The Dog Days of Winter

There hasn't been much to write about because there just hasn't been a lot of flying lately.

The past six weeks here in Minnesota has been one long string of lousy weather. Ceilings and visibilities have been low and on the rare occasions when it's been clear the temperatures have been below zero, which isn't much fun to fly in.

The weather has led to a score of canceled lessons, frantic reschedules and more cancellations.

I've managed to get a few flights in, including a trip down to Chicago and back, but for the most part the routine has been: Wake up, check the forecast, cancel, reschedule, repeat.

Last winter I only scrubbed four or five flights because of weather. This winter I'm scrubbing four or five flights a week. Amazing.

The Chicago trip was mostly routine: Take a Cirrus down to pick up an instrument student and give him a lesson on the way back. It's a great way to learn instrument flying, since it's a real trip, with real weather, real decisions to make along the way and the chance to see the inside of some clouds.

Departing STP the ceilings were overcast at 800 feet with 2 miles visibility and although I could see the sun poking through the clouds, there were no airmets for icing and all the pilot reports indicated no icing I kept a careful eye for any signs of build-up. As expected, there was none and after maybe a minute in the clouds I was on top, squinting in the bright sunlight.

Down in Chicago the conditions were similar, although the tops were a little higher, necessitating an ILS into PWK. I wasn't expecting any icing but I was still wary as I descended into the soup. Once again there was no ice to be found. The approach lights oozed into view and eventually the runway showed up right where it was supposed to be.

We refueled, I ran to the bathroom and we blasted off back into the crud, this time with my student flying. He did a fine job once he settled down a bit and relaxed. Chicago departure was unusually quiet, with only a few airplanes on the frequency.

Coming back into STP I was reminded again at how good and dedicated air traffic controllers are.

STP was reporting clear skies with 4 miles visibility in mist, so the ILS 14 was in use. The Minneapolis approach controller started vectoring us for the ILS then came on and said “I'm going to take you low and right past the airport to see if you can get in on a visual.”

Sure enough, he vectored us beautifully into a left downwind for 14 at 2,500 feet and even though the setting sun made it difficult to see we were able to pick up the airport and fly an easy visual approach.

The visual saved us a bunch of time compared to flying the full ILS and it's actually a maneuver that seems to generate some confusion in new instrument pilots, mainly because it's hardly ever practiced during training.

We fly low-circling approaches, albeit in good conditions, straight-in approaches, again usually in good conditions, but it's rare to practice a simple visual approach in poor conditions.

The biggest source of confusion seems to stem from the word "visual" in "visual approach" and people seem to think they're suddenly operating VFR, which isn't the case. You're still under IFR, you're just flying a visual approach and landing. Maybe it's the sheer simplicity of the thing that throws folks.

There are plenty of pilots out there who have never seen how miserable and dangerous 4-miles of visibility is. Even though it's above basic VFR minimums, 4 miles isn't much at all, especially in a 150-knot airplane.

I make it a point to get all of my students, private or instrument, some exposure to that environment. To date not a single one has said "cool, I'll do this all the time" and the standard response seems to be "This is awful, let's go home."

Reading about 4-mile visibility in a weather report is one thing, seeing it for yourself is something else entirely.

I reminded my student to make sure he knew where downtown St. Paul was so we didn't fly into a building on the approach and he did a good job maneuvering in the haze.

I would have preferred a simple ILS were the conditions any poorer, but as a teaching opportunity there's good value in having a student see what it's like to fly the airplane visually in poor conditions.

There's also good value in taking the opportunity to remind the student that they can always decide to fly an ILS, which in many cases is more prudent.

It's that judgment required for safe instrument flight that I love, which is why I enjoy teaching instrument flying so much.

For non-instrument rated pilots things are usually pretty simple: If the weather is marginal, stay on the ground and fly a better day.

For instrument pilots, even the seemingly simple act of getting to the airport mean a host of choices, any one of which can go horribly wrong: Fly a full approach or fly the visual? Which approach to fly? Is there a concern about icing, in which case it may make sense to stay out of the clouds for as long as possible and deal with a “slam-dunk” approach, which has it's own set of risks and challenges.

Couple that with the technology available in airplanes like the Cirrus and even a routine trip down to Chicago and back winds up being a lot of work, but also a pretty satisfying way to spend 4.9 hours on a Sunday.