Staying IFR Current

As most pilots know, once you are IFR Certified, the real challenge is to stay current. This means that within the past six month, the pilot must have flown at least six approaches, holds and intercept a radial. This can be done in actual IFR conditions, on a flight simulator or with a Safety Pilot under the hood. Saturday was shaping up to be the perfect day to fly and all I needed was a Safety Pilot. Up pops Kate McKeown on Facebook. Kate and I talk once in a while, and I know she is a college student, desperately seeking the chance to fly when she can. Turns out she is available on Saturday morning as long as we finish in time for her to get to work. No problem, we can go up at 8:30 am and do three approaches and finish in plenty of time. So we plan to meet at KVAY, South Jersey, and do the triangle. Kate is so excited she is there by 8:00 am! I call for gas on my way over and by the time I'm there, so is the gas and we do a little preflight! The day is just beautiful with clear skies and very little wind. Cool and crisp and a fantastic day for flying!
After a thorough preflight we started up and headed to Runway 8. N926GZ was so anxious to get going, she jumped right off the runway and up we went. Up to 2500' we contacted Maguire and planned our first approach into the ILS 6 at Robert Miller. Stable at 2500', I settled in with the auto pilot and the GPSS steering. We defended to 1900' and turned into the hold. One time around and we were ready to begin the approach. Nicely established at 500' per minute decent, we headed down to 282'. Strayed a little to the east, but recovered nicely and over the airport we went missed. Next up, VOR 29 at Robbinsville, N87. Back to MaGuire for flight following and headed East North East towards the Robbinsville VOR. Kate noticed we flew right over Great Adventure and began taking pictures.
The approach at Robbinsville went off without a hitch. A nice turn in the hold and the down to 620'. The air was so calm and smooth, over the airport I called going missed and began to ascend and turn back towards Robbinsville VOR. MaGuire gave us a quick traffic alert and were Kate got a visual on the traffic. Now for something I've never done before, the RNAV 8 into South Jersey from the North. A quick couple of touches on the 530 and we were set to go!

This approach was going to bring us really close to Philadelphia, which would give Kate some great opportunities for some pictures. Down to 2000' we were all set. Traffic started to get heavier as MaGuire kept pointing them out for us. As we turned to the south it seemed like we were right on the Delaware River. After a few minutes, we began our turn to the east towards South Jersey. Things were going great. We began a nice descent but I never did see the glide slope come a live. It wasn't long before we were down to 660' ready to settle down to the runway! I have to say, I did a really nice job of floating nicely down onto the runway and even got a "nice" out of Kate. 1.4 hours of flying, three approaches, two holds, and even intercepted the radial. Not a bad days flying. Thanks to Kate for being available and sharing the experience.

Shack, Rattle and Roll

     There are days that bring me back to my flight training times with my CFI Durand Branch.  Sometimes I miss those days, yesterday was not one of them.  It was time to depart Lynchburg and head home.  I had some business responsibilities and the weather didn't look to bad at all.  It would be VFR all the way home, even though I filed an IFR plan just in case, but the wind kept haning in there from a cold front that had come down from Canada the day before.  A constant look at the weather charts kept calling for the winds to settle down as the day would progress.  Unfortunately that was just wishful thinking.
     After a nice lunch with our youngest daughter, Dawn, we headed to the airport to prepare for our departure.  926GZ was sitting out on the hard top and looked ready to go.  A Standard briefing revealed clear skies but a report of moderate turbulence below 10,000 for our home area.  With all our luggage nestled and ma and I in our caps, we started her up for a long cross country hop.  Lynchburg cleared us for runway 22 and off we went with a slight crosswind as we climbed.  I planned to go to 5,500 for the ride home hopeing that would be better since the winds were really blowing above that.  Lynchburg switched me to Roanoke Approach and as we reached 5,500' we realized we were in for a ride.  Although the flight was rocky and rolly, we were never out of our seats but just never could get comfortable either.  Our GPS started acting up below Washington, giving us reports of GPS Signal lost and to use dead recogining and then would go right back to working without a problem.  It's possible we have an antenna wire loss.  Something else we have to watch.  The turn from Pautuxent slowed us down a little, but not really a whole lot.  We were now into a quartering head wind, but our ground speed kept up at 133 knots.  Over the Delaware, New Jersey was looking nice as we were switched to Philadelphia approach for the home stretch.

     I began a nice easy descent into South Jersey and as we approached we turned crosswind, to downwind to base for 26.  Final gave us a little bit of a crab as winds were 290 at 12 with gusts to 19.  OH Durand, it felt like you were sitting right there with me once again.  With only two notches of flaps, I waited for the trees to block the wind and we settled right down to the runway.  HOME at last, Home again.  I told Lynn, "You have to take the good with the bad".  Her comment to me was, "I was fine, I just would have preferred the good!"  Until next time, fly safe and keep practicing, you never know when you'll need it.