Tuesday, April 19, 2022

Flying IFR - Lesson 51 - The Turbulent Grind

Weather conditions were hardly great for today. Low clouds and winds 15-30 out of 300. Snowing a tad as well.

Clouds lifted a tad but we filed an IFR flight plan anyways.

Did a checkride prep and failed it miserably.

Did all the radio and procedures just fine and I know what I'm doing but the basics screw me over yet again.

So off I went and climbed runway heading to 3,000 feet to KVLL. Ended up just under the cloud layer as it had lifted a tad, so I got to put the foggles on.

Did the full procedure at KVLL and for the first time in a long time, got totally blown off the RNAV and had a full deflection which would be a fail.  It did not take much.  Continued the approach anyways as I fixed it for practice and did the circle to 28 and again I need to get down faster.

Went missed and then headed to Pontiac where I did the Localizer Backcourse 27L and it went overall ok, but was doing quite a bit of S-turning as I kept getting blown off course a lot.  Again a little too high on final and need to get down more.

I'm likely leary of busting minimums and so staying too high, plus the winds and turbulence added to the fun and it actually pushed me up on occasion.

Altitude and heading control was maybe a little better, but still not where it needs to be. Still climbing too much and getting rocked around by turbulence didn't help matters.

Then for a partial panel for the RNAV 27L which I actually did quite well and landed fine in gusty conditions with a bit of side-loading as a gust just caught me as I was touching down.

So one decent approach and two not so good.

Only positive was it was quick, so it was wasting less money on this quixotic attempt to get this rating.

That's 1.3 with 1.0 simulated instrument time, 3 approaches, 1 hold, and 1 decent landing.

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