More bookwork

I wish I had something exciting to report. I don't.

I've been glued to my kitchen table studying for the commercial written and taking practice tests using a decent software package from faatest.com.

One of these days I'll write a proper review. I used their software to prepare for the instrument written with good results. Right now my brain is full from some tricky weight and balance questions.

On a lighter note, I stumbled across this list of aircraft designators on aopa.org the other day while I was trying to decipher a pirep.

Thanks to that, I now know that an "AC50" is a Rockwell Commander Shrike, which I always thought was kind of an ugly airplane.

Alternate questions

I love hangar flying and I really love thinking about some of the more esoteric corners of the regulations.

An interesting question came out of one of those sessions:

When you designate an airport as your alternate and some, but not all, of the approaches at that airport include the notation ‘Alternate minimums Not Authorized’ can you still legally fly one of those approaches upon arriving at your alternate?

I’ve been trying to find the correct answer, without much luck.

My argument would be (and indeed was) that you file to an airport as an alternate, not to a particular approach. Therefore you can fly any approach that is available upon arriving at your alternate. But, for flight planning purposes you can only plan on utilizing approaches that are authorized for alternate minimums.

So, for an extreme example, if an airport has both a precision and non-precision approach and the precision approach is n/a for alternate minimums you would need to have the higher weather minimums required for filing to an airport with a non-precision approach. (800 and 2 as opposed to 600 and 2).

In other words, if the forecast at your ETA was for 700 foot ceilings and 2 miles visibility you couldn’t file our mythical airport as an alternate. (I’m talking legally here and ignoring for a moment any question as to whether actually doing so is smart.)

However, if the weather was above 800 and 2, you could you file the airport as an alternate.

Which leaves the remaining question: Could you also legally execute an ILS there, keeping in mind that the procedure itself had a ‘not authorized’ notation for use in determining alternate minimums.

The argument has been made that you cannot.

For a real world example, check out the approaches to the Alexandria, MN, airport.

Both the ILS/LOC RWY 31 and RNAV (GPS) 31 approaches at Alex indicate ‘alternate minimums not authorized’.

However, the VOR RWY 22 contains no such restriction, so at the very least you can file Alex as your alternate and fly the VOR RWY 22 approach.

But what if the conditions favor runway 31? Could you legally fly the ILS/LOC 31?

I don’t know the ‘right’ answer for certain, but I know for certain what I’d do: If an ILS was available at my alternate, it was the safest approach given the conditions and ATC cleared me for the approach I’d fly it, regardless of the notation on the approach plate and work it out on the ground.

To call up ATC and say ‘Well, I know the winds favor 31 and everybody else in the free world is flying the ILS-31 but we’d like to fly the VOR-22 approach and circle to land on 31 because we don’t want to get in trouble with the man' seems a little crazy to me.

What’s probably more pertinent and something I hadn’t thought too much about, is just how important it is to really study the approaches at the airports you’re considering as an alternate. Just because an airport has an ILS doesn’t mean you can file that airport as an alternate or file to it using the lower weather minimums.

In my case, the question came up on a severe clear day so I really didn’t give much thought to my alternate. That was a mistake.

More important to me than the actual approaches available in this situation given the weather was the fact that the airport had multiple runways, was well within range, was downwind and we’d fly right over it on the way so we’d have a first-hand look at the conditions there if we needed to return.

There’s a lot of art that goes into instrument flying and I’m still scribbling with crayons.

There’s something to this IFR stuff

Nearing St. Cloud, enroute to Alexandria, I keyed the mike and said ‘Center, Cessna 1724Y would like to leave the frequency. We’ll report back on.’

‘Cessna 24Y, I’ll approve that, but first I want to point out some traffic. He’s at about your 11 o’clock four miles, altitude has been indicating between 6,000 and 7,000 for a while now so it looks like he’s maneuvering....’

He probably said something else, but I was too busy shoving the nose down to avoid a twin that was in a steep right turn and headed more or less straight for me.

Center finally stopped talking long enough for me to break in and let him know I was descending NOW to avoid a twin doing steep turns.

‘Roger that, 24Y. Um, I’ll tell you what, you can descend and maintain 4,000 at pilot’s discretion. Just let me know when you want to climb back up to 6,000.’

‘24Y, 4,000, pilot’s discretion,’ came out automatically as I craned my neck to keep track of the twin passing directly overhead. I picked up the left wing, kicked in a bunch of left rudder and looked out the side window as he circled in a steep bank above me now and slightly behind.



After a minute or two the twin was reasonably to the south of me so I called center and asked to climb back to 6,000, which he quickly approved.

Level again at 6,000 I checked that the demon twin was safely behind me and thought:

+ I’m damn glad I decided to file today
+ I bet if I’d flown airways as planned this never would have happened
+ Whatever those pilots were doing in that twin looked like a whole lot of fun. I need a multi-engine rating.
+ When I get said multi-engine rating you can be damn sure I’ll be talking to somebody with radar when I’m out maneuvering all over the flippin’ sky.
+ I guess my good ol’ VFR airplane handling skills are still there if I really need ‘em.

Backing up a bit, I’d decided that since it was clear and a million, warm, sunny and about as good a VFR day as you could ask for I’d file IFR for the first time ever as an instrument rated pilot.

I needed to do it eventually anyway and today seemed like a perfect day to stick my toe in and start getting used to working within the system.

It was a pretty intimidating thought, I have to admit, But I sure am glad I did.

I'd filed Gopher, V2, Alexandria VOR for my route and as soon as I checked in with Minneapolis departure they cleared me direct to the Alexandria airport, which I'd expected was going to happen.

After the demon twin incident the rest of the flight from Crystal to Alexandria was uneventful. Actually, it was downright boring, but I sure learned a lot along the way.

Once the episode with the demon twin was over with, I got back on course and called up flightwatch to give them a pirep.

I’ve decided to do everything I can to file a pirep on every trip. I figure they’re something I rely on heavily so I might as well do my part.

So, I dug into the aux menu on the Garmin 430, entered my pressure altitude, the outside temperature my heading and my indicated airspeed and bingo, I had the basis for the following:

STC UA /OV STC/TM 1759/FL060/TP C172/WV 25636KT/TB NEG

Besides, there’s usually not a whole heck of a lot going on in cruise anyway. Talking to flightwatch is a good way to feel productive and they really do seem to appreciate it.

Approaching Alexandria, center asked if I had the current weather. I told them I did and that I’d like a visual approach into the aiport.

A few miles later he cleared me to descend, asked me to report the airport in sight and told me to cancel IFR once I was on the ground on his frequency.

I figured there was no reason to tie up the airspace around Alex any more than I needed to so told him I had the airport in sight, it was clear and a million and I wanted to cancel IFR. He told me to squawk VFR and cheerfully told me to have a great day, great weekend or whatever else I was doing in Alexandria.

I landed, went to the bathroom then got some water for the trip home. I thought about filing for the return trip but really wanted to just spend some time flying by looking at the window, so I flew home VFR.

It was about the easiest VFR trip I’d ever made. Departing Alex I could see the smoke stacks at the Monticello nuke plant, which made navigating pretty darn simple.

And when I got near St. Cloud you can bet my head was on a swivel.

No flying today

It's another severe clear day and absurdly warm for this time of year.

I really need to go fly and work on the commercial maneuvers but I think it's a good day for a break.

Yesterday's brief positioning flight from Crystal to Anoka was almost surreal. It has been so long since I'd flown by myself or flown regular 'ol VFR that it felt really strange. It was weird to just depart without picking up an IFR clearance.

I may be relatively sharp as an IFR pilot right now but I'm crap as a VFR guy.

I have three more written exams (the commercial, fundamentals of instruction and the flight instructor, airplane) to take in quick succession, so it'll be a lot of bookwork for a while.

I also need to modify my training plan. It was pretty heavy on maximizing training efficiency and minimizing any extra flying. I need to just get a couple of plain ol' fun flights in.

Time to start calling those folks who have been bugging me for an airplane ride.

A long day

The checkride went about as well as I could have expected. I didn’t bust anything and at the end of it I was presented with a handshake and a nifty temporary certificate with the lovely words ‘instrument airplane’ added below ‘airplane single engine land’.

I hadn’t flown the 172 I decided to use for the checkride in 11 days. So I decided to leave Crystal a little early, go fly around a bit, fly an approach or two VFR, then go to Anoka to meet Barb, the examiner.

It didn’t quite work out as planned because as I was pulling the plane out of the hangar another guy in my club showed up with a buddy and we shot the breeze for a bit. By the time we were done, I had just enough time to take off, fly the six miles to Gopher, track the 270 radial westbound for about 10 miles then turn around and go to Anoka. So much for my warm up.

The oral portion of the exam was pretty straightforward. Barb asked me a bunch of questions about picking an alternate airport, we worked through my flight planning between Anoka and Fargo and spent a surprising amount of time on a weight and balance. By ‘surprising’, I mean maybe five minutes, which is still more than I expected.

Picking an alternate can be a real art and it’s something I hadn’t practiced much before today. That nearly bit me because the alternate I picked (Alexandria, MN) had only one approach that was authorized for use when filing the airport as an alternate.

That was lucky for me, because I’d missed the ‘not authorized’ notations when I was doing my planning and would have looked pretty silly if I’d picked an alternate where none of the approaches were authorized.

Anyhow, that bullet dodged we jumped in the airplane. I really took my time getting my radios set up before we left the ground, same for the GPS,because I didn’t want to mess with them in the air until I had to.

We took off, flew direct to Gopher then joined V2 heading northwest. After that, it was over to St. Cloud for the ILS-31, which was thankfully uneventful.

We flew the published missed and I entered the hold at HUSSK trying my best to ignore the memories of totally blowing that same hold the last time I tried it 11 days ago.

Next up was the LOC-31, which worked out ok. I got a little screwed up on my timing because I descended to the MDA and out of habit, looked outside, saw the runway and went visual.

That brought a quick admonition to go back on the gauges and fly the approach to the missed approach point. Of course, since I’d already gone visual and had the runway in sight I’d stopped paying attention to my timing. So it took some, um, interpolation to get everything back on track.

The controller at STC was great. They were using 13 but he was more than happy to let us fly approaches to the opposite runway. There were a few awkward moments while he tried to work out a solution between us and traffic departing directly toward us, but it all came together nicely.

Those guys need radar in that tower as soon as possible. Period.

Two approaches down, one to go.

Barb vectored me eastbound and I set up for the RNAV/GPS 18 back into Anoka. A few miles outside of the DOCKN initial approach fix she covered up my attitude indicator, then the heading indicator.

I managed to get turned onto the final approach course at AADCO and had things centered up nicely when things started going just a little bit downhill.

Anoka tower asked us to break off our approach right as we passed the final approach fix at DOZXU, which would have been a real problem, since I needed to complete the approach to minimums and circle to land to complete the checkride.

Barb had me ask if we could do a 360 right there and then continue.

Secretly, I wasn’t in love with that idea at all because I wasn’t sure how the GPS sequencing would work out if I flew back over DOZXU once I’d already passed it and I figured I’d have to go missed anyway.

Of course I didn’t have any better suggestions, other than maybe go missed right there and then and try again.

‘If you complete the approach will that complete your mission?’ the tower queried.

‘Affirmative.’

‘Roger that. Cross over the airport and maintain 500 feet over the airport. Proceed south and I will call your downwind leg for 27.'

You gotta love the controllers around these parts. They’re all pretty darn good and willing to do what it takes. My hat is off to ‘em.

We continued with the approach then flew south at the circling minimums of 1,400 feet. About two miles past the airport the tower instructed us to turn downwind.

After it became obvious our downwind leg was going to go way further east than any downwind should be flown I couldn’t stand it anymore so I told Barb I wanted to climb purely for the sake of safety, to which she quickly agreed.

The tower finally called our base leg then quickly cleared us to land. Seems the cause of all the approach weirdness was due to a flight of two warbirds performing a high-overhead approach.

I hope they enjoyed it more than I enjoyed my low-level tour of Anoka county, although I can’t blame ‘em. If I had an airplane like that I’d fly cool approaches as well.

By the time we got back to her hangar I was really tired. She filled out some paperwork, handed me a temporary certificate and we did a very quick debrief, which basically consisted of ‘plan ahead more and don’t tolerate even the slightest deviation in the needles.’

After that, it was a quick flight home. I thought about filing IFR for the six-minute flight back to Crystal just for kicks but decided I was too tired to deal with it.

T-minus 3 hours

It's been 13 years, 5 months and six days since I've taken a checkride.

That was for my private and I still recall darn near every detail, so I guess it was a pretty significant experience.

I did about three hours of ground with Kevin last night, going over stuff I might get on the oral portion of the test and filling out my 8710.

All that's left is to get through the oral and go fly. Sounds simple enough put like that, eh?

We'll see.

Brainwork

27.5 hours until the checkride begins.

I spent most of the day yesterday studying for the oral, alternating between the AIM, approach plates, a little study guide from ASA that's not as useful as I would have expected and the refrigerator.

I also read 'West with the Night' for a little inspiration. It's a true -- and lovely -- story about Beryl Markham who was a bush pilot in Africa back in the thirties.

It's not a tale of hairy chested adventures saved at the last moment by the raw skill of our hero pilot. In fact, probably only a quarter of the book has anything to do with flying at all and what there is is almost devoid of harrowing tales in the air, although I'm sure she had her share. (Her flight across the Atlantic from east to west consumes only a chapter and she is remarkably casual about the moments she did have, including crashing into a field at the end.)

It's a subtle book and so good I read it in a single sitting.

I can't think of anything more challenging and fun than flying the bush in some exotic location. For Beryl, of course, Africa was home so it wasn't as exotic to her as it appeared to outsiders but it was still clear she realized it was a very special place.

I'd much rather re-read 'West with the Night' than dig into 'Aviation Weather Services' but that's where I'm headed next.

Most things come relatively easy, weather isn't one of them. It's one of those topics I really need to work at to understand. So, I'll work at it.

Strangely, I think I make pretty good decisions regarding weather. I can absorb a forecast well, plan a route that leaves me options and have done an honest amount of long cross-country flying for somebody with so few hours.

The practical application isn't what trips me up, it's recalling the theory, which chart depicts exactly what items without having the chart in front of me or trying to remember if a positive 'K-index' means thunderstorms or no thunderstorms.

So, it's time to study weather some more, not that I expect to be asked about K-indexes.

Then this evening, one last session with Kevin to go over the oral, finalize the 8710 and get the appropriate signatures in my logbook.

I've gone through and made up a spreadsheet that contains dates of the last annual inspection, pitot/static/transponder checks, GPS database update, etc... along with their due dates. I figure that'll speed up part of the oral and save me having to look the answers up in the aircraft logbooks.

I may go fly tonight as well. I need a few more hours of night alone in the airplane anyway and I haven't flown the 172 in 10 days so it'll be a good chance to brush some of the rust off.

So, in short, I suppose I'm ready. But there's always that nagging doubt, which is a good thing. If I wasn't constantly wondering what I've missed I'd be worried.

Malibu tales

The instrument check ride is four days away but instead of stressing and studying I went for an airplane ride. When an opportunity like this one presents itself only an idiot would turn it down.

Long story short, K. does some work for a company that’s developing a FADEC system for Piper’s Malibu. Which means K. needed to fly the Malibu today and asked if I’d like to come along to help out and act as a safety pilot while he flew a couple of approaches.

Um, yeah, sure. I guess so. Try to keep me out of the dang thing.

The major challenge, as it seems to be with all airplanes, was figuring out how to work my way into the front seat without looking like a total idiot. That turned out to be no easy task because despite being a fairly large airplane the Malibu’s cockpit is on the smallish side.

After a couple of false starts I managed to squeeze myself into the right seat without breaking anything and figured out how to lower the seat so my head wasn’t jammed into the ceiling. Even with the seat as low as it would go, I had to angle myself inboard just a bit to keep my head clear.

The FADEC system is pretty cool. I wasn’t paying particularly close attention to the details, but it replaces both the magnetos with three independent processing units, each of which controls the spark and mixture for a pair of cylinders. The end result is spark and mixture is controlled automatically for each cylinder, which is supposed to create a smoother, more efficient engine and ultimately lower maintenance costs. That was a major over-simplification, by the way.

Or, to put it another way, it runs more like your car and less like a cranky, temperamental, aircraft engine based on ancient (although well proven) technology.

Starting was a piece of cake: Just activate the system and hold the start button. The run-up was more of the same: Hold the test buttons for a few seconds each and let the system do it’s thing.

After those two non-events it was pretty much regular airplane stuff. Big, pressurized, twin-turbocharged, 25,000 foot ceiling, 200+ knot cruising, 2,000 f.p.m. climb, known icing certified, flight director equipped airplane stuff to be sure, but still just another airplane underneath it all.

We picked up our clearance to Alexandria, MN and took off from 14R, all 3,266 feet of it. The far end of the runway was way closer than I was used to when we rotated, but there was still a reasonable amount of room left.

In no time at all we were into the bases of an overcast layer at 2,400 feet msl, on top at 2,900 and level at 3,000. Cruising just above the tops was awesome, giving a great sense of speed, and I was disappointed when departure cleared us up to 4,000 and then up to 8,000 for the 36-minute flight to KAXN.

The AWOS was reporting a 600-foot overcast with four miles visibility in mist. K. set up the autopilot for a coupled ILS-31 approach and we reviewed the fixes and minimums. We descended into the clag and I followed along, cross-checking his flight instruments against the more basic set on my side.

I’ve been studying the Fundamentals of Instruction to get ready for my CFI/CFII and had to quietly scold myself for poor communication on my part.

We had just broken out of the clouds and the runway oozed into view when I quietly said: “I have the airport in sight. You want to bring up the lights?”

“I have my lights on,” K. replied.

“No, I meant the airport lights.”

K. keyed the mike seven quick times and the runway lights, PAPI and ODALS sprang to life.

It was one of those exchanges that could have been greatly simplified if I’d just been a little clearer on the front end. So much to remember, so little brainspace.

As an aside, I’m going to make sure I add an ‘activate airport lighting’ line to my approach checklist. We’d planned to go missed at Alexandria, but it was still much easier to locate the runway – and particularly to distinguish it from a taxiway – with the lights turned up in the gloom. Not to mention how helpful the PAPI is.

K. flew the missed, heading direct to the AXN VOR then to Flying Cloud via the Gopher Five arrival. There’s something cool and ‘big airplane’ feeling when you get an arrival procedure. Of course, we had to dig out the actual arrival procedure to figure out where the heck we were supposed to go, but that was a minor price to pay.

Level at 7,000 feet and in the clear K. gave me the airplane so I hand flew it using the instruments on my side while he messed around with some of the widgets and got set up for the ILS 10R into FCM.

I was surprised at just how stiff the controls were but also really pleased with how stable the thing was. I love how the 182RGs just sort of plow along in cruise and feel really solid. This was a similar sensation, but even more stable.

A guy could get spoiled flying a Malibu I decided.

Minneapolis approach started vectoring us around and dropping us down, so I switched over and flew off of the instruments on K.’s side.

I’d never flown with a flight director before and it wasn’t something I was immediately comfortable with. More than once the command bars were indicating turns earlier than I would have started them and it seemed to continue indicating turns and descents after I would have stopped if I was flying using raw data.

I’m not sure who was right, me or the flight director, but later K. and I were talking about it and he’d had the same experience.

The Malibu also had a pretty nifty Sandel EHSI, which unfortunately is a total bugger to read from the right seat so I had to crane my neck over even more and after a few minutes I was getting pretty sore.

Anyhow, I'd managed to keep the airplane right-side-up, pointed in the proper direction and at the proper altitude for about 30 minutes. That’s much more a testament to how stable and easy to fly the thing is than any great skill on my part.

Of course, I couldn’t resist tweaking K. a tiny bit about how he’d had it easy flying up with his fancy autopilot, flight director and EHSI while I got stuck flying back by hand using either the basic (albeit still very nice) stack in front of me or looking across at his instruments.

He just laughed. “Yeah, you’re actually working.”

Well, I wouldn’t call it work, exactly. More like having an absolute blast.

Approach vectored us to intercept the localizer and by now we were in and out of the cloud tops.

In rare moment of clear thinking, I figured I shouldn’t push my luck by hand-flying an ILS from the right seat with a flight director I didn’t totally understand, an EHSI I didn’t totally understand and couldn’t see very well in a big, fast, expensive airplane that didn’t belong to me.

So I quite happily turned it back over to K. and went back to looking out the window for traffic.

As soon as we broke out I let K. know I had the airport in sight and started looking for traffic, we flew a low approach then got vectored around for the familiar VOR-A back into Crystal.

After K. shut the big Malibu down I managed to extract myself from the right seat with a reasonable measure of grace, given I’m moving 6'3" and 260 pounds of mass around a very small space.

Yeah, a guy sure could get used to flying a Malibu.

The waiting begins

Another long day under the hood, but I'm finally over the 40-hour hurdle so it's a matter of doing some ground to prep for the instrument oral then taking the check ride.

We started out with a zero-zero takeoff, which I hadn't done in the real airplane since I was working on my private some 13 years ago. It's a pretty odd experience and I for one can't imagine having to be anywhere so badly that I'd do one in actual conditions.

But, it was a beautiful morning and I had an instructor sitting beside me so I lined up carefully, set the DG, rolled forward a bit to make sure I was perfectly straight then gradually started feeding in the power. I focused on keeping my heading within a degree and was the happiest guy at Crystal airport when we finally rotated and were airborne.

We got established in cruise heading west, did a quick VOT check using the VOT station at KMSP then Kevin covered up the gyros and put me through a partial panel workout. We did some timed turns then some compass turns. I'd taped the little lead/lag cheat sheet Linda had given me to my clipboard so the turns were a non-event.

Kevin then put me through three unusual attitude recoveries, which are always fun, especially partial panel. During the last one I could tell Kevin was having some fun with the airplane and when I opened my eyes and looked at the panel we were in a steep climbing turn with the airspeed dropping like a stone through about 40 knots and headed for zero. I poured in the power, got the wings level and started pushing the nose down until we got back into level flight.

After that bit of fun, it was on to some approaches.

Still partial panel we flew the GPS 28 into Maple Lake and mixed things up a bit by holding at the NAZMY inital fix to see how the Garmin 430 handled the waypoint sequencing.

If you study the approach, you'll see that you're required to perform a course reversal if you use NAZMY as your inital approach fix and ATC hasn't cleared you for a straight in approach.

Since we were approaching from the east, making a course reversal by entering the holding pattern at NAZMY seemed like a real waste of 4 minutes, but it's still required.

Not performing a course reversal when ATC expects you to is one of those deals that can get you in trouble pretty quick. If in doubt, asking is the way to go.

If you're joining an approach at a fix that doesn't contain the 'NoPT' (No Procedure Turn) notation than you might as well better prepare for a course reversal, even if you're heading straight down the final approach course as we were at NAZMY.

(For a good example of just how subtle the course reversal/no course reversal issue can be, check out the end of this article.

The Garmin is a pretty smart piece of hardware and sequenced us into the holding pattern just fine.

We dropped down to minimums and the airport was right where the GPS said it was so we flew the published missed and did two circuits around the hold back at NAZMY before Kevin finally gave me my attitude and heading indicators back.

Since we still had some time to burn we flew up and did the ILS 31 at St. Cloud.

The approach itself was a piece of cake although I was concentrating so hard on flying the darn thing that I forgot to report a one-mile final as requested. That oversight generated a not-so-subtle spanking from the controller and a quick apology on my part. We flew the published miss, which takes forever in a 172, and held at the HUSSK compass locator.

I was feeling pretty proud of myself for flying a pretty nice ILS, despite the brain fade at the end. The missed was looking like a piece of cake with the GPS properly sequenced to WHISK and the ADF tuned, identified and driving me nuts beeping quietly in the background. About half a mile from HUSSK Kevin took the GPS away so it was into the hold using nothing but the ADF.

I kept my mouth shut hoping he'd forget that I still had the localizer tuned in on the number two nav radio, which would make navigating to WHISK a piece of cake.

He didn't forget and as I started turning inbound he flipped the number two over to a dead frequency, leaving me with just the ADF.

The entry for the first circuit never really worked out and I wound up giving up on it, flying directly to WHISK and doing a second entry. This time the hold worked out almost perfectly and we quickly bugged out to get out of the way of a chopper on the ILS.

From there we called up Minneapolis approach and got vectored for the good ol' VOR-A back into Crystal.

2.4 hours under the hood, three approaches, a couple of holds, a bunch of partial panel work, some unusual attitudes and one tired pilot.

Next up, a bunch of studying for the oral and I'll probably head out and fly some approaches on my own VFR just to stay sharp with my procedures and with ATC.

The actual flying part is a piece of cake, it's the darn mental stuff that I need to keep working on.

Light at the end of the tunnel

Finally, the weather, my schedule and my health were in alignment.

I'd scrubbed a flight on Saturday, the first really nice day in weeks, because I felt horrible. Not what I wanted to do, especially now that I have a deadline.

My check ride is scheduled for Wednesday, Jan. 25. That's the good news.

The not-so-good news is I still have some flying to do between now and then to get up to the 40 hours of simulated/actual instrument time to qualify for the rating.

As of this morning, I was 4.6 hours shy. I decided to fly the last few hours off in a 172 and take the ride in it. I’d been doing most of my training in our 182RGs and am really comfortable flying the airplanes. But, for the check ride I figured it was better to keep things as simple as possible, so back into a 172 I went.

Besides, at this point I need time more than I need speed, so the 172 makes sense.

The forecast winds aloft at 3,000 feet were truly remarkable: 240 at 34 knots. Luckily, the air was super smooth above 2,500 feet, not a hint of turbulence.

So, in true 'give me your best shot' fashion, we went out and worked on holds and DME arcs.

Then, in what I can only claim was a fit of temporary insanity I looked over at Kevin and said ‘With this kind of wind it’s a perfect day to go fly an NDB approach.’

His response, a measured ‘um,’ let me know I’d made the right decision.

The insanity continued. “Kev, an NDB approach on a day like today is like whiskey to a drunk. Irresistible. I probably wouldn’t fly one in actual conditions if I had a choice, but why not?”

We did a quick DME hold northwest of Gopher, which required some impressive wind correction angles, then flew the 16 DME arc for ages to get down to the 085 degree radial so I could hold at WHISK intersection.

Kevin took away my DME right as I approached WHISK so I quickly set up a crossing radial off of the Farmington VOR. Not quickly enough, it turned out.

By the time I turned inbound to enter the hold I was probably 5 miles past WHISK. The inbound leg to get established simply took forever as we crawled along. Even Kevin couldn't stand it and flipped the Garmin over to a nav page so he could check out the ground speed.

55 knots. Ugh. Pretty impressive considering we were holding at an indicated 90 knots.

When we'd finally clawed our way back to WHISK I decided to fly the outbound leg for 15 seconds. Kevin suggested I just fly a standard rate turn and not even bother with a true outbound leg, but I just had to try it.

Sure enough, even with barely enough time to roll wings level and roll back in our inbound leg wound up taking about 1:15. Not bad, considering.

Then it was over to New Richmond, Wis. for the real adventure of the flight: The NDB 14.

With the strong winds out of the southwest, we hauled butt to KRNH. I tuned and identified the New Richmond NDB and left it playing in the background.

Neither Kevin or I could figure out how to configure the nifty new Garmin GMA 340 audio panel to put the NDB on the speaker where it was a little less obnoxious so I finally gave in and explained that while I’d normally leave the ADF playing on the speaker or softly in my headset I was turning the volume off because it was driving me crazy.

Over the NDB I did my best to intercept the outbound course but the wind was just killing me. I finally got the intercept nailed about 6 miles outbound and immediately executed the procedure turn. Having learned my lesson during the hold at WHISK I didn’t bother flying an outbound leg on the procedure turn and just did a 45 followed immediately by a 180.

As it turned out, my 45 degree intercept angle was also a near perfect wind correction to fly the 134 bearing inbound. It was blowing that hard. I wound up under-correcting for the wind once I was established and wound up just a bit east of the airport, trying like crazy to get back on course.

I’ve got to say, NDB approaches are really neat. I love the simplicity of them but also the precision with which they can be flown. They’re a real mental exercise, at least for my brain, and on a windy day they’re a heck of a lot of fun.

After that it was an easy missed approach followed by the GPS 32, which was a piece of cake. We circled to land on 14 with winds at 190 16 knots gusting to 20.

We got warm at the nice little airport office and then blasted off westbound to get home. I asked Kevin a question designed to warm his CFII heart: Would he cover up the AI and HI so I could get some partial panel work in?

The VOR-A back into Crystal worked out just fine and I managed to get the wind correction angle nailed fairly early. Finally, partial panel work is really starting to click.

We landed back at Crystal and another 2.5 hours under the hood went into my logbook. If the weather holds, I’ll finish up on Saturday then it’s just staying sharp until the check ride.

Aaarghh

Another day, another scrubbed flight.

There was a glimmer of hope when I checked the forecast for today yesterday afternoon. By last night that glimmer was gone and this morning saw more of the same crud that has socked in the area for the past two weeks now.

The tentative plan had been to fly down to Rochester, MN, and fly a couple of approaches there before heading back. The en-route portion would probably have been fine, since pireps were showing the tops around 3,000 and little to no icing.

But the approaches at RST and then trying to get back home were another story. And finding a legal alternate within range, well, I'd have to choose someplace in Nebraska or the Dakotas. Not good.

The latest METARs:

KMIC 061653Z 20010KT 5SM BR OVC005 M05/M06 A3000 RMK AO2 SLP172 T10501061
KMSP 061653Z 20009KT 5SM BR OVC005 M05/M06 A3002 RMK AO2 SLP177 T10501061
KANE 061645Z 20006KT 5SM BR OVC004 M04/M04 A3000
KRST 061700Z 23013KT 3SM BR OVC002 M05/M06 A3003 RMK AO2

Or, to simplify matters a bit: Crystal, barely at minimums. Anoka, below minimums. Minneapolis, above minimums for the ILS. Rochester, barely at minimums for the ILS.

Next week is looking a little better. Maybe, just maybe, I'll get to fly again.

Miserable weather

Nothing to report, except a series of flights scrubbed due to some fairly rotten weather.

I was going to give Tuesday a shot but the forecast was ugly. So, we decided to try again on Wednesday, which graced us with the following:

KMSP 032341Z 040024 16008KT P6SM OVC006
TEMPO 0002 4SM BR
FM0400 13006KT 3SM -DZ BR OVC005
TEMPO 0609 1SM -FZRA BR OVC003
FM0900 34005KT 2SM -SN BR OVC006
TEMPO 0912 3/4SM -SN OVC003
FM1300 34010KT 5SM -SN BR OVC008
FM1600 32012KT P6SM OVC010

It's the story of the last few weeks: Periods of light freezing rain or snow, ceilings going above and below minimums and some icing, although not as much as I would have expected.

The real irony is, for anything other than training, there have been periods where the weather has been reasonable. Bases have ranged from 500 to 1,200 AGL (maybe 1,400 to 2,000 msl) and tops have been consistently reported in the 3,000 to 3,500 foot range, which is a piece of cake to get above quickly in a 182. A light 182RG climbs at around a 1,000-foot-per-minute, meaning you're in and out of the clouds in 60 seconds, maybe 90 at the most. Most importantly, that's a minimal exposure to any icing.

So, if I was going somewhere with half-decent weather and had a bit of flexibility in my schedule I'd probably be able to make the trip. But slogging around in the ice flying approaches while trying to coordinate two schedules just hasn't been working out.

Ah well. Flying is all about patience and I've had a lot of time to practice that skill these past few weeks.