Few seconds of the magic
 

I had my first intro to instrument flying "under the hood." Okay hood on right after rotation and did some turns etc. I had trimmed the airplane right before my CFI told me to take the hood off. And bam, wow I was just stunned at what I saw! I had never experienced this feeling, I guess you could call it the awe or the magic of being in the air. I was flying hands off for a few seconds and I was speechless. Then back to work. Just wanted to share. It was neat.:cool:

PP -

Just wait until you fly that first actual instrument approach and out of the clouds, rain and darkness appears the runway! You will certainly have a moment of awe then. Welcome to the world of instrument flying. Enjoy - and be smart.

USMCFLYR

Pearl, that is wonderful and thanks for sharing. How I miss flying. I'll just have to live vicariously through you then.

Thanks USMC, and yeah looking forward to the real fun stuff.

Vagabond, aren't you flying these days? I surely hope you get back into it soon. Good luck!!

Just wait until you get to:

"500 above"

"200 above"

"I'm outside"

"100 above"

"Nothing, oh wait..."

"Minim---"

"Approach lig---Landing!"

<Sound of Wheels Touching Down> :D

About that quick too

And then take 30 minutes taxiing to the gate because you can't see where you're going :)

Takes about that long for your pulse to go back down.

The magic of IFR is not your first flight in the clouds, nor spending a couple hours in it cross country. Its that approach right to mins.

runway in sight at minimums is like Home, Mom, Warm cookies, and Christmas all wrapped up into one ;)

Even a flight not to minimums is very rewarding. For me, anytime I can shoot an approach that a VFR pilot would not legally be allowed to, it was all worth it. The only non-simulated approach I shot to near minimums was it was 400 foot cigs and the ILS was 200 foot mins. Flying through the clouds, knowing I will break through but miss-approached procedures ready and waiting. Suddenly, I saw the approach lights in the clouds (and nothing else!) then about two seconds later saw the entire landing environment... glorious.

Approaches to no-kidding mins (especially in anything less than an airliner or biz jet) are only fun AFTER you are on the ground, but they are definitely full of satisfaction. Cat II's to no-kidding Cat II mins are only fun (if you want to call it that) in the sim. In the real airplane, I am not fond of being that close to the ground without being able to see anything except an approach light or two.

See, I'm not right in the head, I'd love the opportunity to go out and get some Cat II's in, and I have only done them in the Sim while at College, but I loved the challenge. I've done some min-RVR CAT I approaches, and just gets me amped up! My flying now is too easy compared to what I used to do.

The best way to improve your overall flying skills and SA is to challenge yourself, the bigger challenge is to figure out how to do that without damaging an airplane or killing yourself. The margin of error in this business, especially when we start talking about deteriorating weather conditions, is minimal at best.:)

My favorite was the 250 mile cross country. 2 1/2 hours under the hood shot the approach and the instructor told me to take it off at 200 ft and looked up and the sun was in my eyes. Let just say that was my worst landing ever.

You haven't lived until you have flown the CAT II, Boston at night 100' OVC, thick fog, MAX landing weight (high ref speed). Good stuff.

Long, long ago, when I was an L1011 copilot, flew ATL-LGW. We were Cat 3 certified with a 50foot alert height (no mins.). The CAA (British version of the FAA) insisted that we use 50` as mins. Our chief pilot told them "OK", then told us to keep doing what we had been doing. Anyway, Gatwick was a Cat 2 airport and went below mins., so we skedattled over to Heathrow, which was a Cat 3 airport. Shot an approach and didn`t see squat until the nose fell through on touchdown. I haven`t seen fog like that either before of since. We got off on a highspeed, and got someone to come out and tow us in,the fog was so thick that we could barely see the radome.