OMGOMGOMG!
That... was... awesome!
So my logbook now shows the first ACTUAL instrument time, with 1.1 hours spent in a full-blooded can't-see-****-out-the-window bumpy raining gusty cloud.
Conditions continued to deteriorate today so by the time I got the airport, the solid overcast was down to 7000ft, scattered and broken down to 2600ft, and raining heavy. We talked about the flight plan - boy, did I have a LOT of holes in my learning to this point - and eventually I called to file (my first IFR filing!) and get a briefing.
That in itself was eye-opening because my interpretation of the briefing was known icing (and thus no-go), but my instructor walked me through it carefully so that I understood that, in fact, it was not as it pertained to our flight plan. Yes, there was known rime at FL130 as well as airmet Zulu moderate but no PIREP and the way the precipitation cells and clouds were located meant our route was clear. It was really illuminating to go through that.
The plan I filed was KCCR BCHN9.PITTS V108 LIN V23 KMOD. By the time we got the plane pre-flighted ATC change that to PITTS V108 LODI ECA KMOD. That didn't even matter much because as soon as we crossed PITTS they vectored us direct MOD.
Anyway, we took off, crossed CCR, entered 071 towards PITTS (I was already under foggles and a bit rusty so it took me longer than it needed to "find" V108, but I got ther eventually without being too much a fool). By then the cool part started: my CFII told me to take off the foggles because we didn't need them. I was in real honest-to-goodness IMC.
And I was busy.
The biggest difference between simulated and actual? the fact that in the cloud there is no such thing as "trim and forget", because you get bounced around constantly so you need little counter-adjustments constantly, too. It's minor stuff - in fact, I was literally flying with one finger - but it's ever-present. Beyond that, after the first peek, I just stuck my eyes in the panel and didn't raise them until we got under the cloud a couple miles off 28R at KMOD. Even those couple seconds when I did look got me severely disoriented and it took a tremendous force of will for about 20 seconds after that to keep the plane flying straight, on account that my body kept insisting we were banking hard to the left. I actually got a bit queasy
By the time we got to KMOD and under the cloud I had almost completely missed the approach, with instructions coming in fast and furious. The transition from en-route to terminal is brutal, and I venture will take a lot more practice before I feel anywhere near comfortable doing it. I think the biggest part of it will be to know what's coming, which I did not, and so had no good sense of what to expect (theory notwithstanding). Add to that the turbulence making any little adjustment go super-exaggerated, forcing corrections and counter-corrections, and my instructor being a bit jumpy too (more on that later), and I felt like a total failure. I guess I didn't do badly enough to merit a "call this number", but we did hear one of those along the way when someone blew their assigned altitude by 300ft a couple times.
The flight back to KCCR, under a new IFR plan filed from the air as missed out of KMOD, was pretty uneventful. ATC asked us if we "wanted a shortcut", which I happily accepted, and essentially got a direct. Most of it was under foggles (not quite a cloud at 4000ft, as opposed to the full-blown one at 5000ft on the way to KMOD), but when we got near CCR we got into a real cloud again. I only noticed because it became bumpy, which later struck me; I had no idea what was outside the plane, that's how focused I was on the instruments.
I got a bit flustered with the final instructions into KCCR, because my instructor terminated the plan and switched the VFR as we crossed the outer marker, but I was still "flying IFR" and therefore headed to the wrong runway for a few long seconds.
After we landed and debriefed, with all my stupid mistakes into KMOD and KCCR, my instructor said "your flying was really good today", which made me proud. He was a little suspicious of my not writing things down yet being able to repeat accurately to ATC; heck, I was suspicious myself. I guess I was just that focused. And then he told me as we were leaving "sorry if I jumped on you too hard today; it's my first ever lesson given in actual IMC, as opposed to simulated, so I was a bit of a nervous wreck myself". Damn.
All that aside, it was a terrific experience. I can't wait to do it again. I really hope I get another lesson in real IMC soon - it's kinda hard to get those days out here.
