Instrument Rated

On Thursday June 4th I was up for my FAA Instrument Check Flight and Oral Exam. Since I knew I hadn't done the best on the FAA Written Test, but still passed - just not as well as I would have liked, I was a little worried that the oral exam might have been a little more involved than it was. But, much to my relief it was actually just the same amount of time the oral exam was supposed to be as usual. The oral exam portion itself lasted a little more than an hour and a half. We started off by Ray Collins, the Designated Examiner - the same examiner I had for my Private Pilot Check Flight - explaining how everything would go in terms of the oral quizzing, and if all went well we would then go out for the flight. Oh yes, I almost forgot to mention, that to add to the tension there was an FAA Examiner from the FSDO examining Ray as this was his annual check of being a Designated Examiner. We started off by examining the flight plan that he had me create for my Check Flight, which was a proposed IFR flight from Lebanon, NH to Nantucket. I had selected to use the Standard Instrument Departure listed for Lebanon, NH however, that departure procedure is only available for one runway. He recited off a made up weather report that would have me taking of a different runway making the use of that Departure invalid. Then I had to look up the Departure Procedure for Lebanon NH in my approach/departure plates. To which, it described my take off and departure procedures from the runway in use. He then asked me to explain why these procedures are used - as the procedures allow gauranteed obstacle clearance as well as guidance to the enroute structure of the flight in an area that does not have radar coverage. We moved onto the Enroute Structure where I selected a route from the Concord VOR to the Manchester VOR to the Boston VOR direct to Nantucket. Though my first look into the routing, they have what are called preferred IFR routes and TEC routes for different airports. They give a starting point and ending point and the route in between them which is the preferred route to follow - as you can imagine there are many many different ways to get from point A to point B - especially in the National Airspace System. In my research I didn't find any preferred routes, so I just selected my own route instead.....However, Ray then asked me if I had looked if there were any preferred routes from my destination of Nantucket to my origin on Lebanon, NH....low and behold - there was a preferred route from Nantucket to Lebanon. So we just reversed the routing and that is what I would use to file the flight plan routing. I never would have imagined to look if there were any routes from my destination back to my origin. I supposed this is why they have these oral exams to point out references like these to use in future planning.

Intermission........I know this is a lot of info.....haha

Then we moved onto the enroute structure where we talked about the altitude I then selected for the flight. I had selected 7000 feet as for starting up in Lebanon, the off route obstruction clearance altitudes (recomended) are 6100 and 6400 because of the mountainous terrain, and the Minimum Enroute Altitudes happen to be 6000 and the Obstruction Clearance Altitude happens to be 5300. So, in order to give myself a little buffer, I selected 7000 feet as a safe altitude for the enroute portion of the flight this on the other hand would give me more than sufficient altitude for power-off gliding distance once past the cape and over the Atlantic before reaching Nantucket. Lastly, we began to discuss the Arrival portion of getting into Nantucket. Here we briefed and discussed the different aspects of the approach into Nantucket as well as touching on Lost Communications, and what I would do if I were cleared to Nantucket and was scheduled in there at 135 local time but arrived 8 minutes early.....as I noted logically from lost comm procedures, I would fly a holding pattern over Nantucket and shoot the approach at my arrival time 8 minutes later. However, on the other hand, if I was later than my expected arrival, I would just continue to fly straight in and shoot the approach. Then we discussed the missed approach procedures and alternate requirements and what would happen if we could not get into Nantucket and the regulations surrounding the selection of an alternate. We also looked at non-standard alternate minimums - in our case we used Bradley International for this example for the ILS 6, which has 900 feet and 2 statute mile visibility minimums. We then briefly discussed the equipment checks required for all flights which was to include part of our final discussion on the instrument systems. We touched on VOR checks and VOT ground checks, and testing the pitot-static system. Pitot-Static, being very important in instrument flight with traditional guages, he had me touch on which instruments were covered by this system and what would happen if we were to encounter the scenario of a vacuum failure, or if the static port became clogged, or if the ram air became clogged and the indications that I could expect.

Then we moved on, and Ray discussed with me, what the plan was for the flight portion as we took a look at the weather around the area and decided on heading down to Plymouth to shoot the ILS 6 there, going missed, flying back to Norwood for the Localizer 35 approach, going missed and following the entire missed approach procedure, and then back around for the GPS 35 approach into Norwood with a circle to land on Runway 17. On our way out of the airport down toward Plymouth, we tackled the unusual attitudes to get those out of the way. He gave me vectors around to align me with the ILS 6 into Plymouth, I got a little behind the glideslope and was pretty much chasing it all the way down to the runway, but I managed to keep the localizer in pretty much the whole time. He had me go visual and asked me if I could make the landing, in which I said yes. We did a low approach, and he gave me vectors toward Norwood. We got on with Boston Approach as he made the first call, and I handled the radios there after. I flew the localizer 35 into Norwood, and executed the missed approach procedure. All was going well with the one exception that I forgot to put the flaps back up after shooting the approach. I can't believe I missed that! But, I put them up and continued to the hold at the Millis intersection. I held over Millis for one lap in the hold, to realize I was about 10 seconds long of my 1 minute inbound leg. So, I explained to Ray what I would need to ideally do, to make that 1 minute leg back inbound by extending the outbound leg by 10 seconds. He then gave me vectors and I contact Boston approach to shoot my last approach into Norwood, the GPS 35. By this time I was already sweating bullets because there is just so much going on that as a single-pilot in instrument conditions becomes incredibly demanind pushing you to your limits. I literally had sweat dripping from my foggles. Haha. Everything was going well, then he began to cover up my instruments - the attitude indicator and directional gyro in a simulation of vacuum failure and what we call partial-panel flying. I then rely on the magnetic compass for direction and all of the other instruments for my attitude in the aircraft. We circled to land on Runway 17, and landed pretty nicely, a little long, but nonetheless still a decent landing. We taxied back and parked the plane. He told me I passed, gave me a few constructive citiques on areas where I could improve, told me to secure the plane and come inside and meet with him when I'm finished to finish up my paperwork. All in all, a satisfactory performance, and here I now am, an Instrument Rated Pilot. I completed my Instrument Course in 45 hours time and almost 4 hours of actual instrument flying in there. I am much relieved to have that over with, and am now ready to fly through as many clouds as possible to gain more experience and keep my currency.

To current, including the flight we did to White Plains, NY just outside of NYC yesterday I now have 136.4 hours total flight time and added another hour and a half to my actual instrument flight time. Now, I'm actually already almost 40 hours into my Commercial License and beginning to look at and plan my long Commercial Cross Country Flight, which has to have a straight line distance of at least 250 nautical miles. Stay tuned for more updates!