“Real world flying” to regain instrument proficiency
As is the case with many weekend flyers, losing the ability to file and fly under Instrument Flight Rules is a reality (especially for those of us with babies/young children at home). It’s strange, but once you have an Instrument Rating the ability to “just fly VFR” seems so limiting.
This is not a negative comment about flying under Visual Flight Rules. Heavens no! Nothing beats the pure freedom of VFR flight. But when I did a few VFR flights after the birth of my daughter, the lack of being able to file IFR in the air, due to unexpected weather, made me seem vulnerable. Those big clouds in the sky get a little more intimidating when you know you can’t bore a hole right through them!
To solve this dilemma, it was time to enlist the aid of a flight instructor in order to complete the Instrument Proficiency Check. I was joined in the cockpit by Martin Fass a CFII and owner of a Skyhawk I fly very frequently - ‘Hawk 810SA.
Just before departure, the weather report set the stage for some quality IFR flying - calm winds with 5 miles of visibility and an overcast cloud layer at 700 feet. Shortly after takeoff I was back in the clouds after months of absence and loving every moment of it. The overcast layer was actually more of a broken deck of cumulus clouds. We leveled at 4,000 feet where we went in and out of the tops of several small, building clouds.
We proceeded to complete a thorough series of maneuvers, procedures and instrument approaches (including doing approaches partial panel). After a nice lunch at the Airport Diner we were on our way back to San Antonio under VFR and had to scoot around isolated rain showers. It was quite an experience to draw a path between showers and stay visual despite nearby areas of reduced visibility. My longtime trusted companion, the Garmin 296 portable GPS even provided terrain assistance via caution indications of a couple of nearby radio towers near our winding path around the showers. Just an amazing flying experience, all-in-all!
Back at San Antonio, we completed an ILS approach to Runway 12R which included thorough use of the navigation and approach capabilities of the Skyhawk’s two-axis autopilot.
In total, 3.1 hours of exhausting air work that despite the mental and physical challenges was absolutely exhilarating! The feeling of regaining my IFR flying privileges is just awesome. Many thanks to Martin for his insight and assistance in helping me be the safest pilot I can be!
