A couple of weeks ago, I got a little more solo time in the Cardinal. On a clear cool Sunday morning, I took her up for an hour, just to go flying and shake off the daily stresses of life. It was just a leisurely journey up the Housatonic River to Cornwall and back to Bridgeport, but the visibility was great. Eavesdropping on the tower at Danbury as I flew over their airspace, I heard the controller cheerfully greeting pilots like old friends as they moved around and over the airport. She told one pilot she was jealous because she heard the air was as smooth as glass—I murmurred to myself that she was dead on—it was a joy.
A little east of Kent, I did some 2 min turns around a point, just for the fun of it. One of my points was a beautiful castle-looking structure about 2 miles east of Cornwall Bridge and 2 miles south of the town of Cornwall in a little valley. When I did some research later, it’s aptly situated on “Castle Road.”
CHALLENGE: There’s an interesting topographical design just under 2 miles to the southwest of the Castle—see if you can spot it from the air. Satellite imagery doesn’t count!
On Sunday, more than a year after obtaining my IFR ticket, I finally did my first solo instrument approaches through actual instrument conditions. It was an overcast day with a low pressure system lingering in the area, generating low clouds at about 1,600-1,800 feet along the CT shoreline. The winds were light and variable on the surface and from the west at 3,000 feet.
After looking at the weather for the umpteenth time during the day, I filed my flight plan in the afternoon for a round-robin from Bridgeport to Groton and then back to Bridgeport. The briefing was quick and didn’t offer any new information beyond what I’d found in my various weather resources.
After doing a careful pre-flight and run-up, including the extra-thorough IFR checklist I learned out at Sportys last year, I picked up my clearance—Bridgehaven 5 departure, radar vectors to Madison VOR, 126 degree radial from MAD to MONDI intersection, which is the initial fix for the ILS 5 approach at Groton. The clearance delivery person apologized, saying that NY did not do round-robin IFR flights and advised that I would have to make the request to re-file for the return leg once at Groton.
I was cleared for a quick takeoff on Runway 6. No more than 200 feet into the air, Bridgeport tower switched me over to NY Approach who had me climb to 3,000 feet as they gave me radar vectors. I went into the overcast sky at about 1,800 feet and by 3,100 was in the clear sunshine above. As I continued my climb, Approach bumped me to 4,000 feet and then to 5,000 feet—pretty high for a 30 min leg where the approach starts at 1900 feet.
Crossing MAD, I turned southeast and tracked the 126-degree radial on both the GPS and the Nav 2 VOR. Then I got the Nav 1 VOR radio tuned for the ILS and dialed in the final approach course of 048 degrees. Before I got to MONDI, NY Approach handed me off to Providence Approach who seemed less harried and more cheerful. After confirming heading with Providence, I requested to file for the return leg and Providence said they would work it out and let me know after I flew the published missed approach. I quickly took a quiet minute to re-brief the ILS 5 approach and the published misssed procedures.
Still above the clouds, Providence started me descending and, as I approached Mondi, gave me a turn onto the final approach course as I entered the clouds. I double and triple checked everything on the approach, including that NAV 1 radio was on the localizer frequency (not the Groton VOR) and that Nav 2 radio was loaded up for the missed approach. As I captured the glideslope (while still outside the final approach fix (PINET intersection), Providence cleared me for the approach and handed me off to Groton tower. I got the gear down and the first notch of flaps to stabilize a nice easy descent to stay on the glideslope.
I was so focused on flying the instruments and the radio calls, I almost forgot that I was flying solo in clouds on an approach, with nothing to see outside, knowing there was only Long Island Sound below me. I gave Groton tower a call and they cleared me for a low approach and then the published missed approach.
At about 1600 feet, I broke out of the clouds and found it gloomy, but pretty good visibility. I snatched a glance up and could barely make out the runway about 4 miles away. Keeping the VOR needles for the localizer and the glideslope centered, I had a perfect 500’ per minute descent, with the airplane trimmed well. At 500’ I did another GUMPS check, still with just under 300’ to descend to the decision height of 207’.
I finished off the approach with a low pass down the runway at 200 feet. Then I started a climb and cleaned up the airplane while turning slightly right to head for the missed approach hold point. Providence had other ideas though and cleared me for my flight back to Bridgeport, giving me the CREAM intersection (southeast of MAD VOR out on the Long Island Sount) and then vectors towards Bridgeport. They also had me climb back up to 6,000 feet and I once again popped through the clouds into warm sunshine on top.
The trip back seemed fairly long, but it gave me time to brief the ILS 6 approach at Bridgeport and get the plane set up for it. Once I was switched over to NY Approach again, they gave me a descent to 4,000 and then 3,000 feet. The controller was working a couple of other aircraft into Bridgeport and at one point called out a Cessna Skylane that went over the top of me, 1,000 feet above.
At about 3,000 feet, I was skimming the tops of the clouds, which really made my speed feel faster than the 130 knots. Every once in a while I was punching through thicker wisps of cloud, but the air was still very smooth.
With STANE (the final approach fix for the ILS 6) at about my 4 o’clock position, the controller deftly gave me a couple of right turns and lined me up about 2 miles from STANE and cleared me for the approach and handed me off to Bridgeport tower. With the gear down and 90 knots dialed in, I was again in the clouds as I crossed STANE at 1,800 feet, but as I started my descent, I broke out again at about 1,600 feet to gloominess but a runway in sight up ahead.
Keeping the needles centered on the VOR, I ran through another GUMPS check and brought the plane down to decision height of 307’. Second notch of flaps added, I switched to visual and kept the VASI lights pegged with 2 red and 2 white and made a smooth landing and rollout.
Then I started breathing again. It was a really rewarding experience to finally do solo approaches in actual IMC. Nothing overly demanding, like flying to minimums, but challenging enough. And it was great to see that all of the reinforced accelerated training out at Sportys and the practice since has really stayed with me, including the GUMPS checks and fixing the other little niggling things that had earlier plagued me during my training. I’m sure there were a couple of little things I could have been smoother about during the flight, but it really all came together well and I feel thrilled. My thanks once again to Eric, Dan and Len for getting me to (and keeping me at) this point.
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