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So last year I decided I was going to start working towards my Instrument Rating. For those of you not familiar with pilot lingo, that’s the piece of paper (actually it’s now plastic) I get from Uncle Sam a.k.a the FAA, authorizing me to fly in clouds. As a VFR Private Pilot, I’ve been restricted to flying in generally good weather (day or night), and flying into clouds (or even getting to close to them) is definitely a no-no. The instrument rating is believed to be the hardest rating to get as a pilot; like most other ratings, there is a written test, an oral test, and an actual flight test (checkride). There are also requirements on how many hours you have to have flown, and so on…
Why would someone subject themselves to another test (a very hard one), additional expenses and stress, just so they can fly in “bad weather”? Good question. For some it’s just part of the eternal pursuit of perfection; getting your IR forces you to become a better pilot. There is less room for error. For most though, it’s a very practical skill to have. The whole point of flying a plane is so you can get somewhere. Yes it’s lot’s of fun, saves time, and being able to say you’re a pilot automatically earns you 7 degrees of coolness 
, but at the end of the day, aviation is really just a means to get you from point A to B. Even though sometimes point A is point B (circular travel is still travel).
Now many times, what looks like a crummy, cloudy day from the ground, is actually a beautiful day a few thousand feet up. Or maybe a large cloud decided to park itself right over your airport, but your destination is reporting clear skies and calm winds. As a VFR pilot, you’d be grounded till those clouds got out of your way, but with your instrument rating, you could easily fly on through the crud to the sunny skies on the other side. Keep in mind though, if the cloud in question appears to be following you from your house to the airport, then you probably don’t want to go flying, IFR or not. Also, some kinds of weather are just not safe to go flying in with the kinds of planes I fly, think thunderstorms, freezing rain/ice, fog, heavy turbulence…in situations like this, Mother Nature trumps that piece of plastic you worked so hard for…
But back to me…
Last year I decided I was going to take the plunge, but life sort of got in the way. Time and money (lack thereof) kept me from getting any consistent flying in, and unlike riding a bike, aviation is one of those things that if you don’t use it you loose it. I was able to get the written test out of the way, but the oral & practical portions still eluded me. So this week, after a 3 month hiatus from the skies (with me at the controls), I took to flight again…
It wasn’t pretty.
Obviously I made it back in one piece (and so did the plane), but let’s just say that before I was scoring an A-, now I was barely passing the class with a C+. Take off was uneventful, and the landing was pretty darn nice (despite air traffic control taking me a different approach and lots of bumpy winds), it was everything in between that had my brain melting. That’s right, my brain. You see, flying is actually mostly mental, at least this kind of flying is. My control of the aircraft was still pretty good, we didn’t end up upside down (but then, we were in the clouds, so who knows? ). However, I was having a hard time making sure I was ahead of the airplane, in other words, that I knew what I was going to do, two, three steps before I did it. Overall it was still a good flight, felt good to get up after such a long time, dust the cobwebs off, but now I’m committed to getting this done. I’ll try to keep you posted of the flights to come. I’m sure it’ll be lots of work, but it wouldn’t be any fun if it wasn’t, now would it?
Blue skies always (even when it’s cloudy with a chance of rain…just fly higher)
E:-)
