On Monday, 1st May, an opportunity that I had been waiting for presented itself. Having recently got back on track with my IFR training, I was after some actual IMC time. The previous Thursday, I flew with a fellow club member, Jeff Richichi, to Arlington in Dallas in the Arrow. I brought Aaron McHone along as a safety pilot, and did some night hoodwork on the way home (night hoodwork I think is the best because you really are denied any kind of visual cues, and if you get one, it usually gives you the leans). On Monday, I was going back up to Dallas to meet Jeff, and he would file and fly home. However, the weather wasn't going to be VFR. One of the club's excellent CFIIs, John Sollinger, was available. So what better time than to get some actual IMC in?

  We checked the weather. There was a bit of convective stuff, but it would stay out to our west, and we should have been able to get home well before the nasty stuff arrived in the Houston area. But as they say, the best laid plans don't always work out so well.

  After checking the weather, I planned our route of flight to take us over Lufkin and up to Frankston VOR and thence to the Dodje 2 arrival. This would keep us a good hundred miles from anything nasty. John reviewed my flight plan, and made a few minor alterations (I had 'too much information'). John filed IFR, and so we set off.

  I got clearance pretty effectively. I've been studying what you need to do, and like anything with ATC, all the stuff they give you comes in a certain format. CRAFT is a good acronym to remember when copying a clearance - the controller will always give you Cleared-To, Route, Altitude, Frequency (departure), and a Transponder code. I managed to do all of this and even read back the clearance without fumbling my lines, as we sat in the run-up pad for Houston Gulf runway 13.

  Once released, we took off. It was actually good VFR in the Houston area, so I put my hood on to get some simulated time. However, it wasn't long before we started running into a little IMC. John had me take the hood off before we got in it, so I could get used to transitioning from VMC to IMC. It's kind of daunting the first time you are headed for a lump of clouds - scanning the instruments to be ready for the IMC, and at the same time keeping a lookout for traffic. It was getting darker too, so I would be really getting in at the deep end - night IFR. John has flown quite a bit of this...a good safety net for me!

  For a while, we were intermittently in and out of the clouds. We asked to go about 10 miles east of Lufkin to ensure we would be as far away from the nasty stuff as practical. ATC was very helpful in accomodating our off-airways foray, and we did some things to help too like climbing to 8,000 (we had filed for 6,000). I found I was comfortable with actual IMC and the workload of keeping up with enroute ATC. However, I do have practise at en-route ATC usage from VFR flight following. When you're flying IFR though, you tend to get more instructions. Around Lufkin, we started running into some light rain and moderate chop. I was braced for the turbulence to be worse, but once I had got used to the instruments bouncing around, I could keep my scan up and everything remained on course despite any temporary attitude excursions. This experience really brought it home how VFR-into-IMC causes so much trouble. You have to really be in the IMC mindset with your scan going already to cope with this properly. I could easily see how quickly the bumping we got could lead to an unusual attitude if you got behind it. Up until this moment, VFR into IMC had been just a "don't do" with an intellectual understanding of why not. Now I was getting taught why not viscerally. It was a revelation. I was very glad to be on an IFR flight plan and already in the IFR mindset. In fact, I said "I'm glad we are not in the Bonanza, it'd be a real yaw-monster right now", a comment I'd later regret since the club Bonanza has weather detection...

  After passing Lufkin, it really smoothed out, and we actually broke out into the clear again. It was quite a beautiful sight in fact. We were soon handed off to Regional Approach (Dallas is known as Regional), and flying the Dodje 2 arrival, and also back in IMC. A stratus layer or two lay at about 5,000 feet, so we spent about 20 minutes in the clouds as we were brought lower. It was quite eerie - you could see the city glow illuminating the clouds around you. We were flying around in a luminous, orange mass. Not that I really noticed, I was too busy with the instruments and flying Dodje 2!

  Regional Approach assigned us 4,000 feet, and we broke out. To save time, we just flew the visual approach into Arlington. We wanted a quick turnaround so we wouldn't get mixed up with bad stuff (meaning convective activity on the way home).

  We met Jeff in the terminal, got the plane refueled, and Jeff checked the weather and filed. Once again, we filed to go east via Frankston then Lufkin to avoid the bad weather. The radar showed the convective stuff to the west had got worse, but it was still reasonable for our route of flight. However, we were quite concerned about it. With real IFR flying, having an "out", or a bolthole, is a good idea. We decided that if it started looking bad, Tyler Pounds Field would be our out. It was forecast to remain in the clear, with just some rain. Tyler Pounds wasn't far off our initial route of flight, so we could get there quickly if necessary. We loaded Jeff's luggage into the Arrow, and got ready to go. Jeff got in the left seat, John in the right, and I got in the back.

  It was hard to believe that a ravening monster was lying to the south of us. The ramp at Arlington was calm and quiet. The Arrow's IO-360 was the only thing interrupting the peace. Within minutes, we had run up, and Jeff was copying his clearance. We took off uneventfully, and climbed steadily up to 7,000 feet (with an "expedite to 5,000"). The air remained calm as we were instructed to pick up the Maverick 093 radial, and a little later, direct to the Frankston VOR. As we flew past Redbird, we started going into the first puffs of cloud. In fact, we were just popping through some scattered clouds, in IMC for a few seconds at a time. Jeff periodically asked ATC if they had any weather. ATC didn't have anything bad on our route of flight.

  We were soon switched to Fort Worth Center, and discovered we were the controller's only traffic that dark night. It was around midnight. The controller told us there were some cells off a ways either side of our route of flight, but nothing in our path. One thing to remember about center radar, it's a little bit limited as weather radar. The other thing to remember is that sometimes bad weather can occur rather quickly.

  We were back in turbulence I would describe as moderate chop. In fact, sitting in the back, it wasn't particularly uncomfortable, and it was comparable to what we encountered on the way up. As we got about ten miles from Frankston VOR, however...we had a spot of bother with some lightning.

  Suddenly, a bright tongue of unnervingly beautiful lightning arced across the sky, right at our twelve o'clock position. It looked like it was coming out of a point in the clouds ahead, and branching out like tree roots. The clouds around were lit a brilliant purple.

  About thirty milliseconds later, all three of us in chorus said "Tyler Pounds!" Jeff was already on it, turning the plane towards Tyler Pounds whilst simultaneously telling Fort Worth Center that we were diverting. The controller thought it was a good move too, and said as much whilst clearing us direct to Tyler, only five miles away. As soon as we had descended into the clear, the air was smooth again, with only some light rain. Lightning continued to flash behind us, as if to give chase. Ten minutes later, we were on the ground at Tyler Pounds, watching the lightning from terra firma. The storm never got any closer to Tyler, but it continued to rain steadily. Now the fun of getting to an airport after midnight in the pouring rain started...

  We started looking for the exit. Our plan was now to just go to a motel for the night, and try and go home in the morning. We found ourselves apparently locked in. The gate was padlocked. We thought we found an exit, but it was a dirty trick...it just got us into another fenced in area (but this one with barbed wire on the top of the fence). After spending half an hour getting wet, we found a phone with some after-hours numbers. Jeff called the first one, only to be told by a decidedly groggy and sleepy sounding lady that "that person isn't on call any more". So Jeff called the next name on the list. Another equally groggy lady answered, and called her husband. He told us the combination to the gate lock (and at the same time saying the first man was still on call!)

  We went back to the gate. We had in fact looked at this gate before, and decided it was locked. However, as soon as Jeff picked up the lock, he found it to be unlocked! We had just woken up three people for no reason. Oh well...

  Finally, we escaped from Tyler Pounds, and stole off into the night like guilty jailbreakers. We found a phone, and called a Motel 6. By the time we got there, it was 2 am, and we were all hungry. Good thing there was a Denny's next door!

  The next morning dawned in good VMC. However, the radar picture was still not pretty. Houston was badly socked in with convective activity, so we decided to go to Lufkin, which is at least closer to Houston than Tyler. Kelly Sollinger, John's wife, graciously agreed to pick us up from Lufkin. The trip, once again on an IFR plan with some IMC around Lufkin was uneventful. We had to do the ILS 7 into Lufkin because of low clouds. It was however staggeringly beautiful as we flew between cloud layers enroute. I wish I had packed my camera.

  It was a great learning experience for all of us, and taught me a lot about the limitations of light plane IMC flying, particularly if there's any kind of convective activity within 100 miles. It taught me about having an out. It taught me the value of using a vacation day at work, too! (Fortunately, my employer is very good about that sort of thing). I also found doing IFR in the system fun. I really enjoy the basic 'stick and rudder' stuff, and doing my own navigation for VFR cross countries, but I've found that flying IFR in the system is equally enjoyable for other reasons. The more benign types of IMC can also be extremely beautiful too - it's not all being stuck in the insides of clouds. The lessons learned that dark night are something that will hopefully help me make the right decisions in the future when deciding to launch IFR.