Sunday (which was my birthday by the way) I went up for another IFR lesson ... to Miller (Toms River) which has the good taste of having an IFR and localizer approach.

The day was windy and bumpy.

The risk with Miller is that everybody and their grandmother is out there practicing the approaches and some bozos don't announce.

You see where this is going?

What's the definition of negative Gs from the perspective of the occupants of an aircraft?

Everything in the cockpit shoots up. You get lifted off your seat and your legs press against the seatbelts. You find your approach plates smacking against your nose on their way to the roof. You see your flight bag and all its content go from the rear seat to the roof in about ... half a second. (thank god i didn't have any heavy stuff in it)

Ever experienced something like this? While under the hood? With your instructor screaming "I got the plane!!" at the top of his lungs while you feel the yoke slamming out your hands and full forward?

I did.

At the start of the third approach (after 2 relatively successful localizer approaches), on the way to the procedure turn for my first ILS approach ... that's exactly what happened. One moment I was starting my turn for the teardrop entry (we were facing west, in the afternoon and we had the sun in our eyes ... well I didn't ... I was under the hood). The next I was getting a close up view of the roof of the aircraft (gotta learn to tighten that seatbelt a little more).

I almost thought it was heaving turbulence for a sec until John screamed "My plane!" ... that changed my perspective a little bit.

The Cutlass went from being a plane to a roller coaster ride. I did some negative Gs in the Pitts ... but there's a big difference between pulling Gs when you expect it ... and pulling them when you don't.

I thought I would hear the engine sputter and die ... but it didn't. I caught a glimpse of a Cherokee banking almost 90 degrees away from us ... then John stabilized the plane (took him about 2 seconds) and in the same voice he would tell me the time of the days said "Your plane again".

To my amazement my hands weren't shaking ... much.

It took me a good 30 seconds to have my heart stop beating that hard ...

"I am a liittle shaken up" I laughed nervously.
"Naahhhh ... why? all in a day's work" John said with his usual rough chuckle.

10 seconds later I was getting ready for my first ILS approach. By the time I had completed the procedure turn and was inbound ... I had forgotten all about it and the only thing I could think of is doing the GUMPS and repeating "Manifold at 15 for 500 fpm descent. Manifold at 15 for 500 fpm descent."

I was too busy to ponder questions about mortality and mid-air collisions anyway ... besides, it was in the past. Nothing happened ... except that the Cherokee pilot probably needed a change of underwear. No time ... gotta move on.

My first ILS approach was moderately successful. IFR sure is busy but ILS can be quite a handful if you start zig-zagging over the glideslope or across the localizer. The closer you get the more insanely sensitive they get. As bumpy as it was ... (and it was one hell of a sequence of ass-kicking jolts sometimes) ... i still managed to keep it decently centered, to the point that I earned one of the very rare "Nicely done" from John.

With glideslope you got one more sensitive parameter to check.

So John kept repeating "Don't chase the needle!! Keep your descent at 500 fpm, do small power adjustements and wait for the needle to move ... Hellooooo??? I said DON'T CHASE IT!"

Doing as he said ... i wound up right on the mark at DA ... AMAZINGLY close to the runway threshold.

ILS might be a pain to fly but once you get to DA you are basically ON TOP of the freaking runway.

I did it once more with equal success ... and then John told me that i earned to take the hood off and fly us visual back home ...

I had such a headache when I started my IFR lesson ... incredibly the headache was gone ... It was such a nice VFR day in the end (bumpy as hell though).

Funny enough ... I didn't think about writing about this lesson until I went home and asked myself "So, what interesting things happened in today's lesson that might be worth writing about? ... oh ... yeah ... the fact that we almost traded paint with a Cherokee ... that might be interesting ... "

Felt like I was right there with you, great story

Steve

Hi Steve

No it is a Model 88 Hard Top with the aluminum engine.

Land Rovers are very popular here now especiallly the last two or three years.

Cheers...Happy Landings...Doug

Wooeee! Happy birthday!! Fun stuff, Marco. Wouldn't that have been awesome in IMC?   

I've taken a couple of really good jolts like that- one time, in a 172, despite being strapped in pretty tight, my head actually hit the headliner. I guess I stretched...