Busy Week

This week was a busy week and just seemed to pass by without any signs of stopping. It seemed like a blur just trying to think back about what I accomplished this week. Thank god for a trusty updated logbook to look back upon to review your flights.

Thursday - May 7th, I met with Josh and since there were some clouds in the area we decided to file and fly to Worcester and shoot the ILS into Worcester. It was a nice introduction to actual IFR as we had about 45 minutes worth of actual instrument conditions (flying through the clouds and not being able to see any outside references). We broke out at about 2000 feet and landed in Worcester. We taxiied back and immediately requested a new clearance flying back to Norwood.

Friday - May 8th, I met with Josh as usual first thing in the morning and we decided to head south to try and get some more actual instrument conditions again since the clouds have been hanging around. We filed a flight plan and flew down to Martha's Vineyard to shoot the ILS 24 in the 172SP. I filed on the way back and we pretty much received radar vectors the entire way back. That is the one problem with flying somewhere relatively close - approximately 50 nautical miles - that they assign you a route but usually end up giving you radar vectors to your approach instead.

Saturday - May 9th, Nice and cloudy....at least getting there. First off, I met with Josh as usual at Horizon Aviation in Norwood where the broken cloud layer was up at 10,000 feet. No chance at touching those clouds....for us at least. We looked over the weather all over the area - the south shore, cape and islands, providence, and even southern connecticut were all fogged and clouded in to a point where it was below minimums and we probably would not be able to even land. So we decided on going out to Barnes Municipal Airport in Springfield, MA heading towards the incoming clouds. We spent the first 1/2 hour in visual conditions, but we eventually came head on with all the clouds. The rest of the time out there we were in the clouds and shooting the approach we broke out of the clouds at 800 feet above the ground with the airport and runway in sight! That was freaky, yet at the same time, so much fun! We landed, took a little break in the FBO and filed the flight plan for the return trip. We departed Barnes and by the time we hit 2000 feet we were back in the clouds again. We were in the clouds for the entire trip back. We were being vectored back for the visual approach into Norwood for runway 17 when Boston Approach told us to descend from 3000' down to 2000' and report the airport in sight 2 miles at our 2 o'clock position. When we hit 2000' the clouds had come down so much that we just barely, and I mean barely broke out as we were still in the lower haze of the clouds! It took us a minute but between the two of us scrambling around trying to find the airport we managed to catch a glimpse of it and were cleared for the visual approach and began our descent in. That was insane! Had we been much later we probably would have had to have requested the localizer approach with the clouds below 2000 feet! All in all, 2.2 hours round trip, I had 1.6 hours of actual instrument flying today! It was a busy week! Next week I get to do some night flights and go back up for my end of course check ride.