IMC Refresher

With my second IMC revalidation coming up at the end of the year, I thought it was time to get a couple of refresher lessons in. The last time I flew in ‘real IMC’ was in May on the final leg of the trip to Italy – coming back to the UK of course! Prior to that very little for a few months. While I am still confident, I do know that I am rusty and need to ‘do it properly’ without using the GPS to aid situational awareness and to have a critical instructor.

So I booked a lesson on Sunday with one of the local aero clubs at Gloucester.

The day dawned looking quite good, scattered cloud and sunshine. On the way to the airport though, low cloud linked up and became overcast with a little rain. At Gloucester I checked the weather forecasts and it didn’t look too bad – certainly overcast, so real IMC with the odd CB forecast as being ‘ISOL’ and generally near the coast. So I checked the Arrow out and wandered over to the Aero Club.

By this time it was raining a bit harder. The instructor was about the chat to me when we heard what could have been the hangar doors opening or thunder – turned out to be thunder! So a check of the rainfall and lightning radar indicates a line of CB’s headed towards us from the Bristol channel. The next hour and a half the rain lashed down and lightning was all around. So I am thinking ‘we are hardly likely to go anywhere’, but the CFI says ‘hold on, I think this will pass’. Well I respect his judgement and sure enough, at 11:20 he appears again and say ‘let’s go’.

It certainly looks better to the south and the west (where we plan to go) and evil to the North East where the cell has now moved on to.

First hurdle is getting the plane out of the hangar – it is flooded six inches deep! So the firecrew don wellies and rescue the plane. I start up and taxy out. We take off from 27 despite a slight tailwind as the wind is all over the place and by the time we get to another runway, it may well have shifted again.

I forget to ident the local naviads on the ground so once airborne, I have to do it there where I have a lot less time (mistake number 1). Although the cloud looked very low, it was only at our planned altitude of 3000’ that we finally lost sight of the ground and were in solid IMC. This must be a cumulus cloud as we are bumped around a lot and height keeping is difficult. I manage to track the NDB towards Tetbury and hold the correct heading – height keeping is not too good though (mistake number 2 – trim it properly and the altitude becomes a lot easier).

We track to Tetbury, then track 280 degrees towards BCN as an exercise in VOR tracking. I ident this and try to track, but something is odd – damn! I had left the HSI CDI bar on GPS – however I did notice immediately and changed to VOR – so no bollocking from the instructor. The tracking was easy, but again altitude holding let me down on one occasion. I am now back under the hood as we are between layers. With 30 milles to run to BCN and now some 20 miles SW of Gloucester, we break off and I call up for an NDB / DME approach.

Instead of the expected 27, the wind now favours 09, so I opt for that. We are cleared to approach at FL45 and to report beacon outbound. I ask for a descent to 3000’ as dropping from FL45 to 2200’ on 999Mb in 8nm would be interesting. I go for the extended approach with a direct join and no hold. I am using the excellent GCap plates. On the outbound leg, I manage the right heading as we are bounced around in a cumulus cloud. I gain nearly 400’, but even the instructor this time realises that this is not me – we are simply in a considerable updraft. I get the altitude off and we get into smoother air by about the eight mile mark as I start the turn.

On the required 095 heading, the ADF seems a fair way off, so I correct to intercept. The instructor thinks the ADF is a bit off due to thunderstorms in the area. I regain the inbound track and descend in the pattern. I drop the gear to slow me down then pull on two stages of flaps. Descent profile is pretty good though I say it myself. I say out loud at about 1 nm that I am now at MDA and would continue to the beacon at this altitude and unless I broke cloud would initiate a missed approach. He kindly takes the hint and asks me to remove the hood.

I look up and as usual I am completely disoriented making the transition from instruments to visual flying. I see the airfield and the lit runway at about my 10 o’clock – not bad. I line up on 09 then do the ‘red / green / blue’ check. Airspeed is a bit fast and we have a slight tailwind, so this will be interesting. I am over the hedge about 5 kts too fast. Flare and hold off, a very slight balloon, she drops again – hold-off, more, more, more – wheel touch – nice one as it turns out – certainly a nice change from the ones I did on the last taildragger lesson!

We taxy back. I get the usual few words from the instructor. Basically, ident, better altitude holding, check the ADF on a fine day to make sure the reading errors were the CB’s, but all in all not bad. Probably one more session then do my revalidation flight. Personally, I think I will do at least two more sessions, ideally one SRA and the other an ILS at Filton.

I enjoyed that. It is a bit like riding a bike, you certainly get rusty, but it comes back fairly quickly.