Missed - For Real

It had to happen. On the morning of August 18th I finally went "missed" on an approach that was not a practice approach. I had a meeting in Sedalia, Missouri planned for 9:00 and at 7:30, ceilings were still below minimum due to fog. I set out on the 45 minute flight hoping the fog would burn off prior to my arrival but knowing that I had clear skies 20 miles to the west of Sedalia. Initially, Whiteman Approach instructed me to expect a visual approach into the airport but, on my advice, cleared me for the GPS 36 approach. I descended into the clouds moments before reaching the initial approach fix and never saw the ground for the remainder of the approach. As the winds were calm, I chose to hold at the missed approach point and try the GPS 18. I wasn't expecting much better at that point but how often do you get to try twice with five hours of fuel on board and a clear alternate ten minutes away?

After sitting at Skyhaven (Warrensburg, MO) for 45 minutes ceilings had lifted above minimums so I was back on my way. True to the weather report, Sedalia was just above minimums and I had no difficulty getting in. The folks I was meeting were aware of my weather plight and holding the meeting for me and the local FBO gave me a ride. All in all it was a good day: three good approaches; one landing.

Back at the typewriter

I've just realized that its been three months since I've posted. At least its been a busy three months with a lot of flying. The photo on the left is looking to the south on V210 over the LaVeta pass in southern Colorado. The vertical lines are the result of shooting a photo through a spinning prop with an iPhone.

There have been several other flights in the past few months. Among them are flights to and from Atlanta and Minneapolis as well as several trips throughout Missouri and Kansas. If one thing stands out this past three months it would be the weather. I have not done an instrument approach in three months! I looked longingly out the window at the MVFR conditions today wishing I could break away from what I was doing and go shoot some approaches. I may be flying to KOSH on Thursday with another AMEL pilot and if so, I'm going to turn it into a three hour under the hood training exercise with plenty of holds and approaches.

For those interested in electronic flight bags (EFBs), John Ewing has been doing a series of articles on the subject over at his blog, Aviation Mentor. I'm hoping for an announcement or two out of Oshkosh this week regarding new EFB solutions as my thirteen volumes of Jepp plates are getting pretty heavy. I'm still planning to knock out my commercial certificate (AMEL and ASEL) this year so my flight schedule will only get busier.

Night Visual Approaches

Those who fly at night seem to share one thing in common -- a general dislike of visual approaches. 'Nothing wrong with visual approaches, its the challenge of picking out the airport from the millions of city lights. It goes like this: you are flying an RNAV (area navigation which in smaller general aviation airplanes means navigation by the use of GPS) instrument flight plan direct to your intended destination and approach control asks you to report the field in sight at which time they will turn you over to the control tower who may or may not offer a vector to help set up the final segment of your approach prior to landing the airplane. The issue here is that when flying into an airport in a populated area, the sighting of the rotating beacon (which establishes visual contact with the airport) is just the beginning of the process of actually finding your assigned runway and establishing an appropriate track and decent rate in order to land the airplane.

My first rule for briefing a visual approach involves establishing the location on the airfield of the rotating beacon. This tidbit of information can be found on the airport diagram included with instrument approach charts. Coupled with the knowledge of which runway will be assigned for landing, the beacon location can be a great help in establishing situational awareness. My other trick is to set my CDI to the runway heading and press the OBS button on my Garmin 430W GPS unit. This establishes an extended runway centerline for me to intercept.

This past week I was following this procedure right down to the letter. I was approaching KMKC, my home airport, from the east southeast with winds from the northeast. Approach control released me to the tower upon my recognition of the beacon approximately eight miles from the airport. I slowed my airplane down to about 140 KIAS and said into the radio, "Downtown Tower, Twin Cessna blah, blah, blah, eight to the east visual one." Nothing. First notch of flaps. Airspeed down to 135 indicated. "Downtown Tower, Twin Cessna blah, blah, blah, six to the east for the visual one." Nothing... Come on guys, you're expecting me! "Downtown Tower, how do you read?" "Twin Cessna blah, blah, blah cross midfield, enter left downwind for runway one."

Meanwhile a Cherokee is checking in from the south and by the sound of his position report, he's on a four mile final for runway one. I'm midfield at this point setting up nicely for runway one. "Twin Cessna blah, blah, blah, enter left base for runway three, cleared to land runway three." Quick, spin the CDI to 30 degrees in order to see an extended centerline. I'm right on the centerline!, or perhaps not. The OBS trick on the Garmin 430W is for situational awareness only and does not guarantee its point of origin to be the runway aligned with the radial on the CDI. Regardless, this is a mess. I'm at pattern altitude almost parallel to the runway knowing that it lies under or perhaps south of me and as I look outside the cockpit for a visual clue, all I can see is runway one. I come clean with the tower and admit that I do not have the runway in sight and tower turns up the lights to full power while calling off the Cherokee. I turn left for a 180 degree power off approach transitioning to a normal landing with the runway in sight. This is a tactic I see performed frequently at this airport by the freight dogs looking to get down quickly and save fuel but its less than comfortable at night with the lights of the city calling from below. Its been another uneventful trip home but, as usual, they made me work for it.

Slow Month of March

Since my flight to Charleston I have flown only 16.7 hours. This is light for me as I average about 20 hours per month. Also, this is the first time in many months that I have no long cross-country flights planned. I have a couple of sub 100 mile flights on the schedule but nothing that takes any sort of in-depth planning.

This is unfortunate as I find flight planning to be quite enjoyable. I have fond memories of sitting over a VFR chart, plotter in hand, planning a route with fuel stops. More often I now fly IFR direct by way of the GPS but I still enjoy the process of looking at proposed routings on SkyVector or RunwayFinder. I do my flight planning on FltPlan.com these days as it gives me the option to print out itineraries and to file flight plans directly from the website. For weather, I use web templates provided by Scott Dennstaedt in addition aviationweather.gov. I still stop by duat.com or duats.com for my official briefing but its rare that I discover anything in the official briefing that I did not find elsewhere.

Well, chances are reasonable that I will make a last minute flight to Minneapolis this month or next so my lust for flight planning may be satisfied again soon.

Big Weather

Recently I had a great exercise in flight planning, flight plan deviation, and weather flying. It all began a couple of Friday mornings ago with a three legged flight to Charleston, SC by way of Columbia, MO and Birmingham (Bessemer), AL. I was headed to a conference with stops to pick up a friend in Columbia and my wife in Birmingham. I was flying 37 Delta, my 310R, and skies were 1,500 overcast for the Kansas City to Columbia leg. The flight was uneventful as was the approach (ILS 2) and landing at Columbia. I say uneventful but it was my first approach in IMC in nearly 90 days. I frequently fly practice approaches with a view limiting device but it is not the same as flying approaches in the clouds. 1,500 overcast was a nice way to knock the rust loose and considering what the next leg had in store for me, I'm glad to have had the practice.

On the ground looking at the computer at the FBO and on the telephone with Flight Service I noted that the large storm system over Alabama was not moving and had intensified a bit since my departure from Kansas City. Visibility at Bessemer was still above minimums so I decided to launch even though my Flight Service Specialist threw up every sort of warning against it. Let me be clear: had Bessemer been forecast below minimums at my intended time of arrival I would have altered my plans and aimed for another destination from which I could reassess on the ground. With a Strike Finder and Datalink weather on board and visibility forecast to be above minimums, I felt comfortable filing for my intended destination.

I filed direct Bessemer (KEKY) and briefed my passenger on the finer points of emergency procedures and my self imposed sterile cockpit rules. Takeoff was routine and I hand flew 37D up to our assigned altitude of 11,000 feet MSL. Upon reaching altitude I engaged the autopilot, reviewed the cruise checklist, and gave my passenger an overview of the systems and controls of the Cessna 310R. As it turned out, Glenn, my passenger, had been a frequent small airplane passenger while growing up in Wisconsin and Illinois. His father had lived "the dream" in the late 1950's commuting from the family farm to his workplace in a Piper Cub.

Cloud tops rose from about 5,000 MSL over Columbia to about 10,000 over Dyersberg, Tennessee and Datalink weather was showing the system stalled over Biringham. After consulting my enroute maps I altered my route of flight to go direct to Gadsen VOR thereby putting me along the eastern edge of the system. My plan was to fly this route as far as needed with the hope that conditions would allow me to turn into the sytem and fly the shortest route possible running perpandicular to the front directly to Bessemer. If conditions didn't improve I could always land at Northeast Alabama Regional (KGAD) and wait out the storm.

As luck would have it, the system showed signs of weakening with a bit of movement to the northeast. This gave me a great opportunity to turn into the front about twenty miles before reaching Gadsen. It helped that by that time I was talking with Birmingham approach and approach weather radar is far more detailed than center weather. The approach guys walked me through the system (I had been in IMC for the better part of an hour at that point) and I was able to confirm lightening activity exclusively to the north of me via my Strike Finder. I flew the RNAV (GPS) Rwy 5 at Bessemer as the ILS glidescope was non-functional. The LPV profile has a DA of 250 feet AGL (50 feet higher than the ILS DA) and ceilings were as advertised -- 300 feet. This was the closest I'd ever flown to the DA before committing to a landing and I must have reviewed the missed approach procedure five times between being assigned vectors to final and reaching the final approach fix.

While the lightening and thunder had decreased for our arrival, the rain intensity had picked up a notch or two. Cisse met us at the airport after driving in from Birmingham and the three of us waited about 45 minutes for the rain to let up as piling into 37D in the rain makes for an uncomfortable flight. Our departure began uneventfully but within five miles of the airport the storms seemed to rebuild around us. It was a bumpy climb to 11,000 feet but once there, turbulence was suprisingly light -- so light, in fact, that Cisse was able to get in about 30 minutes of sleep. Storm conditions lessoned considerably within 45 minutes of takeoff and my concerns moved to icing as outside air temperature was hovering below freezing and we were still in the clouds. Sure enough, a trace of rime ice over Atlanta quickly ramped up to light icing and my request for 9,000 feet was promptly approved. Ice was melting after just 500 feet of decent and was entirely gone with no more appearing for the balance of the flight at 9,000. We broke out of the clouds on decent into Charleston at about 6,000 and enjoyed the lights of the city. The city lights were bright enough that I had a bear of a time keeing the RJ I was assigned to follow in my sights.

All in all this was a great flight. 6.3 hours -- the majority of which were in actual instrument conditions. Lots of decision making going on. Everything I have been taught was called upon me for this flight.

First Post

A while back my entire blog was destroyed (at another blogsite). In that blog was my training record including my private ASEL, Instrument Airplane, and AMEL. While the posts were interesting to me, the world will most certainly go on without them. I'm now getting ready to get my commercial certificate and I'll post bits and pieces of the experience here. In addition I hope to describe some of my less routine flights as well as my observations of the world of aviation.

Thanks for reading!