I consider all my flights an adventure. And I could probably find something interesting to write about for each one. But this flight, I don’t have to “find” something interesting. It found me!
I started out on an IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) flight plan to North Bend, OR. Cruising along at 7000 feet, I encountered a bit of icing for the first time! Now in a 1974 Cessna 172, a plane that is 35 years old, and an engine that is past TBO (Time Between Overhaul), you/I don’t want to push your luck with ice! There just isn’t a whole lot of power there to keep you airborne when you weight more and the camber of your wing has changed. I opted to divert to my alternate of Eugene. Shot the ILS perfectly and re-thought my afternoons flying.
My new plan is to fly to Hillsboro (KHIO) see if my new Instructor is there and say hello. Well when I left, it was moderate rain at Eugene, but I knew the rain would stop before reaching Corvallis. I took off in the moderate rain and began a climb to 6000 feet. At about 4500 feet, the moderate rain became moderate snow. Once reaching 6000 feet, I began to pick up some more ice. I asked to descend to 4000, they granted my request, and the ice slowly began to slide off. Once I arrive in Hillsboro, unfortunately my instructor wasn’t there to surprise, so I took off and started heading home.
I was kind of tired of all the hard IFR flying and the icing. And Salem’s METAR showed VFR, and it was only about 30 minutes away, so I decided to fly back VFR (Visual Flight Rules). Well about 20 miles north of Salem, I hear Salem Tower say they have 3 miles visibility and hear reports of 3/4 mile visibility coming to their area. So again, I decided to divert to McMinnville (KMMV) and wait it out, or file IFR out of there. After waiting about 30 minutes, there was a wall of moderate rain between McMinnville and Salem. Salem’s METAR reports VFR and 4500 broken. So I decide to file IFR out of McMinnville and after taking off, I found out it was a good choice. Salem was IFR again and I had to shoot the backcourse (which was fun because I hadn’t done that since my checkride!)
All in all I got to experience light icing for the first time, diversion and crazy weather. A very fun and educational trip, but man am I mentally drained. Flying single-pilot IFR with no autopilot or GPS is just one of the hardest mental workouts ever.
On another note, I have a meeting with my instructor on Monday to “officially” enroll me in the school and to go over my more detailed syllabus! I’ll let you know how it goes probably on Tuesday. And don’t forget to check out my pictures. I left my digital camera at the FBO in Salem, so I had to take these with my iPhone. So they aren’t the most detailed. But they are better than nothing.
Tags: cross country time, icing, IFR, KEUG, KHIO, KMMV, VFR
March 21st, 2009 at 9:59 pm
Holy cow. This is way to long to read
March 23rd, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Way to go, John. You had a lot of decisions to make and obviously, you made the right ones. My only comment is that the next time you are out flying with rain/snow showers around, just make every flight an IFR one. You will learn that METARS are not always accurate and up to date.
March 23rd, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Great! Thanks for the heads up. I called up Global’s freq on my flight in to see if you were there, but no one answered. And I would have called but Sarah had dinner plans for us that night.
I still want to take you up on your Burger offer though soon.
June 28th, 2011 at 1:29 pm
Wow! Reading this was a bit scary for me since I’m a student pilot with only 12 logged hours of flying. I guess practice makes ‘close to perfect’, all in due time.