I took this morning off work to take advantage of the “crummy” weather we’re having, so I could shoot some approaches in real Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC). The ceiling was 900’ and visibility was 3 miles in mist at San Carlos (SQL) when I was ready to depart. These were probably the lowest conditions I’ve departed in since I’ve received my instrument rating but I was confident that I could make it back to San Carlos if I had any problems during takeoff and on my way down from the city I noticed there was a sizable break in the cloud cover over SFO so that was an option as well.
For the first weekend in March, we had some amazingly clear weather last weekend. It gave me an opportunity to take some friends on a couple trips over San Francisco in what is commonly referred to as the “Bay Tour”. When I got back into flying a few years ago, I was eager to fly the Bay Tour. Unfortunately, most of the information I found online talked about how incredible the flight was rather than more practical information about what to expect as a pilot. Having now flown dozens of Bay Tours out of San Carlos (SQL), I thought it would be a good time to share my perspective and experiences.
While my flight instructor Martin and I were working with the autopilot last weekend, we also spent some time working on flying with a partial panel. This practice is intended to simulate the failure of one or more instruments on the panel. For this particular “failure,” we simulated losing the directional gyro and attitude indicator by applying round covers that obscured the instrument faces. These are gyroscopic instruments that rely on a vacuum pump to operate, so we were essentially simulating a vacuum pump failure.
When I was shopping for a plane two years ago, my goal was to get a capable IFR platform for my instrument training and eventual instrument flight. Not being an instrument rated pilot, I leaned on my friends and flight instructor for advice. The overwhelming response was “you gotta have an autopilot.”
I topped off a busy work week with a busy weekend of air work. On Saturday afternoon we departed San Carlos for Salinas to do the Localizer DME runway 31 approach, my first with a DME arc. We had practiced DME arcs the previous weekend out in the central valley well away from any significant terrain. As you can see from the approach plate, that isn’t the case with this approach.
Last Sunday’s flight was a real workout including holding patterns, DME arcs an approach to Tracy (KTCY) and Los Banos (KLSN). The biggest lesson of the day was to brief the approach before flying the approach. Martin was playing the role of air traffic control while I was under the hood. After vectoring out of San Carlos, he had me cross TRACY intersection at 3,500’ and proceed direct OMWAP for the RNAV (GPS) Rwy 26 approach.
After passing my Instrument Rating Airman Knowledge Test last May, I began working through the flight training over the summer. Unfortunately work and life just got in the way but I have recently picked up the training again and will hopefully be able to complete the complete certification this time around.
