The instructor responsible for taking me on a spin ride today didn’t want to do it in clouds. Imagine that. Before I can get an instructor rating, I’ve got to get signed off on spin training. This way when a student puts me in a spin, I’ll be prepared to save us. Since I’ve never spun a plane before, I’m rather excited about it.
I was scheduled at 10am as well. After looking at the weather, I decided that if I could talk my instructor into it, I wanted to go. There were thunderstorms just north of the city and building, but I figured if we kept an ear out on the weather and didn’t stray far from the airport, we’d be fine. And if things got really bad, the weather was clear to the south. Mostly I wanted to shoot approaches in real IMC (Instrument Meteorological Conditions). I’d flown in the clouds before, but they were always pretty thin layers, so I never got to stay in them for long.
Since this was supposedly my last flight, and I still hadn’t done a single NDB (Non-Directional Beacon) approach in an airplane, I flew one of the older, rougher-looking planes. For the rest of my CFII training, I’d been flying the plane which my flight school just purchased with an HSI (Horizontal Situation Indicator) and RMI (Remote Magnetic Indicator). It seemed to be relatively new to the training environment so it’s got shiny paint and comfy seats, and the interior isn’t completely trashed. It’s slow, flies a little sideways, and the engine is sluggish, but you can’t have everything. The ADF in this plane didn’t work, so for this flight we picked a plane with a working ADF.
The plane I was preflighting just came out of its 100-hour inspection. You’d think this would be a good thing, but I have an innate distrust of our mechanics. Admittedly, I don’t really know them, but considering that nothing gets fixed and the planes are junk, I wouldn’t be surprised to discover something like a disconnected control cable. I didn’t find anything newly wrong with the plane, but its appearance hardly instilled confidence. I noticed the turn coordinator had been recently replaced by an instrument that looked older than the plane itself. Normally as soon as you turn the master switch on, you can hear the turn coordinator gyro spin up. This one didn’t make any noise, and I was about to pronounce it defunct, when I heard the beginnings of a whine. Slowly, very slowly, it spun up. Yay. The VOR’s always seemed a bit wonky to me, so I asked my instructor if he was sure he trusted the instruments enough to go fly in the clouds. “They’re not too bad,” he said.
I copied my clearance, and as we taxied out, the controllers let us know that there was level 1 and level 2 thunderstorms north of airport. We’d already decided to just stay in the vicinity of OUN rather than head up to OKC where the thunderstorms were sure to be bad. Since the clouds were above 2,500 feet, we decided to press on.
After takeoff, departure kept us flying north for awhile before they gave us a turn to the south for the NDB. I started the turn just as we were about to fly into a rather dark and ominous looking cloud. “Here goes nothing,” I said, concentrating on the instruments. It wasn’t too rough as we headed southbound, the thunderstorms being still north of us. We leveled off at 4,000 feet, surrounded by thick, bright white. We couldn’t make out the sun, but it was definitely brighter up there than it was lower. I flew to the NDB, turned outbound, and did the whole procedure turn in the clouds. We didn’t break out until just above the MDA. I don’t think I could have done it without the serious coaching I got from my instructor. We had been planning on flying the brand-new ILS 17 into Norman, but the wind had switched to the north right before we took off, so it would be opposite flow. Not too big a deal, but the level 4 and 5 thunderstorms over Lake Stanley Draper convinced us otherwise. A rather large plane on the approach into Tinker AFB headed elsewhere. We asked for the Runway 3 Localizer approach, and my instructor covered up the attitude indicator and heading indicator. And it was bumpy, and we were in the clouds. When the controller gave me a turn to 210, I had a heck of a time getting on it, and descending to 3,00 at the same time. The compass was swinging every which way, and the plane wouldn’t descend. “Just push the nose over,” my instructor said, only there’s something nerve wracking about violently descending with NO pitch information, so I hesitated. “Cessna 76067, verify you’re heading is 210.” “Uhh, I’m not sure what my heading is, but I’m honestly trying for 210,” was about the only thing I could think to say in response. My instructor keyed the mike and said, “067 is in the turn to 210,” which sounds a lot better but means the same thing. Rob pulled the covers off the gyroscopic instruments and said, “Here, you can have these back for now.” That made things worlds easier. After we got out of the turbulence, he covered them back up, and my approach was acceptable, though not beautiful. Then I busted the Minimum Descent Altitude by 40 feet, which would be an automatic failure on a checkride. And then there was some confusion about the controller’s circle to land instructions on my part, which culminated with me chopping the power, dumping 40 degrees of flaps and dive bombing the airport, landing midfield.
My instructor was ready to sign me off, but I asked if we could do one more flight tomorrow, since I had to do my spin ride anyway. He agreed.
So now I’ve just got a bunch of studying to do. Hopefully I’ll get a checkride no later than Monday.