Flying IFR - Lesson 22 - You Guessed It, More And Different Approaches

A small change of pace this lesson.

I got to the airport and did the preflight for N1689H.  

I then met up with Kevin and he told me we would be doing the RNAV 9 at Troy, the VOR 18 circle to 9 at Flint and then back to the RNAV 9R circle to 9L at Pontiac.

Since the wind was coming out of the 90-100 heading we got to do some approaches we normally don't do.

I then filed an IFR flight plan to include these destinations all by myself.  Yay me.

Just as well that I did, as while it was pretty clear out, we would be going into the clouds a little bit on this hop.  IFR also gets you a little better handling form Detroit Approach compared to VFR flight following with approaches.

So I got my taxi and clearance and then joined the conga line for 9R and reminded Tower I was IFR as requested by Ground.

Took off from 9L and flew runway heading until switched to Detroit Approach and setup for the full procedure for the RNAV 9 at Troy, which meant a nice procedure turn.  Troy is also very close to Pontiac so everything happens very quickly.  Troy traffic pattern was busy, so I flew the approach to minimums and then went missed following the published miss. 

Then we went to Flint and on the way we got to fly in some clouds at our altitude, which was fun.  I did the VOR 18 circle to 9, with a full procedure and hold, which felt really different from the VOR 18 circle to 27.  Overall I need to be quicker to chop and drop on the VOR approaches.

Then went missed over Runway 9 and did the published miss and hold.

Then once around the hold and into the clouds for a bit and over to Pontiac for the RNAV 9R.  Traffic was heavy so we got rerouted a bit, complete with changes in altitude, and then got vectored and then cleared for the approach and I did a good approach to Runway 9R with a circle to a nice landing on Runway 9L to finish the flight.

That's 2.0 with 3 approaches, 3 holds, .4 in actual and 1.4 simulated, and 1 nice landing.