Just Like Old Times

Twilight

Cruising through Rochester's airspace from Le Roy to Sodus, NY

Practice

Date	Aircraft	Route of Flight	Time (hrs)	Total (hrs)
25 May 2023	N21481	SDC (Sodus, NY) - 5G0 (Le Roy, NY) - ROC (Rochester, NY) - 5G0 - SDC	2.1	2648.8

Like a throwback to a decade prior, Darrell was back in the right seat of Warrior 481 while I flew some practice instrument approaches under the hood. The twist for the evening was that I also had a back seater, his friend Bobbi Jean, who had never flown in a light aircraft before.

We launched from Le Roy and, hand flying, I flew the ILS-4 and RNAV-10 into Greater Rochester International. Every instrument approach practice session that I do is intended to maintain proficiency in two aspects: hand flying the Warrior without outside visual references and systems management. To exercise both skill sets, I usually fly half of the approaches in any given session by hand and the other half with the autopilot. On the missed from runway 10, I transitioned to the autopilot for Rochester's RNAV-7, a procedure turn at the Geneseo VOR, and the VOR-A approach back in to Le Roy. Along the way, Darrell provided a running commentary for Bobbi Jean on what was happening and how I was doing what I was doing. He also indulged his inner tour guide and pointed out where we were at any given moment. Hopefully, he was also watching for traffic in his role as a required crew member! 

Hi Amanda! Darrell and me after flying practice approaches. Photo by Darrell.

Afterward, I parted with Darrell and Bobbi Jean at the Le Roy airport and flew home through a beautiful twilight sky. It was my first time seeing Darrell since we flew low passes over the Shuttle Landing Facility in 2021. I ended the evening happy to have reconnected with him and pleased with what I assessed to be good proficiency in flying on instruments. Extending my legal instrument currency into October was a nice bonus.