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Final Approach
I'm sitting in a motel room in Columbus, OH looking at METARs and more-or-less second guessing my decision to scrub and drive. I'd been leaving the possibility of flying down open all week, even though with the remnants of T.S. Lee meandering around the Ohio Valley it didn't seem too likely that it could be safely done VFR. Then this afternoon something amazing happened: the low-level clouds over northern/central Ohio scoured out, and even over most of southeast MI it was VFR, though more accurately MVFR. I sat in my office for an extra hour trying to decide. Conditions had improved quite a bit and seemed to be getting better. The forecast was still bad: MVFR/IFR cigs and vsbys returning later. And there was a narrow band of IFR cigs across the southern shore of Lake Erie. Eventually I realized that it was a no-brainer: scrub and drive.
What prompted my second-guessing myself is that driving down there was no sign of the IFR cigs near Toledo. It was scattered clouds most of the way, and where there was a ceiling it looked to me like (low) VFR. Still, based on what I knew when I left, with that forecast and given the amount of low-level moisture apparent even from the ground, it was still the right decision.
But if I'd had my IR finished up by September, which was my goal for the summer, the decision would have been just as easy (assuming everything else pointed to a go). This would not have been hardcore IFR weather, it would have been punch through the clouds to the clear air under a broken altocumulus ceiling, then much of the way with very good ground reference. Maybe 0.1 hours instrument time, if that. Gentleman's IFR for sure, and a good opportunity to get my ticket wet -- just a little.
But I don't have the ticket. I slacked off training in July because of the extreme heat, and then early in August I bowed to gentle pressure from my mechanic to get the flaps cable replaced. The pressure wasn't, you need this cable and you need it now. The job could have waited 20-50 more flight hours. The pressure was, the cable is in and I'm ready to do it now, with the implied "if you wait, I may not be available later". Yet, he indicated that it would be a 2-3 day job, 5 at the outside. I believed him and let him ground the airplane. Of course 5 days turned into 3 weeks. Not because the job required hours and hours of work that he didn't expect, but because it was such an unpleasant job that he spent most of his time doing other things. And so I lost my last chance to get the IR finished up before classes.
I really don't know what to take away from this experience except to never believe his time estimates and always assume that if he takes the airplane apart, it will take him weeks to finish and get it back together again. Now I'm so busy with work that I don't see much hope of finishing up this fall. I could find the time myself, but I also have to work around my CFII's schedule and the weather, which is only going to get worse and worse from here on out until next May.
And no, we can't file IFR, even if my CFII was so inclined, which he doesn't seem to be with my airplane. After reading the recent thread (here or the Red Board? not sure) about needing the GPS AFM supplement in the airplane, I thought to look for my 480 supplement in the POH. I thought I'd seen it there when I first bought the plane, but it isn't there or in any of the other airplane stuff and I'm not sure whether I was mistaken to begin with, or whether it vanished in the commotion of ripping out the seats to work on the spar carrythru, or maybe when the W&B was redone to let me fly without a rear seat. So I won't be able to take my checkride until I contact the avionics shop that installed the GPS and get a replacement for the supplement. Hopefully they have detailed enough records to be able to reconstruct it, though I don't expect it to be cheap.
I guess I'm not really asking for advice or even comments, just venting... though I'm sure there will be both, this being the Blue Board...
What prompted my second-guessing myself is that driving down there was no sign of the IFR cigs near Toledo. It was scattered clouds most of the way, and where there was a ceiling it looked to me like (low) VFR. Still, based on what I knew when I left, with that forecast and given the amount of low-level moisture apparent even from the ground, it was still the right decision.
But if I'd had my IR finished up by September, which was my goal for the summer, the decision would have been just as easy (assuming everything else pointed to a go). This would not have been hardcore IFR weather, it would have been punch through the clouds to the clear air under a broken altocumulus ceiling, then much of the way with very good ground reference. Maybe 0.1 hours instrument time, if that. Gentleman's IFR for sure, and a good opportunity to get my ticket wet -- just a little.
But I don't have the ticket. I slacked off training in July because of the extreme heat, and then early in August I bowed to gentle pressure from my mechanic to get the flaps cable replaced. The pressure wasn't, you need this cable and you need it now. The job could have waited 20-50 more flight hours. The pressure was, the cable is in and I'm ready to do it now, with the implied "if you wait, I may not be available later". Yet, he indicated that it would be a 2-3 day job, 5 at the outside. I believed him and let him ground the airplane. Of course 5 days turned into 3 weeks. Not because the job required hours and hours of work that he didn't expect, but because it was such an unpleasant job that he spent most of his time doing other things. And so I lost my last chance to get the IR finished up before classes.
I really don't know what to take away from this experience except to never believe his time estimates and always assume that if he takes the airplane apart, it will take him weeks to finish and get it back together again. Now I'm so busy with work that I don't see much hope of finishing up this fall. I could find the time myself, but I also have to work around my CFII's schedule and the weather, which is only going to get worse and worse from here on out until next May.
And no, we can't file IFR, even if my CFII was so inclined, which he doesn't seem to be with my airplane. After reading the recent thread (here or the Red Board? not sure) about needing the GPS AFM supplement in the airplane, I thought to look for my 480 supplement in the POH. I thought I'd seen it there when I first bought the plane, but it isn't there or in any of the other airplane stuff and I'm not sure whether I was mistaken to begin with, or whether it vanished in the commotion of ripping out the seats to work on the spar carrythru, or maybe when the W&B was redone to let me fly without a rear seat. So I won't be able to take my checkride until I contact the avionics shop that installed the GPS and get a replacement for the supplement. Hopefully they have detailed enough records to be able to reconstruct it, though I don't expect it to be cheap.
I guess I'm not really asking for advice or even comments, just venting... though I'm sure there will be both, this being the Blue Board...
