No Windshield Wipers

Today was my first flight towards my Instrument Rating. It was in the clouds and rain.

The weather today was 7 Miles visibility and overcast clouds at 2000 feet with light rain. Technically, you can still fly in these conditions with Visual Flight Rules, but its risky. You have to stay 500 feet below the clouds which puts you at about 2500 feet above sea level, only 200 feet above the mountains. You would share that altitude with some radio towers.

So my instructor filed an IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) Flight Plan, which would enable us to fly in the clouds. Since you cannot actually see anything, Air Traffic Control must stay with you throughout the entire flight to ensure that you aren't going to hit any other planes that are flying in the clouds.

Not much has changed from VFR. We did some checks and he had me do some zigzagging on the taxiway in order to make sure that all of the instruments are working correctly. Other than that, everything leading up to takeoff was the same as usual.

We picked up our IFR Clearance from Clarksburg's Ground Frequency and did a normal takeoff. We were then advised to switch to departure control. They are the ones who will watch us and warn us if we are getting too close to any other aircraft.

We flew out to STORE intersection (Yes, there are roads in the sky that intersect!) and asked ATC for a block altitude around the intersection. We basically got clearance to do whatever we want between 4000 and 5000 feet.

I did climbs, descents, slow flight, stalls, and unusual attitudes. I no longer have the same degree of finess with these maneuvers now that I can't look outside. I guess having a real horizon instead of a fake one really makes a difference.

Afterwards we headed back and I got to fly the ILS (Instrument Landing System) Approach to the runway. Basically, I have an instrument with a vertical line that shows me whether or not I'm lined up with the runway (called the localizer), and a horizontal line that tells me if I'm lined up with the glide slope down to the runway. If the localizer is left or right of center, it means I'm off course. If the glide slope is high, it means I'm beneath the glide slope. If the glide slope is low, it means I'm above the glide slope. In this image, the plane is to the left of the course, and slightly high.

After tracking the localizer and glide slope down, I looked at my altitude and realized that I was only 1000 feet above the runway, and I still couldn't see it.
I guess the clouds were a lot lower than they thought. Finally, I could see the MALSR lights by the runway at about 800 feet above the TDZE (Touchdown Zone Elevation). I could hear the rain start hitting the plane again once we got below the clouds. As we got closer, I could see the runway perfectly and I executed a perfect landing.



That was a fun flight. I intend to go get as much of my Instrument training as possible in Actual IFR conditions vs. simulated.