Well I do not post over here alot but consider myself the chief lurker...I like the insight that a lot of folks over here have.
That said, I thought I would share some of my recent flight training experience...You'all go put a bag of popcorn the microwave and get right back here...I got a story to tell....
Originally posted 8.28.08..Purple Board...
On Tuesday, I flew my IR cross country. It was a great day to train in the clouds. There was significant weather all over the area. There were even tornado warnings but none affecting our planned route. The planned route was Fayetteville Roanoke Concord Fayetteville. In looking at the weather patterns, I changed the routing that morning to go to Concord first, then to Roanoke. This actually worked to my advantage. More on that later. We had to re-file but that was a great experience too.
We met at the hangar at 8:00 a.m. and went over the planning. Since there was weather all over the area, alternates were in order. I was amazed how much planning goes into planning an IFR trip. Weather, plates, alternate weather, alternate plates, MEA's, fuel (this was easy...just filler up) filing...and the list goes on.
As we are getting ready to go, an expected TS began pouring rain on the airport. I dumped what turned out to be 2" of rain in less than 45 minutes. The good news is my hangar stayed bone dry and the rain ran off to the storm drain without coming near the level of the hangar floor.
Earlier, when I called FSS for a briefing, I told the guy that I was an IR student going on a training mission and he politely told me to get out a pencil and paper. The adverse conditions took about 10 minutes to go over. The NOTAMS took even longer. He was most helpful, very patient and I'll have to say, I learned a lot just listening to the guy speak to the mechanics of the weather pattern we were looking at.
Most of the stronger weather was going to be northeast of our route except the leg back from Roanoke to Fayetteville. This could be worked around...
Since my hangar is on the "other side" of the field, we went back to the FBO and got an updated weather picture. The radar showed that the strong precip was indeed gone and our first leg would be in the clouds behind the front.
While we were there, it was raining cats and dogs. We were watching the rain and up taxis a Malibu Mirage. The rain on the tarmac was literally 6 inches deep in some points due to the drainage situation. This guy is taxiing too fast, goes really wide to line up near the door and dumps the prop into a lake. OMG. All of our hearts stopped. The RPM's really dropped.
Looking to the right of the plane, there was a drain there and the Coriolis effect has the water piling up about 8" higher than the drain. It was an amazing sight. The door opens and seven....yes seven people get out of the plane. I'll leave this right here..This is a "wholenother" thread.
Our first leg was about 1.3 hours. Only half of that was IMC. We did the GPS into RWY20 at Concord. The weather was about 014SCT 019OVC so this was not that challenging. We had a great lunch at the Mayflower right around the corner from the airport.
Checking the weather into Roanoke showed 007 OVC and winds calm. Our goal had been to do the LDA into RWY06 at Roanoke. Taking off out of Concord, we had filed for 5K but the MEA was 7K on the last leg. I learned how to negotiate (or ask) for what you wanted. It appears that the flight plan is just a license to get airborne and a plan if you go NORDO. The whole flight was in the clouds. As we approached ROA, for a second, I was able to see for about what seemed to be 10 miles. It looked like a forest of cotton balls.
On the approach, we went in to solid clouds at 5K and came out at 1700 MSL, about 200 feet above minimums. This was an awesome experience. I understand after doing this approach, why the IFR's are what they are. I am sure you old timers remember the first approach you did in weather this low. My CFI-I asked me several times was I OK on the approach. He said, "Good because I have got vertigo like mad"...Of course this was to distract me and it worked. He told me..."just remember, we are all counting on you"...I'll tell you, the stakes are raised in the weather...(under statement, I know)
The winds were coming from the right at about 20 knots and it was a serious challenge to keep the plane centered on the localizer. I had chosen to hand fly these approaches rather than letting the AP fly them. Of course this decision was a no-brainer. This type of training opportunity does not present itself too often. We broke out and lo and behold, the runway was right where the plate said it would be.
Coming out of Roanoke was cool too. We filed for KROA CLT KFAY to get around weather. Obviously we were checking the progress of the weather since the forecast was for tornadic activity and low ceilings all day. We were cleared for the HOKEE1 departure. This a is SID with a climb rate and a fix to point at.
Most all of the trip home as in IMC. Charlotte approach called Greensboro while we were still with them and had us descend from 7K to 4K since our path was in an arrival corridor. I learned a lot about radio communication under IFR. The controllers expressed disgust with us at least once because I would not take a vector through orange on the XM screen. Hey...I don't care...its my assets..right? We changed our midpoint on the trip three times to edge as close to the storm as safety allowed. We stayed about 20 miles west till we turned the corner at KVUJ and headed home.
We did and LOC04 circle to RWY10. This was because there was a cell SE of the airport that produced winds at 130@13G18. The interesting thing here is that this wind change happened after we got our beginning vector to the ILS to RWY04.
All in all it was great day. I flew OK, developed some confidence that I can do this IFR thing, learned tons about the weather, ATC and IFR in general. I got to shoot an approach to close to minimums in the mountains, got 3.4 actual. Another nice thing is that the weather got progressively more challenging as the day went on. This allowed me to progressively immerse into the reality of IFR flying.
I came home whipped and my wife knew it...Thank you to my wife Karen for her understanding...God Bless her...she listened to me excitedly tell her this whole story but told me she did not have a "Little Orphan Annie Decoder Ring" to decipher the "niners" and "wilcos" and LDA's. It is nice to have outlets like these aviation boards to tell this story. Most anyone who is not a pilot just does not "get it".
I took the written on Wednesday morning and passed with 82%. I know in my heart I pooched at least three answers on the last review. I can't prove it but that my story and I'm sticking to it...
I still have 10.5 hours of required hood time left to do. My CFI-I tells me we are ahead of schedule and I guess that is a good thing. I have chosen not to use a safety pilot and instead spend the few extra dollars to keep a 14K hour CFI-I in the right seat the whole time.
On to the checkride...
That said, I thought I would share some of my recent flight training experience...You'all go put a bag of popcorn the microwave and get right back here...I got a story to tell....
Originally posted 8.28.08..Purple Board...
On Tuesday, I flew my IR cross country. It was a great day to train in the clouds. There was significant weather all over the area. There were even tornado warnings but none affecting our planned route. The planned route was Fayetteville Roanoke Concord Fayetteville. In looking at the weather patterns, I changed the routing that morning to go to Concord first, then to Roanoke. This actually worked to my advantage. More on that later. We had to re-file but that was a great experience too.
We met at the hangar at 8:00 a.m. and went over the planning. Since there was weather all over the area, alternates were in order. I was amazed how much planning goes into planning an IFR trip. Weather, plates, alternate weather, alternate plates, MEA's, fuel (this was easy...just filler up) filing...and the list goes on.
As we are getting ready to go, an expected TS began pouring rain on the airport. I dumped what turned out to be 2" of rain in less than 45 minutes. The good news is my hangar stayed bone dry and the rain ran off to the storm drain without coming near the level of the hangar floor.
Earlier, when I called FSS for a briefing, I told the guy that I was an IR student going on a training mission and he politely told me to get out a pencil and paper. The adverse conditions took about 10 minutes to go over. The NOTAMS took even longer. He was most helpful, very patient and I'll have to say, I learned a lot just listening to the guy speak to the mechanics of the weather pattern we were looking at.
Most of the stronger weather was going to be northeast of our route except the leg back from Roanoke to Fayetteville. This could be worked around...
Since my hangar is on the "other side" of the field, we went back to the FBO and got an updated weather picture. The radar showed that the strong precip was indeed gone and our first leg would be in the clouds behind the front.
While we were there, it was raining cats and dogs. We were watching the rain and up taxis a Malibu Mirage. The rain on the tarmac was literally 6 inches deep in some points due to the drainage situation. This guy is taxiing too fast, goes really wide to line up near the door and dumps the prop into a lake. OMG. All of our hearts stopped. The RPM's really dropped.
Looking to the right of the plane, there was a drain there and the Coriolis effect has the water piling up about 8" higher than the drain. It was an amazing sight. The door opens and seven....yes seven people get out of the plane. I'll leave this right here..This is a "wholenother" thread.
Our first leg was about 1.3 hours. Only half of that was IMC. We did the GPS into RWY20 at Concord. The weather was about 014SCT 019OVC so this was not that challenging. We had a great lunch at the Mayflower right around the corner from the airport.
Checking the weather into Roanoke showed 007 OVC and winds calm. Our goal had been to do the LDA into RWY06 at Roanoke. Taking off out of Concord, we had filed for 5K but the MEA was 7K on the last leg. I learned how to negotiate (or ask) for what you wanted. It appears that the flight plan is just a license to get airborne and a plan if you go NORDO. The whole flight was in the clouds. As we approached ROA, for a second, I was able to see for about what seemed to be 10 miles. It looked like a forest of cotton balls.
On the approach, we went in to solid clouds at 5K and came out at 1700 MSL, about 200 feet above minimums. This was an awesome experience. I understand after doing this approach, why the IFR's are what they are. I am sure you old timers remember the first approach you did in weather this low. My CFI-I asked me several times was I OK on the approach. He said, "Good because I have got vertigo like mad"...Of course this was to distract me and it worked. He told me..."just remember, we are all counting on you"...I'll tell you, the stakes are raised in the weather...(under statement, I know)
The winds were coming from the right at about 20 knots and it was a serious challenge to keep the plane centered on the localizer. I had chosen to hand fly these approaches rather than letting the AP fly them. Of course this decision was a no-brainer. This type of training opportunity does not present itself too often. We broke out and lo and behold, the runway was right where the plate said it would be.
Coming out of Roanoke was cool too. We filed for KROA CLT KFAY to get around weather. Obviously we were checking the progress of the weather since the forecast was for tornadic activity and low ceilings all day. We were cleared for the HOKEE1 departure. This a is SID with a climb rate and a fix to point at.
Most all of the trip home as in IMC. Charlotte approach called Greensboro while we were still with them and had us descend from 7K to 4K since our path was in an arrival corridor. I learned a lot about radio communication under IFR. The controllers expressed disgust with us at least once because I would not take a vector through orange on the XM screen. Hey...I don't care...its my assets..right? We changed our midpoint on the trip three times to edge as close to the storm as safety allowed. We stayed about 20 miles west till we turned the corner at KVUJ and headed home.
We did and LOC04 circle to RWY10. This was because there was a cell SE of the airport that produced winds at 130@13G18. The interesting thing here is that this wind change happened after we got our beginning vector to the ILS to RWY04.
All in all it was great day. I flew OK, developed some confidence that I can do this IFR thing, learned tons about the weather, ATC and IFR in general. I got to shoot an approach to close to minimums in the mountains, got 3.4 actual. Another nice thing is that the weather got progressively more challenging as the day went on. This allowed me to progressively immerse into the reality of IFR flying.
I came home whipped and my wife knew it...Thank you to my wife Karen for her understanding...God Bless her...she listened to me excitedly tell her this whole story but told me she did not have a "Little Orphan Annie Decoder Ring" to decipher the "niners" and "wilcos" and LDA's. It is nice to have outlets like these aviation boards to tell this story. Most anyone who is not a pilot just does not "get it".
I took the written on Wednesday morning and passed with 82%. I know in my heart I pooched at least three answers on the last review. I can't prove it but that my story and I'm sticking to it...
I still have 10.5 hours of required hood time left to do. My CFI-I tells me we are ahead of schedule and I guess that is a good thing. I have chosen not to use a safety pilot and instead spend the few extra dollars to keep a 14K hour CFI-I in the right seat the whole time.
On to the checkride...
