Nov 17 2018 solo flight along the CT Shoreline.
In December, in reconnecting with an old high school classmate on FB, I found that he was bringing his family back to CT from Australia to visit family. We were able to find a partially free afternoon, with some decent weather to boot, and I met them all up at Hartford/Brainard Airport at The Flying Monkey Grill. Jeff was instantly recognizable and looked virtually the same as he had in high school, albeit a little more gray like me! I got to meet his wife and two sons, as well as his brother and his wife. After a bite to eat, I took Jeff, his wife and one son up, cruising south along the CT River to Cromwell so they could pick out Jeff’s brother’s house. We also did a tour over our old high school, Xavier, in Middletown, CT, with its new music/arts addition in the back and the updated athletic fields. On a second hop, I did almost the same tour with his brother, wife and other son. It was great to be able to reminisce and re-connect for a little while and also share some flying in the mix!
March 2019 Annual Inspection
In March, the plane underwent its annual maintenance inspection. Unfortunately, we found a couple of issues that necessitated some extra TLC (and extra $$) to rectify. But I would rather have them fixed than have to worry about something later....in flight!
IFR practices w Len and Milton
Throughout the year, I’ve flown a number of times with Len and Milton, working on instrument approaches—mostly trips out to Chester and Groton, CT and out to Block Island. It’s always fun flying with a friend, and honing the challenge of shooting that smooth approach, especially when flying it by hand and not letting the autopilot fly a coupled approach. (Let’s be honest though—in real world instrument conditions shooting an actual approach, I’m going to let George (the autopilot), connected to the GPS with WAAS (an even more precise version of GPS), fly the approach while I monitor things carefully.)
Flight Review
As luck would have, the annual maintenance took longer than anticipated and the weather just wouldn’t cooperate on weekends for doing my flight review with Dan. As the month of April wound to a close, I turned into a pumpkin (meaning not legal to fly) and Dan graciously agreed to drive up with me from the city to conduct the review after work one weekday night. The afternoon was overcast, but the current and forecasted weather indicated we had sufficient ceiling and visibility, so we decided to give it a shot.
I met Dan at his work in Brooklyn and on the drive up, we ran through the hour of ground school portion requirement for the flight review, talking through a variety of items, including flight planning, sources of weather data, changes to aviation regulations, licensing requirements, airspace rules, accident trends, etc. It made the traffic all along I-95 just slightly less frustrating.
Out at the airport, it was getting on dusk, so we preflighted carefully and saddled up. The ATIS confirmed sufficient ceilings and visibility, but we planned to stay around the airport working on our flight maneuvers. Sadly, as soon as we took off, we realized the ATIS was wrong. As we climbed up, at 700’ we started to find wisps of cloud. Instead of going up to pattern altitude of 1000’, I pushed the nose back down to 500’ and we told the tower we were staying in the pattern to land.
Once we had taxied off the runway, Dan and I chatted and he suggested we file an IFR (instrument) clearance and go out to do our review, just in instrument conditions. So we filed a flight plan to New Haven to shoot the ILS 02 there, but not land, and then go do the published missed approach and hold at the Madison VOR east of New Haven and then come back and shoot the ILS 06 at Bridgeport. Shortly after we filed, the tower called to say they had our clearance already. (I’m guessing since the weather was so miserable, not many people were flying and the ATC folks were looking for some customers!)
We took off into the dark mist and were in instrument conditions immediately. I had some initial issues following Dan’s vectors, overturning and essentially manhandling the plane. Once I took a moment to just breathe, things started to smooth out and fall into place. I hit the ILS 02 approach well for New Haven, right down to minimum altitude before we called the missed approach and followed the procedure for heading over to the Madison VOR for some circles around the hold. Then ATC gave us vectors to head back to Bridgeport for the ILS 02. That approach too came together beautifully, right down to minimums and a landing. Dan laughed that when it was real world instrument conditions, I was laser focused and the approach was like I was riding an invisible rail down the approach course—high compliment indeed from Dan.
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