Down to the minimums....for real(little long)

genna

genna

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Today we had perfect IMC weather... eh.. started out that way anyway.

So, it's 2pm and I'm sitting at work and looking at this nice IMC conditions at my home base and the entire area. Everyone reporting high IFR and MVFR with a forecast to change to MVFR. Overcast, calm winds, little rain and mist. In a word, "perfect" to dab into real IFR approaches for the first time.

So, I ditch the rest of the work day and hurry myself to the airport. File the Round Robin plan KDMW to KFDK. I need to do 3 approaches this month to maintain my currency. So the plan is to do an AP-coupled ILS to FDK, go missed, repeat the ILS with no AP and then return via RNAV to my home DMW. I have full fuel in a rental C172S/G. So, lots of options.

Get my clearances. Potomac is very nice. I gave them my entire plan and they were happy to accommodate. After a little delay waiting for another plane to land, I take off into about 700' overcast. Call Potomac, they offer vectors to final and I accept.

So, first ILS 23 is completely uneventful. AP captured GS and LOC. Cleared for the option, pop out of the clouds about 200' above DH. Go missed, kill AP, back into the clouds, and go to published missed point to hold(I requested that). Potomac asks to let them know when I'm ready for another go.

As I'm just completing my entry(parallel) into the hold they call me and ask if I'm ready to do an approach. I say no(still want to actually do the hold), but there is another aircraft on that approach(hold is in line with the approach). So they start vectoring me out and away. No problem. I'm not in the hurry.

After some flying around, they are vectoring me back to the ILS and we decide to just go ahead and do the approach. I got vectored a little too close and ended up doing a bit a quicker than I wanted decent on the localizer to capture GS. Was not too bad. Got down to about 200 above DH. I see nothing. Still completely in clouds. I call missed. Tower asks if I saw the runway. I say no. They concur that they didn't see my light.

Now I'm thinking. Great. This is the closest precision approach to home base. No WAAS in rental, so my GPS approach takes me to 400'AGL. Meanwhile, it's now dark outside.

I listen to weather at DMW. Reports 1000' overcast. Wind calm. Should be piece of cake. Right? Well, at MDA I saw runway lights only about .5 mile away from the runway(MAP). I was about 10 seconds away from going missed and figuring out where I can spend the night.

Landing was uneventful. And now I have flown IMC approaches alone to the minimums.

Moral of this story. IMC is IMC... always have outs and never think it will be a piece of cake

Cheers

p.s. 20 min after I landed, KFDK went LIFR with 1/4 vis and 300' overcast. And DMW was 300' scattered, 2 mil vis and 500' overcast.
 
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Awesome story. That's kinda what I'm hoping to get done now that I've finally got my instrument rating. You got super lucky there at the end it seems, but handled it well. I think if I do those types of approaches for currency in actual IMC I would definitely do them over the weekend or at a time when (if I had to go missed elsewhere) I could spend the night someplace without jeopardizing my job during the work week.

Good job and nice read.
 
Even with my diminutive ifr experience, I have had numerous times where the actual weather was lower than forecast, being at minimums several times (yay) and a couple of times below minimums :( .
 
Awesome! It's always fun to get actual time. It's a lot better than wearing the hood.
 
jordane93 said:
Awesome! It's always fun to get actual time. It's a lot better than wearing the hood.
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It is. It was very enjoyable. It's a completely different sensation. It's not my first approach in IMC, but first alone and in this much of a soup. There is no backup of taking the hood off. And there are no "guarantees". You have to be on point. And have real plans for when things don't turn out as expected.

I've been trying to do this for months now, but weather and time just wouldn't cooperate. By the time I get to the plane, either it clears up, or goes crazy LIFR. One day I was about to start engine with a filed plan ehen via went from 4mile to 1/4 mile in 10 min.

I Actually liked it. I liked that I was alone, I fly better alone. More focused. It wasn't perfect flying. My non AP approach was raggedy after a few months' break. But I stayed above my limit and never felt unsafe.

Btw. 3 hours after landing, it was severe clear.
 
Were you able to figure out why the WX was worse than expected? Can you that coming next time?
 
Bill Watson said:
Were you able to figure out why the WX was worse than expected? Can you that coming next time?
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Radiation fog I'm pretty sure.

Yes and no. Seems like it's not something that is easily predictable here in AF/TAF... But there are things to watch for. 100% humidity, warm dayy at sunset, no wind. Good news is that it doesn't last long.
 
genna said:
Radiation fog I'm pretty sure.

Yes and no. Seems like it's not something that is easily predictable here in AF/TAF... But there are things to watch for. 100% humidity, warm dayy at sunset, no wind. Good news is that it doesn't last long.
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...and dew point - temp spread.

I've run into this when I was regularly doing evening flights home. Forecast VFR turned into minimums or less over an hour or two along with the trickiness of nighttime fog. Taught me to tanker up whenever feasible among other things.

Training in these conditions is fun and challenging. Ending a real world trip into them can become uncomfortable quickly.
 
I live a few miles South of KFDK and thought about the FG conditions as I went out to put out the garbage lastnight around 2000 EDT.
 
Bill Watson said:
...and dew point - temp spread.

I've run into this when I was regularly doing evening flights home. Forecast VFR turned into minimums or less over an hour or two along with the trickiness of nighttime fog. Taught me to tanker up whenever feasible among other things.

Training in these conditions is fun and challenging. Ending a real world trip into them can become uncomfortable quickly.
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Exactly!

Dew point-temp spread is 0 if 100% humidity :) Basically it's saying the same thing differently. Although you don't need 100% for the fog to be a threat, just close to it and as temp cools with the sundown, you get right into 0 spread.
 
Another moral here. The stuff they ask you on the IFR exam really is important. As a VFR pilot in this area, I didn't have to pay this much attention to fog in the rain. The conditions like these would make it an easy no-go. But now, I really do have to evaluate the weather with more attention to details.

This really hits home after you get into conditions you didn't anticipate but should have
 
You had a good time, if a bit tense, you learned something, and you are current in multiple definitions of that term. Sounds like a good day.
 
Nice job. Just be cautious of the possibility of ice now that it is getting cold.
 
Bravo said:
Nice job. Just be cautious of the possibility of ice now that it is getting cold.
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He straps his beer to the wing, so it will be nice and cold upon landing! He's got nerves of steel.

He's the greatest pilot in the World.
 
genna said:
Another moral here. The stuff they ask you on the IFR exam really is important. As a VFR pilot in this area, I didn't have to pay this much attention to fog in the rain. The conditions like these would make it an easy no-go. But now, I really do have to evaluate the weather with more attention to details.

This really hits home after you get into conditions you didn't anticipate but should have
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Great job! You will develop a weather briefing strategy and update it constantly. As your knowledge and experience continues to grow so will your plan of attack for each flight.
 
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