You'd think today would not be a day for a lesson. You'd think overcast clouds, blotting the sky from horizon to horizon, hanging a mere 1,000 feet above the ground, would prevent any sort of VFR lesson from taking place.
Well, my checkride is mere weeks away. And that means not even IFR weather will stop Stephen from cramming more lessons in.
Stephen filed an IFR clearance from Oakland to Napa with the intent to cancel it once we were above the clouds so I could do some checkride practice. After preflighting the plane, I was eager to try my hand at talking to IFR Clearance Delivery for the first time, but Stephen said he'd be doing the radio work.
At first I was dismayed, but then I saw in his hands a notepad with some completely incomprehensible shorthand scribbled on it. As the controller spoke a mile a minute, Stephen jotted down more indecipherable shorthand. This shit was serious.
So, I was told to ask ground for a taxi. Runway 15/33 was closed for repairs, so we taxied aaalll the way down to 27R, and got our IFR takeoff clearance. A lot of IFR radio work is just saying the same things a VFR pilot would say, but adding "IFR" to the end.
"Oakland Ground, Skyhawk 739UL, taxi runway 27R, IFR."
or, "Oakland Tower, Skyhawk 739UL, ready for takeoff runway 27R, IFR."
It's like a badge of honor, informing the world that you, sir, are an IFR flight.
So, Stephen gave me a 30-second primer on how to do a takeoff through the clouds, and I pushed the power in and we were off. Once we cleared 300 feet I turned to our assigned course of 310 degrees. Another 700 feet later and the bitty little Skyhawk punched through the imposing cloud layer. I couldn't help but feel like I had broken a fundamental rule of flying as the blinding whiteness enveloped us, like I had treaded into forbidden terrain.
So, focusing on the instruments, I kept us climbing and on course. A few minutes later, at 2,300 feet, the clouds slid away and I was treated to an unobscured view of the blue sky above, and a slowly shrinking blanket of clouds below, broken intermittently by mountains around the North Bay.
My first thought was how strange this was -- seeing such a vista not from the tiny window of an airline, where such views were commonplace to me, but from the embracing windows of my tiny Skyhawk. Yes, it could clear the clouds. Here was living proof.
Stephen stuck with the IFR plan until we cleared SFO's class-B airspace, then canceled all our services and turned off the radio. (You can see our course at FlightAware.) He had me set a course for a mountain near the Sonoma Valley, and along the way we practiced slow flight. A few turns in slow flight and some power-on and power-off stalls.
He explained that my performance was passable ("If I were the examiner you would have passed"), but that that wasn't good enough. I needed leeway to overcome the nervousness I will have on my checkride, so it has to be better than passable. It has to be awesome. So, we practiced until what little edges I had were rounded out.
Next up, steep turns. Two or three of those and I was starting to feel sick. It's hard to keep your stomach from getting sick when all you have to see is blue sky and white clouds. My steep turn performance had degraded somewhat since I last did it, so we worked at it until it was up to spec (and I was getting dizzy).
By now we were over clearing in the clouds, with the houses of Sonoma Valley in view below us. Stephen had me practice standard rate turns, with climbs and descents, and a few other maneuvers. We then turned around and he announced that my next challenge would be recovery from unusual attitudes.
Wonderful.
Stephen slapped the hood on my face. I closed my eyes and put my hands in my lap, trying to think about non-dizzying thoughts, while Stephen had way too much fun tilting and banking the plane, flying it like a bucking bronco in the sky. He knew he was torturing me, that asshole.
Fortunately, recovery from unusual attitudes is easy peasy, but even still I made a few small mistakes that were quick to be ironed out. Satisfied that I was doing fine by now, Stephen filed an IFR flight plan back to Oakland, did the magical notepad shorthand thing again, and had me follow the controller's instructions to take me back into landing. Oh, and he told me to keep the hood on, so I could rack up some simulated instrument hours.
The difference between an IFR approach and a VFR approach is that, in an IFR approach, you're not allowed to do anything until you're told to. A VFR approach consists of broad instructions, like "proceed to the Mormon Temple" or "#2 for landing," whereas an IFR approach consists of exact courses and altitudes to hold.
The controller doesn't generally tell you why he's making you turn where he is, but with the help of the GPS, I was able to keep tabs on what was going on. A simple "turn right to heading 135" command lacks any context -- especially since clouds obscured the airport completely -- but looking on the GPS it was clear he was turning me for a right-45 entry into the pattern.
So here we were, entering the traffic pattern over an airport we only knew in an abstract sense, since below us was only an endless sheet of white clouds. Plus, I had the hood on my face anyway.
The controller then instructed me to make right turns for my downwind and base legs. When you're flying IFR, the controller has you make a much larger pattern than a typical VFR pattern, with each leg miles long and taking 5 to 6 minutes to complete. Since our Skyhawk was likely the slowest airplane in the pattern, the controller made us make a few "sequencing turns," whereby you get out of the way so a faster plane can overtake you.
Finally, here we were, on final, descending through the clouds. Stephen had me take off the hood since we were in clouds anyway, and who doesn't want to watch white wisps float past your view. Raindrops collected on the windshield. Since I couldn't see the airport, much less the runway, the approach was an ILS one, guided by the two needles in the VOR. I did my darndest to keep them centered. Finally, with a sudden whoosh, the clouds cleared, and there 4 miles in front of me was 27R, as promised by the instruments, waiting to be kissed by 9UL's tires.
Since it was a long final I kept the speed up til the very end, when I brought the plane down to 60 knots and let it touch gently upon the runway. Apparently Tower can read my mind, since she didn't even ask where I wanted to go, she just cleared me to go wherever the hell it was I was headed next. So, I taxied to Kaiser, and added some fuel to the wings, while the blanket of clouds (above me once again) showered me with tiny raindrops.
And like the journey in, you can follow the journey back home on FlightAware.
Probably the most epiphanous part of the journey occurred during the base leg, when over the radio I listened in as a hapless VFR pilot arrived at Oakland, ending his 4-hour trip from Van Nuys, dismayed to find the airport clouded over. Since he lacked an instrument rating, he had no choice but to turn around and find another airport to land at.
This (the realization of the doors an IFR rating opens for you), plus the exhilarating experience of flying through and around clouds, got me thinking. I asked Stephen some questions about getting my own instrument rating. Apparently it would be another 3 months' effort and another $10,000.
But maybe... Maybe...
Cost so far: $7,291.78
Time so far: 123 days
Hours so far: 40.4
Projected certification date: August 23, 2007
Projected total cost: $9,000
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