first instrument night lesson

my first instrument lesson in the plane was tonight. the weather was calm and perfect for flying around the practice area. did steep turns, unusual attitudes, localizer approach back to KJYO and all under the hood. it was a neat experience. i'm looking forward to more.

KJYO - KLNS - KJYO

a couple of us flew from KJYO (leesburg, Va) to KLNS (lancaster, Pa). it is in the 90-mile range one way so it qualified as cross country and is a scenic flight. i was the pilot not flying outbound and it was a very busy radio traffic day. ATC (potomac) was so busy that they refused our flight following request so we tried harrisburg with more success. the outbound route was KJYO-LUCKE-FDK-EMI-VINNY-KLNS. we flew using VORs so that we would have to identify intersection and the route. KLNS has an excellent pilot shop and it's very difficult to not buy all sorts of stuff but i'm budgeting a bit more carefully so i walked away with some plastic protector sheets for my approach plates ($5.00). i flew the return back to KJYO (KLNS-KFDK-JASEN-KJYO) and it was uneventful with a decent landing. it was a bit more choppy at 4,500 but tolerable.

(another) dumb mistake last weekend on a short flight

last sunday a couple of us were going to fly down to south boston airport, virginia (w78). visibility was poor immediately out of leesburg (kjyo) so we elected to divert to martinsburg (kmrb). i was the pilot not flying so i had to pull out the AFD and sectional to get freqs,course and so on (because i hadn't planned on a potential divert so early in the flight). i also set the new desination into the GPS (here's where the mistake was). in my hurry, i put in a destination of MRB (note the missing K). we continued on our way getting setup for the approach. after a little while we were looking for the airport which should have been right off the nose and wasn't.... eventually, we realized the airport was off to our left. this was because MRB is the VOR and KMRB is the airport so we were on a direct course to the VOR, duh. there was an airshow at KMRB and the airspace was closing about 30 minutes after we landed to we had to head right back out again and go home or else stay for another 5 hours.
i learned 2 lessons from the above:

• be prepared in advance to divert at any time during your flight (from takeoff to landing)
• don't forget the K when putting an airport into the GPS, i had never realized how easy that would be to do
  

2 more instrument rating sim lessons and then the real thing...

i've got 2 more instrument simulator lessons (frasca 142) and then it's time for the real world of instrument flying training in the plane. it's too bad that i don't have the rating right now. the TAF (terminal area weather forecast) is:

KIAD 261138Z 261212 02010KT 6SM BR OVC008
TEMPO 1216 2SM -RA BR OVC008
FM0000 03005KT 1SM -DZ BR OVC003

the above says that, from 0000z, visibility is 1 mile, light drizzle, overcast at 300 feet.

more sim lessons...

i've got maybe 2 or 3 more simulator lessons in my instrument rating training (in the Frasca 142 sim). i'm actually improving a bit here and there (i'm not all over the sky as much). i'm looking forward to flying for real before long. it's going to mean a lot of hood time so we'll see how that goes. i haven't had the hood on since my check ride early this year.

the b-17

a b-17 visited KJYO (leesburg airport) today. i didn't go for a ride but i did take (a lot) of pictures. you can find a few at:
http://flickr.com/photos/dougtoppin/sets/72157607031708979
it can only be described as iconic.

a reason to get your instrument rating

this aopa course (vfr into imc) is an excellent example of why to get your instrument rating:
http://flash.aopa.org/asf/acs_vfrimc/

(note that it's a bit slow loading, don't give up while waiting for it)