The Dream and Dichotomy of Clouds (IFR Training Update)

Date	Aircraft	Route of Flight	Time (hrs)	Total (hrs)
3 Jun 2013	N21481	SDC (Williamson, NY) - 9G6 (Albion, NY) - SDC	2.8	1162.1

Dreams of flight often begin, and end, with the clouds.

As earthbound creatures, we look up at those fluffy beasts grazing in the sky and they appear almost otherworldly.  Their forms morph from the familiar to the fantastic as they hover quietly out of reach.  For pilots, there is something magical about being amongst them.  I thrill at the perception of immense velocity that comes from zooming close to one in my stodgy ol' Spam Can (DiLulloesque disclaimer: always exercise proper cloud clearances while flying VFR).

But to the VFR-only pilot, the innards of clouds are not merely fantasy realms of rainbows and mist; they also impart disorientation and cloak obstructions (mountains, cell towers, other airplanes, etc.).  To be fair, they do the same for instrument rated pilots, too.  The difference is that instrument training provides tools, discipline, and a system for pilots to manage those challenges.

I was content to remain VFR for a decade before pursuing my instrument rating and there are a number of reasons for that.

In 2004, before buying Warrior 481, I contemplated an instrument rating.  But I was savvy enough to know that maintaining currency (forget proficiency) while renting would be a challenge.  Moreover, as a renter, I was not flying the sort of trips that would actually utilize the rating.  It was a lot of time, energy and money to invest on a solution in search of a problem.

After I became an aircraft owner, there was a cultural hurdle.  I was hanging out with pilots who flew taildraggers (many of them vintage) off of grass strips.  These guys were outstanding stick and rudder pilots, but they were not destined to become, or interested in becoming, instrument pilots.

I have had many people - some were aviators, some were not - tell me that flying cross country trips without an instrument rating somehow made me unsafe.  I disagree.  In fact, my greatest reluctance to pursue the rating is that exercising it exposes pilots to more dangerous situations.  As blogger and instrument rated pilot Ron Rapp so eloquently said on the topic of thunderstorms:

"Our strategy was simple: fly VFR. If we can see the weather, we can avoid it. This is something they don’t often tell you when you’re spending all that money pursuing an instrument rating. In a light aircraft, sometimes VFR is safer."

Here's the thing: the clouds are beautiful and wondrous, but they can conceal thunderstorms and ice, two weather conditions that can bring down airplanes far more capable than mine.  If I am not flying in the clouds, I will inherently avoid picking up ice (except in cases of freezing rain) and can see and avoid thunderstorms (or at least the dense rain shafts that indicate them).  In those scenarios, as Ron said, sometimes VFR is safer.

My biggest fear was getting an instrument rating and blundering into a thunderstorm, ice, or some unholy combination of the two while flying blind in the clouds.

In my view, safety is less about the rating held and more about pilots understanding their personal limitations, the limitations of their aircraft, and using that understanding to make good decisions.  Was I any less safe on those long cross country flight for my lack of instrument rating?  Absolutely not.  I stayed out of the clouds and made what I believe to be good decisions.  However, keeping safe requires flexibility and a willingness to make no-go decisions of the sort that would quickly bankrupt an airline.

Why did I have a change of heart?

North of Rochester, the skyline aflame with waning daylight

One simple reason is that I was looking for a new challenge.  To be clear, learning to fly on instruments is a challenge.

More importantly, the enabling technology of inexpensive cockpit weather displayed on an iPad helped assuage my concerns of blundering into an embedded thunderstorm while in the clouds.  And, of course, if there ARE thunderstorms in the vicinity, dropping below the ceiling and continuing VFR is a viable and safe means of continuing the flight.

Honestly, ice still scares the crap out of me.  I regard this as a healthy respect for nature and it means that there may not be much cloud-busting going on during winters in the Great Lakes region.

Finally, I have delayed or canceled flights owing to thin stratus layers hovering 1000' over the earth.  I realized that an instrument rating would make short work of such trivial conditions and meaningfully expand the utility envelope of the airplane.  I am not pursuing this rating out of a strong desire to fly long hours of hard IFR while staring at nothing but my instrument panel.

Decommissioned Rochester Gas & Electric Russell Station blushing at dusk.

And so, I found myself flying back to Williamson along the Lake Ontario shoreline after another round of simulated instrument flying with Ed.  Clouds that had blanketed the region for much of the day were rapidly dissipating, blushing pink in the day's final light.

Ed and Darrell, both based at Le Roy, have happily lent me their eyes over the past few weeks while we droned around in circles doing holds, DME arcs, and various ILS, VOR, and RNAV approaches under simulated (for me, not for them) instrument conditions.

When I started training, instrument flying was a nightmare of task saturation.  But several flight hours ago, something changed.  Time slowed; suddenly, there was plenty of time to set the next frequency, positively identify the next VOR, or set up the Garmin 430W for an approach.  I even started to consistently remember the timer on those approaches where it was a critical backup element for identifying the missed approach point.  Everything clicked and the rest just became practice drills. Many of my practice sessions this spring have been in strong, gusty crosswinds or subject to intense springtime thermals working mightily to push me off altitude or glideslope.  There is no question that striving for precision in these adverse conditions have made me a better pilot.

While flying with Ed around a holding pattern tonight, with the directional gyro and attitude indicators "failed" (covered) and my right hand shielding my Foggled eyes from a setting sun resting at the top of my instrument panel, I found the hold to be effortless.  I was literally flying the maneuver half blind and with one hand virtually tied behind my back.

I realized that I am almost ready.I dropped Ed back at the Pine Hill airport with its glorified sidewalk (2659' x 36') of a runway and departed under the orange glow of a magnificently setting sun.  With the exception of a dual cross country flight with Tom, I have everything else I need to take the check ride (for example, according to MyFlightbook, I have 1,166% of the cross country requirement met!).

I don't think I'll ever beat the clouds, but soon I'll be able to join them.