Cruising in the Clouds

Today's lesson plan originally involved one whole hour of instrument flying. Typically, I would have done this hour wearing the IFR hood so I couldn't see outside. Fortunatly, there were plenty of clouds today and my instructor actually went and filed an IFR flight plan. I got 1.0 hours of ACTUAL instrument time on top of my 1.7 hours of simulated instrument time.

Flying through the clouds was just awesome. Not only is it cool to see the clouds in all of their beauty, it was also pretty awesome to see how fast you are actually flying past them. It was a truly amazing experience.

We practiced most of the things in our lesson plan- stalls, slow flight, etc. Believe it or not, doing maneuvers in actual instrument conditions was a lot more difficult than when I'm just under the hood. I think I might know why- with simulated instrument maneuvers, I'm not tempted to look outside. However, with actual instrument maneuvers, I'm wanting to look outside for visual reference and it delays my reaction time a little when I realize I need to look back down at my instruments.

I started feeling a little bit sick, so we climbed up to 5000 feet above the clouds- and it was awesome. It was so awesome that I actually handed the controls over while I took a short video:



After a short recovery time, we dove back down into the sea of white. I learned procedures for inadvertant flight into the clouds- in which you simply make a 180 degree standard-rate turn and fly right back out of the clouds.

My instructor then started failing my instruments. First, he failed my attitude
indicator and my heading indicator. I then had to divert my attention to the altimeter to see if I'm gaining or losing altitude, and the actual magnetic compass to see what direction I'm turning. Then, he failed my magnetic compass and told me to do a 180. I had to time a standard-rate turn using the turn coordinator (a standard rate turn is a turn that takes exactly two minutes to make a complete 360). By starting the timer and turning at standard rate until the timer read one minute, I was able to do a complete 180.


Then, he failed my altimeter and told me to climb from 4500 to 5000. I figured that by starting the timer and focusing on the vertical speed indicator (keeping my climb at 500 feet per minute), I climbed for exactly one minute and leveled off at 5000.

My instructor told me that I will be an excellent instrument pilot as long as I can get over the whole motion-sickness ordeal. Here is another video flying through the clouds (instructor at the controls):



I finished off the lesson by flying my first ILS approach (my instructor did most of the work on the approach, so I didn't get credit for it). I actually got vectored by ATC to merge with the glide path to the runway.

Not many private pilot students get to experience a flight like this. It was a very awesome lesson.