LoLPilot
Line Up and Wait
I was originally going to do a foggle cross country with one of my pilot friends acting as a safety pilot today. Woke up today and the TAF's were showing below 2000 with rain and winds gusting into the 20s. He said well we could do a local flight and still get you some foggle time and if it gets too bad we can head back. I saw on our scheduling app that my instructor had some lessons today so I texted him and asked if one of his afternoon lessons dropped off could we file and do a cross country. He said that his 12-3 had just cancelled if I could make it in. I didn't have to go in to school today so I drove up to the airport. I haven't filed IFR yet (obviously) so he took care of that and took care of a lot of the radio calls for me. He had me listen in and had me explain after each call what was going on.
Once we got to our destination the ceilings had fallen below minimums. They had been above minimums on the TAF. My CFI had me fly the approach anyway and told the controller that we wanted to fly the approach and go missed for training. As we were climbing out he said "now do you see how important fuel planning and planning alternates is? We checked the weather before we left and it showed that we could get in here. So if you were really flying here what would you do?" I told him that I'd ask ATC if my filed alternate had better conditions and if not could I get vectors to somewhere that did. He seemed satisfied and had ATC go ahead and activate our return flight plan. Thankfully he asked if we could get direct on the way back and they said sure.
Once we were back he showed me his tablet. He had been running breadcrumbs along our route and we were able to debrief by looking at our filed route and the approach versus how I flew it. He said considering it was my first time in actual conditions it was pretty good. He told me I was "hunting" for the course a bit too much and that if I wasn't exactly on the course centerline in actual IMC but was flying a proper heading that it was okay. I tracked it well but I was weaving back and forth across centerline trying to keep the needle centered.
It was a humbling experience. At times I felt pretty on top of what was going on and at times I felt WAY in over my head. Once he told me to watch my attitude indicator and then asked if I felt like I was in a left hand turn once I'd leveled the wings. I said yeah I did and he said I feel the same way. He had me cross check the other instruments to verify what the AI was telling me. It was (at this stage of my flying) a tough flight for me but I felt like I'd learned a lot. I told my instructor that I have a few lessons that stick out in my head as "unique" and that this one today stands out as the most profound learning experience I've had so far.
Once we got to our destination the ceilings had fallen below minimums. They had been above minimums on the TAF. My CFI had me fly the approach anyway and told the controller that we wanted to fly the approach and go missed for training. As we were climbing out he said "now do you see how important fuel planning and planning alternates is? We checked the weather before we left and it showed that we could get in here. So if you were really flying here what would you do?" I told him that I'd ask ATC if my filed alternate had better conditions and if not could I get vectors to somewhere that did. He seemed satisfied and had ATC go ahead and activate our return flight plan. Thankfully he asked if we could get direct on the way back and they said sure.
Once we were back he showed me his tablet. He had been running breadcrumbs along our route and we were able to debrief by looking at our filed route and the approach versus how I flew it. He said considering it was my first time in actual conditions it was pretty good. He told me I was "hunting" for the course a bit too much and that if I wasn't exactly on the course centerline in actual IMC but was flying a proper heading that it was okay. I tracked it well but I was weaving back and forth across centerline trying to keep the needle centered.
It was a humbling experience. At times I felt pretty on top of what was going on and at times I felt WAY in over my head. Once he told me to watch my attitude indicator and then asked if I felt like I was in a left hand turn once I'd leveled the wings. I said yeah I did and he said I feel the same way. He had me cross check the other instruments to verify what the AI was telling me. It was (at this stage of my flying) a tough flight for me but I felt like I'd learned a lot. I told my instructor that I have a few lessons that stick out in my head as "unique" and that this one today stands out as the most profound learning experience I've had so far.
