MyassisDragon
Line Up and Wait
This is what my instructor always drilled into my head during IFR training and it sunk in, but not drilled in like it is now.
So I am going to humiliate and embarrass myself for the greater good of aspiring instrument pilots.
Here is the story:
Left last Friday to pickup my son from college 2 hour flight up north and 2 hour back. Light instrument conditions at both ends (900ft ceilings 6sm vis ect) tops at 3000 and the METAR called for improvement to MVFR in the after noon on my way home, no icing SIGMET. Good to go.
Well on my way home the conditions at my airport got worse but still not bad, talking to approach (20 miles away from my non towered destination) they had negative icing and 500ft ceilings and my airport was down to 400ft and 5sm vis)
At 7000ft cruise I had 42 deg F and my destination airport was reporting 38 deg...Are you starting to see the story build....So I figured I could just try the approach and If I missed then the 2+ hours of fuel could take me to a place with better conditions....
Well here is where I learned the truth about that strike system. After getting established on the ILS, I reached over to check my frequency then went to my chart (instead of going back to my AI) and found my self pointing in the wrong direction and not on the ILS anymore (it was extremely quick) So I queried ATC to vector me back onto the approach.
Not a problem all under control, hold at 2500 make a loop and get back established.... Well, the plane started getting sluggish and I had to increase throttle to hold altitude, and I removed all flaps after noticing ice building on the wings.
There I was running down the glide slope at dusk, engine at 2100rpm and 80kt to keep the tail from pulsing, realizing there was only one more strike in my game (although I counted about 5 since in reflection). Crap!! I just put my back in a corner and had no choice to land since at this point a go around was not going to happen.
Fortunately I broke through right at 400FT AGL (Ils min was 200ft) was a little left but close enough and landed the plane fast (80+ kt) since I had a 6000ft runway. When we got out there was about 1-1/2 to 2" inches of mixed ice on the leading edges and about 1" on the prop leading edges. and we were only in the clouds 10 minutes (or less) .
So now I have just changed my minimums increased my respect for Icing potential even though the PIREPS are negative an no sigmet exist.
On a positive side, my wife (copilot) said her confidence in me just increased since we made it work and were under enormous pressure to get it right. Had we not circled around but just had a normal approach she said it would have been uneventful and my confidence would have just grown for the next time we were in the same decision making position.
She also said we will never fly to those minimums, after a long day of travel in the winter and so close to dark again. Man do I have a good wife, she is not oblivious to what happened, and still hasn't changed her perspective of flying with me.
So there is my stupidity all over the internet now for others to learn from...
Strike 1 - Fatigue (we left at 9:00am returning to land at 5
m with 5 hours of flying)
Strike 2 - Sun was going down along with temp (pireps were no longer valid) and there was a temperature inversion happening.
Strike 3 - Ceiling was 400ft AGL - not much room for error
Strike 4 - My instrument scan was not second nature since it was a few weeks since I had flown an approach.
Strike 5 - I messed up the first darn approach and ended up circling right at the top 500 ft of the clouds.
Should have called it at recognition of the second strike.... Just glad Im around play the game again, and much more humble now.
So I am going to humiliate and embarrass myself for the greater good of aspiring instrument pilots.
Here is the story:
Left last Friday to pickup my son from college 2 hour flight up north and 2 hour back. Light instrument conditions at both ends (900ft ceilings 6sm vis ect) tops at 3000 and the METAR called for improvement to MVFR in the after noon on my way home, no icing SIGMET. Good to go.
Well on my way home the conditions at my airport got worse but still not bad, talking to approach (20 miles away from my non towered destination) they had negative icing and 500ft ceilings and my airport was down to 400ft and 5sm vis)
At 7000ft cruise I had 42 deg F and my destination airport was reporting 38 deg...Are you starting to see the story build....So I figured I could just try the approach and If I missed then the 2+ hours of fuel could take me to a place with better conditions....
Well here is where I learned the truth about that strike system. After getting established on the ILS, I reached over to check my frequency then went to my chart (instead of going back to my AI) and found my self pointing in the wrong direction and not on the ILS anymore (it was extremely quick) So I queried ATC to vector me back onto the approach.
Not a problem all under control, hold at 2500 make a loop and get back established.... Well, the plane started getting sluggish and I had to increase throttle to hold altitude, and I removed all flaps after noticing ice building on the wings.
There I was running down the glide slope at dusk, engine at 2100rpm and 80kt to keep the tail from pulsing, realizing there was only one more strike in my game (although I counted about 5 since in reflection). Crap!! I just put my back in a corner and had no choice to land since at this point a go around was not going to happen.
Fortunately I broke through right at 400FT AGL (Ils min was 200ft) was a little left but close enough and landed the plane fast (80+ kt) since I had a 6000ft runway. When we got out there was about 1-1/2 to 2" inches of mixed ice on the leading edges and about 1" on the prop leading edges. and we were only in the clouds 10 minutes (or less) .
So now I have just changed my minimums increased my respect for Icing potential even though the PIREPS are negative an no sigmet exist.
On a positive side, my wife (copilot) said her confidence in me just increased since we made it work and were under enormous pressure to get it right. Had we not circled around but just had a normal approach she said it would have been uneventful and my confidence would have just grown for the next time we were in the same decision making position.
She also said we will never fly to those minimums, after a long day of travel in the winter and so close to dark again. Man do I have a good wife, she is not oblivious to what happened, and still hasn't changed her perspective of flying with me.
So there is my stupidity all over the internet now for others to learn from...
Strike 1 - Fatigue (we left at 9:00am returning to land at 5
m with 5 hours of flying)Strike 2 - Sun was going down along with temp (pireps were no longer valid) and there was a temperature inversion happening.
Strike 3 - Ceiling was 400ft AGL - not much room for error
Strike 4 - My instrument scan was not second nature since it was a few weeks since I had flown an approach.
Strike 5 - I messed up the first darn approach and ended up circling right at the top 500 ft of the clouds.
Should have called it at recognition of the second strike.... Just glad Im around play the game again, and much more humble now.
