August 2014- A couple of months ago, my longtime flight instructor (and friend) Larry called to ask if I’d be available as copilot for a trip to Santa Ana, in Southern Calif.
Larry would be flying down for a family social event, and thought it might be wise to bring along a second pilot so he could enjoy himself. I gave him a tentative yes, depending on my wife’s medical condition (she’s an ovarian cancer patient—in remission, on experimental therapy).
There was a catch: I wasn’t instrument current (not to mention, instrument proficient) and we’d be flying on an IFR flight plan.
Larry said that was no problem. We’d get together for a half-day in my airplane, during which he’d give me an instrument proficiency check, and I could go along on a short flight in the airplane he’d be flying to refamiliarize myself with it.
A few days later, we got together. He asked if there was anything I wanted to review and I made the mistake of bringing up differences between the Jeppesen and FAA instrument plate—so he made me look up a bunch of oddball things that are a lot easier to find on Jepps: the effects of inoperative components on minimums, for one.
Then we flew—and he gave me a real a workout. When doing hood work I usually either stay local or fly to a nearby airport, and do approaches and holds (hand-flying some and doing others with the autopilot) until I’ve met the FAA currency requirements and satisfied both myself and my safety pilot that I’m handling the airplane safely.
Not this time. Larry had me fly out to the practice area and do steep turns under the hood—in fact, I had foggles on from climbout until I took them off on short final just before landing over an hour later! He made me keep them on while flying a circling approach at Oakdale (O27), and while executing the published missed approach both there and after a hand-flown ILS back home at Modesto (KMOD).
I did several turns in the hold after that, and then flew the GPS approach (vectors) on partial panel—using the autopilot.
Larry said that was enough. He was particularly impressed that I had the presence of mind to notice that NorCal was about to turn us in high and tight after flying from Oakdale to Modesto, and to ask the controller about that. My question resulted in a “pilot’s discretion” clearance down to 2,000 feet. I was ahead of the airplane throughout the flight, and earned an IPC signoff.
One big help was an hour practicing in Microsoft Flight Simulator a day or so earlier, which confirmed my instrument scan was still good and re-familiarized me with plates and procedures.
A few days later, I joined Larry for a flight in his airplane from KMOD to Medford, Ore. (KMFR). I’d hoped to at least review an electronic copy of his POH, but I ran out of time, needed coaching—and told him so.
Since it was just the two of us on the flight up, Larry put me in the left seat and I flew from takeoff through landing, with him doing most of the radio work. It was a smooth flight at flight level 180, though weather built up as we went north and we spent a little time in the soup with light rime ice (boots dealt with it easily).
We descended out of that and got a visual approach, and while it wasn’t a greaser, I made a pretty good landing with a moderate crosswind. Good job, if I do say so myself!
The flight home a couple of hours later was at FL230, which put us above most of the weather. Larry didn’t get a briefing before departure, so I got one on my iPad while he taxied. There was nothing to worry about, but I did notice the synopsis showed clouds layered to FL280.
We both assumed that would be over the mountains, and mostly it was. But we found some over the valley, too. It was about time to descend anyway, so we called Oakland Center and got another “pilot’s discretion” clearance to duck under the clouds.
There was a little too much wind for a straight-in downwind landing on 10L (one of the side benefits of a reversible prop), so Larry set up for 28R and was asked to keep his pattern tight for a student pilot on the ILS. He made an early base, descended nicely and greased the landing, as usual.
I got home to find my wife coping with a non-medical emergency and by the time that was dealt with, we were beat. We ate a carry-out dinner and went to bed after putting two decks of playing cards in envelopes for the Poker Run…
Yes, the Poker Run: an annual event which in a fit of optimism I offered to lead for the local pilots association. Part of what I was doing before my flight to Oregon was making up handouts for pilots instead of boning up on turboprop procedures.
I was less than well rested the next morning. But I made my bleary-eyed way to the kitchen for coffee and breakfast tacos, grabbed my flight bag, iPad, and a sack with the Poker Run stuff, and drove to the airport.
Thank heaven for Mary and Glen Mount, Sandy Mesenhimer and Gary Ervin, who had Modesto’s historic Hanger One open, with coffee and doughnuts for the participants. We had an unexpectedly large turnout, with 10 players and eight airplanes.
I gave a safety briefing and attempted to space everyone out so we wouldn’t have a problem with too many airplanes in the pattern at the same time, and then filled the “Tail-End Charlie” position, flying with a friend’s son in the right seat. We would pick up boxes and leftover cards after everyone else chose theirs.
For those who’ve never flown one, a Poker Run is basically an excuse to fly. You start with a deck of cards, shuffle it and put each card in an envelope. The envelopes get divided into stacks—in this case, five.
Each participant drew one envelope at Modesto, then flew to three other nearby airports, drew one envelope at each (they were in boxes placed where they were easy to find) and a final one back at Modesto.
Between the flying I’d done earlier in the week, dealing with a non-aviation emergency situation and setting up for the Poker Run, I’d got myself pretty run-down. I’m sorry to say that I made a couple of rookie mistakes which, looking back on it, show just how tired and distracted I was.
The most serious was forgetting to set the elevator trim, resulting in the first bounced takeoff I can remember since primary flight training. I also missed at least one GUMP check, and when we got back, KMOD tower observed no transponder (because I’d turned it off on the ground at one of the other airports).
Fortunately, I got a couple of night’s sleep before our flight to Santa Ana. As copilot, I handled radio work on the flight down. The route we flew was pretty much the same as I’ve done in our airplane, but much faster in a turboprop (about one hour, 20 minutes as opposed to two-and-a-half hours in a piston single).
I hung out in the pilots’ lounge at Signature Aviation while Larry and the passengers went to their concert. Late in the afternoon, I called flight service for a briefing and filed our return flight plan, then went out to preflight the airplane and (after exchanging cell phone calls with Larry) call for our clearance.
When he and the passengers showed up, I got an attaboy for doing a good job getting things ready. (I also passed along one squawk from my preflight—the left landing light was out, though with all the other lights, I didn’t think that was much of a problem.)
Larry got us started—with external power (one of the things I’d arranged) and home we went, with me running the radios again. That turned out to be pretty much a full-time job as we departed SoCal airspace.
The lesson here (one I should have learned by now) is that fatigue is a serious problem, even for easy flights like the poker run where each leg was no longer than 30 minutes, and there were, at most, two radio frequencies to deal with.
Larry was smart: knowing he’d be pressed for time, he made arrangements to have a second pilot along who could take care of getting the weather briefing, call for the clearance, do the preflight and handle the radios. That’s a lesson I need to keep in mind for future flights.
