When it rains...

I thought that flying into ice-filled and turbulent clouds over the mountains was enough excitement for one week, but obviously not.
After 8 hours of flying, which took us from Manassas to Raleigh, Atlanta and back, there was more. At night, of course.
On a right base for runway 16L at KHEF, we failed to see the three greens that usually illuminate upon activating the gear lever in the down position. In other words, our wheels may not be down, which obviously presents a problem. I immediately called tower to ask if we could circle while troubleshooting the issue.
Ron, my flight partner, cycled the gear a few times, while I shone my flashlight outside the window in a futile attempt to see the reflection of the nosegear in the engine nacelle-mounted mirror. Nothing. Or at least nothing that I could discern in the dead of night.
After glancing over at the landing gear indicator light circuit breaker, I told Ron to bring the power back to see if the horn would sound. The annoying sound usually acts as a reminder to forgetful pilots to lower the gear. Sure enough, it blared at us as the "gear unsafe" light failed to go off.
We definitely had a problem: the gear was stuck in the wheel wells. Not the end of the world though, since we could use the emergency gear extension.
In the Seminole, hydraulic pressure holds the landing gear in the up position. The gear lever, when it works, lowers the gear out of its wells into the locked position. Failing that, the pilot could just flush that pressure by pulling the red knob, which allows the wheels to freefall and lock into position. However, the procedure has to be done below 100 knots, or the gear may not lock properly. So we had to do this right.
I told Ron to slow to below the prescribed speed and told him to expect a bang but not to worry. As he pulled the knob, the reassuring thud sounded. Being cautious, I called tower and told the controller we'd like to overfly the runway in hopes that he could confirm that our gear was in fact down.
"It appears to be," he said as we whizzed by the tower.
On downwind, I briefed Ron about what we'd do if the gear wasn't in fact locked and we ran through the before landing checklist again. As we turned onto final, I ran him through the landing: nice and slow, hold it off as much as possible to touch down softly, but not quite enough to plump it down on the tarmac.
He did a nice job and put the aircraft down gently, without further excitement.
This, of course, happened at night, after a long 8 hours of flying.
Luck, however, was on our side as the controller shut the tower down for the day as we parked the aircraft. At least we had someone to help us down.
Something new every day...

Pushing it

I like to consider myself to be safe and conservative when it comes to making a go or no-go decision and certainly know how to recognize my limits. Yet, today's flight really pushed the limits and turned into an true education in weather and instrument flying.
Dispatch slotted us to fly from Manassas to Knoxville, TN, where we'd fuel up before heading down to Atlanta. Ron, my new flight partner, and I met at the airport in the morning and found the weather to be questionable. A low pressure system promised overcasts and icing along our route and what got us concerned was the slim margin between the freezing level and some of the MEAs (Minimum En Route Altitudes) along the way. We didn't want to sandwich ourselves between ice and mountains.
Since I was the pilot flying, Ron deferred to my judgement and I informed dispatch that we weren't comfortable taking the flight. A few hours later, they called and told us the weather had cleared. After a weather check of our own, we still felt unsure eventhough there were no more PIREPs for icing but considered various escape routes and briefed options if things were to turn bad.
Soon after take-off, we were in the clouds at 8,000 feet with no signs of ice and a smooth ride. But it wasn't to last.
Half an hour into the trip, we began picking up light rime ice. We were in and out of clouds and the accumulation was slow so we maintained our altitude. But as we progressed to the south west, more ice collected on the wings so we asked for a lower altitude, which approach promptly granted. A few minutes later we traversed an area of air slightly above freezing, 1 degree Celsius to be precise, and the accumulation melted off.
The true critical leg of our flight was now a few miles ahead of us, starting at Bluefield (KBLF), where the MEA increases to 6,600. We remained at 7,000 feet to stay out of the ice and considered diverting to BLF if necessary. In solid IMC, we crossed the VOR and as luck would have it things started going south. We'd been in light to moderate turbulence for a while with bumps that caused my head to hit the ceiling of the plane. The bumps, however, were now growing stronger and the mountains below created up- and downdrafts that made handling the plane quite a hanful. Ron minded the radios, checked for ice on the wings and watched my back as I wrestled the Seminole through the rough air. To make matters worse, we were now in an area of strong precipitation and ligthening with little altitude to spare below and good chances of icing above. Just the scenario I'd told dispatch I was concerned about.
I knew we had a valley behind us that we could fly to if things got bad and Bluefield wasn't far in case we needed to divert. The atmosphere in the cockpit was tensed, for sure, but we worked well together and got through the area as smoothly as we believe we could.
As we rode the heavier bumps, I experienced the leans, or a false feeling of banking. In this case, my body was telling me the aircraft was in a constant turn to the right, when in fact it was doing the opposite. I focused on the instruments and soon overcame the sensation but learned just how hard it is to ignore your body's instincts.
For the next hour, we were mostly in IMC, occasionally popping in and out of clouds, only to see mountains all around. Big ones, too. The sight was both awe-inspiring and unnerving and we continued to be mindful of escape routes.
After a little under 3.5 hours, we were on the GPS24L approach into Knoxville, landed safely and taxied to the ramp.
Dispatch had plans for us to fly to Atlanta, but Ron and I had resolved to not let anyone influence our decision to scrub a flight if we felt it was the right decision. After a bite to eat and a weather brief, we agreed that overnighting in Tennessee would be best since the rough flight took it out of us. More mountains and IMC paved the way to Atlanta and we were just too tired to take on the challenge safely.
So it's off for badly-needed sleep for now, looking forward to a long day of flying tomorrow. Hopefully a little less eventful.
I've learned a lot about flying today, and a lot about myself.

Stuck, Part 2

I may have gotten a little ahead of myself last night in thinking that our wait in Wilmington was over after dispatch released us for the flight back to Manassas.
After packing up the plane and rolling out to the runway we started a run-up and found out we had a dead magneto on the right engine. The magnetos, two per engine, provide ignition and are independent from the electrical system and from each other to create redundancy. With only one functioning mag on the right engine, not only weren't we safe to go fly but we were also unairworthy.
So back to the ramp it was. A few calls to dispatch and maintenance confirmed my suspicions about the mag and we booked ourselves into a hotel for the night. A couple of pitchers of beer later, we found some respite in well-deserved sleep.
Around noon today, another plane was ferried to us and we lifted off to Manassas in it, again flying mostly in IMC and at times skimming the tops of majestic puffy cumulus clouds. The sights were awesome and only reiterated my desire to get a decent camera so that I can illustrate these posts with pictures.
After landing in Manassas I was told to pick up another student and head down to Raleigh, where we'd overnight. Catch was that my lovely wife had flown down this morning in hopes of spending a few hours together. Instead, we made a quick run to my apartment to get clothes, then pondered what to do. In her admirable devotion and bravery, she decided to drive to Raleigh while Ron, my new flight partner, and I shot a straight line down here in the Seminole.
She'll be here in about half and hour! Exciting stuff.

*

The past three days have been an amazing learning experience and a testament to ATP's training approach. I flew more IMC since Friday than I had before I came here, encountered ice on two occasions and had to deal with mechanical problems away from base.
Our icing encounter yesterday was a good lesson. We obviously did not fly into known icing conditions, but when it began I made a PIREP. It seemed to stabilize so we pushed on at our altitude, with but a dusting on the leading edges. Quickly, however, rime ice began collecting at a faster rate so we asked ATC for a lower altitude and got 4,000 feet, which was supposed to be clear. Approaching 4,000, however, it was clear to us that we wouldn't be out of the clouds and we were now getting a mix of snow and ice. I immediately notified ATC and we were cleared to 3,000 feet, where we broke out and were finally in above freezing temperatures, by a slim margin.
I kept a close eye on the leading edges and could see slow melting. Then we flew through virga and that helped tremendously in melting the ice right off of the wings. The whole episode was only minutes long, but we worked fast and hard to get out of the ice as safely as we could and were satisfied with our CRM.
Also during the flight, ATC asked us for help in relaying a message to a Bonanza. I tried getting in touch with the plane's pilot, but to no avail so in case he could hear me but not broadcast to us I relayed approach's message a couple of times and advised the controller.
Because this happened after we picked up ice, the mood in the cockpit was somber as we both hoped the aircraft in question had not fallen prey to the moist and cold clouds.

Stuck

At this writing, my flight partner and I are stuck in Wilmington, NC and I just awoke from a power nap on the terminal's couch.
We took off earlier today from Manassas and soon got into IMC for pretty much the entire route. The first hour of the trip was fine and I closely monitored the OAT and the wings so that ice wouldn't sneak on us. Then Peter told me the plane felt weird and sluggish and that he had to pitch up to maintain altitude. Our airspeed dropped about 40kts and we began troubleshooting. No ice on the wings.
"Carb ice," Peter wondered.
I agreed and we engaged the carb heat, which soon returned our airspeed to normal.
That, however, wasn't the end of the excitement.As we journeyed on south, I began to notice slight accumulation of rime ice. With just a dusting on the leading edge, I filed a PIREP (pilot report) with ATC and Peter and I decided to keep a close eye on the situation while remaining at our altitude for now. A pilot in our vicinity reported breaking out on top at 10,000 feet, 2,000 feet above us so that was a possible escape route. We also knew that ceilings below were at about 4,000 feet.

Ah ha! Dispatch just called. Our wait is over (at 8:15 p.m.) so this shall be continued later...

Playing in the clouds

As a kid, I often wondered what it'd be like to touch a cloud. Like probably many others, I thought of them as monuments fashioned from cottonwool or cotton candy and fantasized about playing and sleeping in their inviting canyons closer to where airplanes lived.
That little kid was reawakened today during a thrilling flight from Manassas to Raleigh, most of it (1.6 hours) in IMC. The trip also marked my first (benign) ice encounter.
My school's program includes a couple of weeks of cross-country flights -- pilot speak for trips to other airports -- during which two students fly together as a crew. Just like at an airline, a dispatcher assigns us a destination. Unlike at the airlines, however, dispatch doesn't flight plan for us. Once we've surveyed our route and checked the weather, we file IFR and advise dispatch, who then release us if they deem the conditions acceptable.
The students act as a crew and practice CRM, or cockpit resource management. One will fly one leg while the "pilot monitoring" reads checklists, tunes radios, talks to ATC and provides a second pair of eyes to ensure a safe flight.
Today was my first of many such trips to come in the next two or so weeks and I was lucky to be paired with a very competent, responsible, professional and safe pilot who just happened to share my interests for food, beer and wine.
After planning the flight, we agreed I'd fly the first leg to Raleigh.
We set off on this maiden voyage mid-afternoon. I knew we'd spend some time in the clouds and we had resolved to keep a close eye on icing, for which the weather briefer told me there was potential along our route. We flew the Arsenal 1 Departure to the Gordonsville transition and found ourselves in the clouds within minutes of take-off.
(As a sidenote, our flight plan basically consisted of flying a departure procedure the transition of which was also the first point of our destination's STAR! Kinda cool I thought.)
As we neared that first cloud I asked Peter whether he had much experience in actual.
"About one hour," he said.
I had a meager 4.4 hours of actual, the last 1.2 of which I flew in July.
We popped into the white mass and my eyes turned to the instruments, instinctively scanning the panel to gather information to keep the plane upright, at our assigned altitude and on track. No biggie, things went well and I quickly relaxed. By the way, the twin we fly has no autopilot so being lazy was not an option.
Closer to Manassas, the clouds were stacked close together so we popped in and out of puffy cumulus clouds that rose above us like small monuments. At times, we broke out for a few seconds and found ourselves flying in valleys of clouds, only to quickly re-enter the white mass. Occasionally, as the layer would thin out a little bit, we skimmed the tops and caught a glimpse of blue sky in the mist above before promptly returning into the vast ocean of white.
As we made our way south, the broken clouds gave way to solid IMC. I told Peter that we should remain vigilent for icing and we discussed our options if ice were to stick to our aircraft and complicate matters by robbing us of performance. The outside air temperature was in the vicinity of -10C so we'd have to be on our toes.
Nearer to Raleigh, after a relaxed and very satisfying flight in IMC, the inside of the clouds turned a little darker and I suspected more moisture was hanging in the air. I shared my hunch with Peter and we again checked for ice.
"I see some accumulation over here, how is it on your side," he asked.
I glanced at the wing's leading edge and could see light rime ice gathering.
Hmm. There wasn't much so I decided to wait a few seconds and see how much more would accumulate. Still not a lot, but I'm inexperienced in IMC and new to this whole icing thing, so let's take no chance. We advised ATC and asked if we could get a lower altitude. A minute later we began a descent to 3,000 ft and broke out into drier air.
The small amount of ice melted reasonably rapidly and whatever had accumulated on the right engine's propeller was thrown against the windshield.
Approach vectored us to the ILS 5L at RDU and minutes later we were enjoying surpisingly good coffee from a fancy and, I'm told, very expensive machine boasting the logo of an ubiquitous chain of coffee shops.
Dispatch told us we were to fly to Atlanta from Raleigh, but soon called back and instead instructed us to return to Manassas since bad weather is forecast for the next two days.
Peter flew smoothly all the way home in marginal VFR conditions and shot a nice GPS approach into Manassas.
The flight was nothing short of awesome. The first post-checkride IMC flight is a true test for an instrument pilot, especially one who had none or little experience in the clouds during training and had to instead slap on those annoying foggles or other view-limiting devices go simulate them.
I feel that I did well and had a lot of fun. Thankfully, there was only little turbulence in those clouds and icing was very limited. But to a green instrument pilot, who wondered whether he'd be even able to keep the plane's proper side up in a cloud, it was a big step forward.
With any luck, temperatures will be warmer than forecast tomorrow and we'll spend some more time playing among the clouds.

Damn it's cold...

I had a great first-hand demonstration of the lapse rate last night.
Around 11 p.m. I took off for a quick in and out to Shenandoah. Colder air had pushed into the area during the day, promising snow and a wintery mix today but reasonably clear skies prevailed for the quick flight. It was cold on the surface and obviously significantly chillier at my cruising altitude.
Since the tower controllers had packed up and gone for the day, I raised Potomac Approach on the phone to get my clearance and release. Within minutes I was off in moonless and frigid skies.
The Seminole has a very rudimentary heating system, which operates pretty much either full on or off. Still, it gets the job done. A little care is however required in operating it. The POH notes that if the heater, which burns fuel to produce heat, is used during ground operations, the fan should be activated for a full two minutes after shutting the heat off in order to cool the system. In the air, all it takes is to let air cycle through for 15 seconds. Failing to do so will result in a heater overheat light appearing on the annunciator panel and the system going offline until a reset switch is accessed in the nose section. The reason, obviously, is to physically have someone go in there and check for any damage.
The aircraft in question last night had been recently used on a checkride with a somewhat spaced-out examiner who cranked up the heat during the flight and failed to follow proper cooling procedures.
As a result, I inherited a flying ice box.
With temperatures around -15C at 8,000 ft, the cabin got fairly chilly in a hurry, even though I'd planned ahead and flew all bundled up in my coat. It wouldn't have been so bad, however, if I'd properly shut the door, which came slightly open after take-off, allowing a stream of accelerated frigid air inside. I elected to fly the plane and fix the problem on the ground in Shenandoah, which made the return flight just a little more bearable.
In spite of the cold it was a pleasant flight, conducted from the right seat, which took some getting used to, especially in the dark. For the first time, I flew over mountains at night and realized just how featureless terrain is in the darkness.
On the way back, around 1 a.m., a lonely approach control showed a friendly side generally foreign to many of his day shift colleagues, again underlining how different night flying is.
I also thought of the freight dogs up there at that time of night. Wouldn't mind giving that a try some day.

Food, wine and good times at home

The instrument checkride and all of its intensity seems like it happened ages ago.
A decent night's sleep after the ride, I began studying for writtens. First in line was the Fundamentals of Instructing exam, which I took without any major problems on Friday of last week, the day after the instrument ride. With that done, the next three days were packed with intensive studying for the FIA (Flight Instructor Airplane) and AGI (Advanced Ground Instructor), which also went well.
My head hurt for a day or two after, however.
On Wednesday, thrilled with the idea of officially being an advanced ground instructor, I boarded a JetBlue flight home to see my wife and get some badly-needed rest. Hours after my return, we found ourselves sitting at a nearby Italian restaurant, sipping an awesome red Dolcetto, which greatly complemented the delicious polpette, and were once again a couple.
I'd missed that tremendously.
I also got back into other passions outside of flying, such as strumming my guitars and cooking. My schedule in Manassas all but eradicated those from my everyday life, hobbies which in my prior professional incarnation had sustained my mental sanity and will to avoid going postal.
Last night, for instance, my friend and Cape Air captain Ffloyd and I cooked for our wives, murdered way too many bottles of wine and traded flying stories on Cape Cod.
So with a belly constantly full of good food and wine and a heart soothed by the kind attentions of my better half, I'm a happy man. I've accomplished a lot in the past few weeks, in reasonably difficult conditions because of the forced separation from home and I feel proud.
The process, in many ways, feels like that of growing up. I'm more confident, more proficient and mature as a pilot and look forward to the growth ahead. With about six weeks to go in my training, including five checkrides and a ride on the Citation 525, I'm pumped.
And today was made a little more special by an hour spent in the windy skies of Massachusetts with Jen. My constant babbling on flying has obviously rubbed off on her and she told me a few weeks ago that she might go for her private. Of course, I greeted the news with great excitement and decided to take her up for a bit of an intro flight.
With admirable patience, she's been up with me many times before but never touched the controls in spite of my ongoing offer to do so. This afternoon, however, she described circles over the Wachuset Reservoir for about an hour, learning the basics and most of all having fun.
No words would do justice to how great it felt to see her fly that plane and have fun, so I'll keep that for myself. She did very well, slowly learning how to point the airplane's nose where she wanted it. After all that patience listening to my monologues about it, she was doing it herself. She was flying!!!
I couldn't think of a better prelude to my impending career as an instructor and while all we visited today were turns and straight and level flight, I feel like I've learned from it.
The word of the examiner I did my instrument ride with came back to me: "I didn't start learning until I began to instruct."

Good Thursday

Good news all around for what was a miserably windy day: Ron got hired as a First Officer at ExpressJet and I became an instrument pilot.
I arrived at the airport in the morning, ready for a last prep flight and was filled with anticipation and a little angst induced by my pink slipping the last checkride I took. Eric, the instructor I flew with, had only reassuring words and positive comments about our two-hour excursion in the skies of Virginia.
After a quick bite, H-Hour arrived and I sat down with the examiner, whom I’d first met during my multi-engine retest.
He quizzed me about regulations and asked me what I and the aircraft needed to be legal for IFR. Easy enough. Then it was on to questions about the low en-route chart. Again, no problems there.
We then discussed the flight plan he’d asked me to prepare, a short hop from Manassas to Cumberland, MD. The route was straightforward enough and I’d spent time surveying it and the area to make sure there were no traps. I also considered escape routes along the path of flight and briefed the only approach I’d be able to shoot based on the weather conditions he gave me.
We finger flew the flight plan. Over the Casanova VOR, my first checkpoint, approach calls me and says “Seminole 1234AB, climb and maintain 8,000, proceed on course as filed.”
A few minutes later, the DE explained, the radios appear to be awfully silent. What should I do? After calling approach for a radio check I get nothing but silence. So, I said, I’d check the volume knob on the radio, the headset, the jacks and so on. Nothing. Complete communications failure.
Since approach had cleared me as filed, I explained, I’d proceed to the next checkpoint and fly the flight plan all the way to Cumberland. Once there, the weather worsened so I showed him how I would fly the published missed approach and how I would enter the hold. After a second attempt, still no luck so I’d divert to my alternate, Martinsburg, which I picked because it has an ILS approach, is away from the mountains to the west of Cumberland and might therefore have slightly different weather conditions and is convenient to get to since the hold for the missed approach is on the Victor airway that leads directly to Martinsburg.
Satisfied with that, he probed me a little bit about the Visual Descent Point, minimum altitudes and had me read him a prognostic chart, which showed 8 or 9 low pressure systems moving east and tightly-packed isobars west of us, which would of course explain the strong winds.
After pre-flighting, and some amount of dismay on my part about the winds in the area, which were gusting in the mid-20s, we were off for the practical portion of the test. I flew west direct to CSN VFR to leave the ADIZ. On the way, since I had an idle moment, I decided to identify Casanova even though I was navigating there using the GPS. I figured that if he failed the GPS or assigned me the VOR-A at Culpeper (which begins at CSN) this would save me some work. This was only met with disapproval on his part, which I didn’t have time to question. As I mentioned in a previous post, this particular examiner can be somewhat gruff, although I do enjoy flying with him and learned a lot on Thursday’s checkride. The point, I think, was to stress me out or test my confidence.
He soon gave me vectors to shoot the ILS at Martinsburg, WV. Unfortunately, the tower there was too busy handling a C-130 and a Cessna 172 on the ILS so we were told to try a little later. I scrambled to set up the GPS-A into Winchester and shot the approach single-engine partial panel. Combine that with the checkride stress and the gusty winds and I was working hard. Since he failed my HSI, I could use two options to fly the approach: the CDI page on the GPS to get guidance to the runway, or the number 2 VOR tuned for the VOR-A. The latter is what he preferred, so I obliged. But it became obvious that the instrument was a little out of whack, showing me to be right of course when the moving map showed us well left of the approach path. I checked the frequency, the OBS but everything looked good. Even he was baffled, but instructed me to continue flying the approach that way. I personally would have preferred at this point to rely on the CDI page because the VOR could very well fly us into a mountain.
At the MDA, the examiner told me to go visual and asked me which way I’d circle to land on 14. I looked down at the approach plate and immediately replied that I would turn right to join a left downwind. While my answer was correct, my having to check led to a well-deserved scolding. I really should’ve had that figured out when I got the weather earlier on during the approach but was distracted by the engine and vacuum failures and the whacky VOR. Lesson well learned.
After landing at Winchester, he vectored me for a second, and this time successful, attempt at the VOR26 at Martinsburg. I got on with approach, who steered us to the final approach course, and flew a nice and tidy ILS all the way down. While on a long downwind, we heard the pilot of the C130 on the approach calling tower at the final approach fix.
“Who do you think has the easier job, him or you,” the examiner asked.
I was sweating bullets, doing my best to make sure everything was set up correctly and fighting the bumps so without thinking I replied the C130 pilot probably had a harder job, what with his aircraft being so much heavier, faster and complex.
“Are you kidding? He has a crew to help him with charts, radios and calling out altitudes. You are doing all that on your own and you have an SOB in the right seat yelling at you.”
Hmm. I smiled.
“If you look at it that way then I have the harder job!”
Did a nice landing in a direct 90 degree crosswind then took off and departed to the south and headed direct to Linden VOR, where the examiner told me I’d fly a 5DME arc to the left to join the 160 radial and depart eastbound. The stiff headwind bought me some time in trying to figure out how to enter this thing. The stress induced by his badgering was really getting to me even though I knew that was precisely the point of it. He likes to instill a stressful atmosphere in the cockpit to see how much you can handle, which I think is genius. Not pleasant, but great training and proof that a check ride really is a learning experience.
I was flying to LDN on the 030 radial, so I’d make a 90 degree turn to the left at about 5.5 miles out, accounting for the strong headwind. I’d arc to the right, then turn left to intercept the 160 radial outbound. We were still a few miles out so I took the chart out and finger flew the arc ahead of time to make absolutely sure my entry was correct, which it was.
After battling the wind on the initial turn, I was established on the 5DME arc and to my surprise flew it very nicely, hardly leaving the intended path at all. An arc so close to the VOR requires finesse and the way the winds were howling I knew I had my work cut out for me! Once on the outbound radial, the examiner vectored me to CSN for the VOR-A into Culpeper. On the way, he deplored that all he could see outside was lightening and dark clouds. Was he hinting to something? Was I missing something? Everything seemed to be set up correctly so I continued to wonder what he was getting to.
“Seminole 1234AB, you are cleared for the VOR-A to Culpeper, you can cancel IFR with me in the air or FSS on the ground.”
Aaaaaah. Now I get it. We’re never going to break out here, the weather’s so bad we’ll have to go missed.
“Cleared for the VOR-A Culpeper and we’d like to cancel on the ground.”
Resounding silence from the right seat. Sweet!
I flew a nice approach all the way to the missed approach point then executed the published missed: climbing left turn to 2,900 then direct to CSN and hold.
“Mark, all you have to do now is enter the hold,” he told me.
Don’t screw this up, was the message.
Upon reaching 2,900, I slowed the plane down and confirmed the hold entry to be parallel. Reached CSN, turned the outbound heading, started the time, twisted the CDI to the inbound, corrected for the wind out of my left so I wouldn’t be blown too far. A minute later, I turned right and smiled as my wind correction was spot on. I intercepted the inbound and flew back to the VOR, where he took the plane for a couple of quick and problem-free unusual attitudes.
“My airplane,” he said when I was done with those. “Take your foggles . Congratulations, you can relax now.”
Wow! Instrument pilot! I did it. The checkride was a work-out but what a feeling of accomplishment!
It’s apparently sort of a tradition of his to fly back home, so I took in the scenery and relaxed. The dark skies allowed just a sliver of bright incandescent red light frfom the setting sun to bleed out of the base of the clouds near the mountains. What a perfect sight after a couple of hours under the hood!
The next day I studied for the Fundamentals Of Instructing written, which I took without problems. Over the next couple of days I’ll be cramming to take the Flight Instructor Airplane and Advanced Ground Instructor writtens on Monday, then head home for a few days on Tuesday. I could use some rest and am looking forward to some time with my wife.

The long-awaited trip

I lost count of how many attempts we made for this particular flight, but after weather and mechanical delays (a broken starter on the left engine) it finally happened: a 5.8 hour cross-country wrapping up requirements for both the instrument and commercial ratings.
The first part of it would consist of an IFR flight with landings at three airports using three different types of approaches and the second was a VFR 300nm night trip required for the commercial rating.
We took off from Manassas around 1600 local and headed to Charlottesville, VA to shoot the ILS3. As the controller gave me a final vector to intercept the localizer, Ron pulled the left engine. This happened at the precise moment ATC called back to clear us for the approach. I made sure we were at blue line or better (blue line provides the best rate of climb on both one or two engines in the Seminole) and at or above the minimum altitude for that portion of the approach. I then called the controller back to acknowledge his instructions and went through the emergency checklist before calling tower to inform them we were inbound on the ILS.
A lot going on at once!
The approach itself was little trouble and we soon went missed and were on our way to Lynchburg, VA for the second part of the IFR flight. It was a real shame to have been stuck wearing those wretched foggles because the scenery in that area is beautiful. Ron graciously allowed me to take a quick peak, which revealed chains of mountains below us. Stunning.
As we neared Lynchburg for the VOR4, it appeared that our vacuum system stopped functioning (for practice purposes of course, otherwise this would've been a bad day, especially after that earlier "engine failure") and I was therefore faced with the task of shooting this unfamiliar approach using partial panel techniques that we had not yet practiced since our sim only has an HSI, which is typically failed for this exercise.
I flew to the LYH VOR for the procedure turn and fell a little behind because I fixated on the VOR and ended up paying little attention to the magnetic compass. But within a few seconds I was back on track and my eyes went from one to the other, stopping on the way on the turn coordinator, altimeter, airspeed indicator and the clock. The instrument scan on such a partial panel approach has to be lightening fast and it'll take me a little more practice to get up to speed with it, but the approach went reasonably well. The mind also has to be a step ahead, making calculations for timed turns, factoring in wind correction and anticipating the next portion of the approach as well as flying the current one.
After going missed at Lynchburg, we headed southeast to Wilmington, NC. Favorable winds gave us good groundspeeds, clocking in as high as 200kts at one point. This part of the flight was the longest and turned out to be quite uneventful and pleasant. Along the way we spoke to a few controllers, many of whom were very friendly and kindly accomodated our request to divert from the original flight plan and fly direct to Wilmington.
A few miles out I looked out to our right to see a fiery red sun slowly recede behind a hazy horizon. It almost seemed to be melting away as the perfectly round bright red sphere slowly turned oval in its own golden fluid before vanishing for the day.
Back under the hood I set up for the GPS35 and flew a tidy approach to a nice night landing.
We parked the plane and headed a couple of miles from the airport for BBQ.
A couple of hours later, we were back in the air fighting stiff headwinds on our long way home. The flight, nonethless, was very enjoyable and smooth. I've said it before, but night flying is amazing. It's quite striking what a few lights can do to spruce up things such as commercial complexes, which during the day are quite ugly.
Near Richmond we heard an American Eagle flight talking to ATC. Its callsign was followed by "Lifeguard." Ron explained to me that if an aircraft is carrying a passenger who suddenly becomes ill, they will tag that on the end of the callsign.
Since Manassas tower was closed when we arrived for the GPS34R approach, I got click the runway lights from the cockpit, which is always a really cool thing to do! Small things, huh?
More flying tomorrow morning: partial panel VORs, perhaps a GPS approach thrown in and then home to Boston for the night to see my wife. Come to think of it, this is the true long-awaited trip...

More foggle time

Two days of awesome flying and two very different experiences.
Yesterday was hazy, sunny and very smooth. Ron and I headed out in the afternoon for practice approaches at Charlottesville, VA. I'd love to describe the area, which I gather is quite picturesque, but I was stuck under the hood for the duration of the flight, save a few precious minutes. The flight over was uneventful and within half-an-hour after leaving Manassas we got vectors to shoot the ILS3 circle to 21.
Since the air was smooth as glass, flying the approach was quite easy and I lifted the hood at circling minimums to join a left downwind to 21. (The hood, or foggles in this case, is a inhumane device intended to limit the instrument student's view beyond the instrument panel, thereby simulating flying in the clouds. I can't wait to burn the damn thing!)
I flew the pattern as a regional jet took off and went missed. As we climbed out I tried to enjoy the view for a second, knowing I'd be back in "the clouds" shortly.
KCHO seems like a nice destination surrounded by mountains. It had a bucolic feeling with fields, forests and even a hot air balloon floating peacefuly in the distant haze.
Approach gave us missed approach instructions and we came back around to shoot the ILS a second time.
"For some reason these airplanes don't like this approach," Ron told me.
Busy fiddling with knobs and reviewing the approach plate I wondered what the heck he was talking about.
"Sometimes they just shut down one engine because they hate it so much," he continued.
Oh, I get it now...
As I received my final vector to intercept the localizer, the plane yawed suddenly as my left engine "died." Ran through the memory emergency checklist and continued the approach. Again, since there was no wind to speak of, it was pretty easy and after a nice clean ILS I lifted the hood to see the runway right in front of me. No matter how easy the conditions are, it's always a nice feeling! Went missed again, the the full published missed this time.
I managed to screw up the hold at Gordonsville VOR a little. The entry was fine although winds aloft pushed us a little out so intercepting the inbound took a little longer than expected.
From there we headed back to Manassas for the ILS16L on one engine. Again, nonexistant winds really helped me out and I greased the landing.
Fast forward to today...
It took us a while to decide whether to fly or not. The temperature at the field was in the 40s, while airports between 20 and 50 miles away showed temperatures in the 70s. Perfect conditions for Ron to show me a warm front. He was concerned, however, that a low pressure system to our west would push colder air into the area and create temperature inversions, which could bring icing.
As the afternoon went on, however, the clouds remained high and Ron decided it was safe to go.
We took off minutes later in pretty bumpy skies, but hey we got to go fly, right?!
As we neared the mountains around Charlottesville, however, the bumps got bigger and we were getting seriously thrown around. The course reversal for the GPS21 was interesting since it was right over the mountains. I fought the plane all the way in. As I went visual I had to crab 30 degrees or more into the wind and still couldn't hold centerline as the capricious wind forced the Seminole to yaw left and right. Wind shear of +/- 15kts was also wreaking havoc with what I'd hoped would be the perfect approach.
I went missed and took a breather on the way up. My palms were sweaty and I felt I'd flown the approach badly. The bumps obviously didn't help but in my efforts to tame the plane and remain on heading and altitude on the way down I tended to fixate, one of the instrument pilot's worst enemies, or forget details.
In the short time since we'd gone missed, the wind turned almost 180 degrees, so we received vectors for the ILS3 for our second run.
Again, the bumps and gusts made the approach difficult and while it wasn't necessarily graceful I flew it OK. Not great, but it wasn't a complete disaster. As we reached the DH, Ron and I agreed we were happy we didn't have to land there! It was a workout but great experience.
Published missed to the hold, where I picked up our clearance home and back to Manassas for the GPS34R, which went well. Our ground speed to the FAF was up to around 170kts, I believe. As we turned onto the final approach course, it dipped as low as 50kts and never exceeded 70kts.
The winds are back...