some good real-world IFR training.
I awoke to rumbling thunder. Throughout the morning I watched the progress of the weather system on ForeFlight (see first image.) Around noon I determined we'd have a window of opportunity around 3:30p or so between major rounds of TS.
We met at the airport a little before 3:30p. The rain had stopped and the ceilings lifted slightly, so we loaded up and launched. We were picking up ADS-B data on the ground at KFCM so had a good picture of the weather.
Turbulence was moderate-plus after takeoff and continued pretty steady to our initial 3,000' altitude. Bases for the scattered layer were 2,800 putting us IMC shortly after takeoff. They then bumped us to 4,000' which put us between layers. There was a finger of orange jutting north adjacent to our flight path so I asked for a deviation which was readily given.
Soon they bumped us to 6,000' which put us in solid IMC where we'd remain for most of the trip. We had about ten minutes between layers at one point, but most of the 2.5 hours flight was solid IMC.
We were painting some heavier returns along our route. Originally I thought they might pass to the north before we got there, but we had 38 kts on the tail and a ground speed initially of 203 kts, so decided that wouldn't work. About the time I arrived at that decision we were handed off to Mpls Center. The first thing the controller did was suggest a northerly routing that would get us up and around the heavier stuff. I confirmed that would work well for us and he promptly cleared us on the new routing. We reprogrammed the 430 as we turned northward to the new route.
As we approached our destination the ADS-B METAR for Stanely (08D) was almost three hours old, so we asked Minot Approach for the updated weather. The automated weather was saying 400' OVC, 2 miles, wind 080 at 10G17. The only approach into Stanley is a GPS 27 with a straight-in MDA of 500' and a circling minimum of 700'.
As we were approaching our IAP we started picking up some mixed ice in descent. I told my student to hit full defrost. Outside air temp had been mid-40s for most of the flight, but was starting to drop as we proceeded northwest and began the descent while night was approaching.
At the final approach fix we dropped the gear and started down. He was struggling a bit tracking the HSI requiring a bit of intervention on my part. Shortly after reaching the MDA we began seeing ground features associated with the approach area, allowing us to descend the additional 100'. The defrost and drizzle had begun clearing the windshield and about five seconds after reaching 400' AGL the runway was in sight. We were committed to the straight-in since we were 300' below circling minimums.
We planted the Bo on the runway about 300' beyond the numbers and she dutifully slowed down without excessive braking by the halfway mark despite the push from the tailwind. Stanley has 3,900' of good runway so that wasn't a huge concern.
A few take-aways my student got from this flight:
1) 2.5 Hours of hand-flying in IMC can be pretty demanding. Even slight distractions had him off altitude or off heading, or both!
2) ADS-B is a god-send for IFR flying. While not perfect (three hour old wx at destination), the accuracy of the weather depicted vs. what ATC was saying they showed was remarkable, making in-flight decision-making much easier.
3) ATC can be REALLY helpful when battling the elements. Having the center controller offer an excellent alternative routing before we even asked was a nice touch.
4) A downwind landing is sometimes the better option when a circle-to-land is not an option.
These are the types of real-world flights I like to expose students to during training, but don't always get the chance since they sometimes are hard to come by during the course of IFR training. But when they do, it's a great learning experience.
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