On Sunday 3rd September, at long last - about 1.5 years after starting it, and 560 hours since starting the private in April 1997, I have finally got my instrument rating!

It's been slow because I've had lots of distractions (buying a Cessna 140 was a big one, and the glider club was another big one), but it was well worth it. I found the instrument rating was much more work than the private rating - but just as much fun. Now I'm itching to file, even if the weather is severe clear, because I can!

I took my ride with Gary Gandy, a DE who is based near College Station, TX. This is about 100 miles from where I live. But there's a real DE-shortage on the south side of Houston. The other thing about going to Gary is that he's the glider DE too, so I might as well get to know him better...since that ride will (hopefully [0]) come up soon.

So I flew the club's Cessna 172, good 'ol one niner foxtrot, up to Coulter Field. Our club has two C172s, but 19F is my favorite: it's got the full King stack, the gyros all work well, and I did most of my private and instrument training in this particular machine.

The oral lasted a bit over 1.5 hours. I had revised hard for this part: the oral is definitely the real knowledge test - the FAA written is really just a filter, I feel. The DE can ask you pretty much anything that's relevant, and there's no way of knowing what's coming. My problem is always remembering the minutae - like VOR service volumes etc. but I managed to do it. (He didn't ask about that particular one in the end anyway!) I made a couple of boobs on the oral, but he was satisfied, because after realising what I had done wrong, I explained that I realised I had just been a complete pillock. I also had to prove that 19F was legal for IFR - VOR checks, transponder/pitot/static, annual etc. but someone had nicely put markers in the logbooks already. He also had me decode some METAR/TAF data. I put on my best "Galveston ASOS" voice and read 'em out ;-) He had me file an IFR flight plan from Coulter to Navasota for the actual flight (our oral flight plan was Coulter to Alexandria).

Then out into the sweltering 107-degree heat. It had actually been fairly smooth as I flew up there, but by the time we took off (about 2:30 pm) the thermals were booming. On climbout, we went from climbing at 1500 feet per minute (in a C172 in 107 degree heat!) to barely being able to hold altitude at Vy and full throttle as we hit the associated sink. Holding altitude was tricky - we hit a couple of bumps that had us climb 100 feet very very quickly. And a couple of downward negative G bumps that almost had both of our heads hitting the ceiling. I picked up my clearance in-flight (Coulter doesn't have a clearance delivery frequency), and off we went to do the full VOR approach into Navasota.

As we got close to TNV, on went the partial panel stickies! (We also canceled IFR at this point). The VOR approach went pretty well, and we circled to land, doing a touch and go, made tricky by a thermal right off the end of the runway which almost stopped the plane descending despite full flaps. Fortunately, there was a similar thermal off the other end that helped the climbout tremendously.

We then headed towards Brenham for my nemesis. But not before steep turns, unusual attitudes and all that was done. We did the manoevers at 3,000 feet. One of my steep turns had a thermal pretty well cored too ;-)

Then onto my nemesis. The NDB appraoch. I always find these a bit tricky. The NDB approach to Brenham is an 'on field' NDB. It actually worked out reasonably well! We did the full missed approach off that one - climb to 1200 feet, then a left climbing turn to hold at the NDB (my other nemesis). But the hold actually worked out perfectly. I couldn't believe it! These things have been giving me fits, but everything just fell into place on this one.

Finally, the ILS into College Station. My ILS approaches have been looking good recently, and despite the turbulence, once properly established, I kept the needles in the donut. Holding airspeed was a joke though - the needle was going up and down like crazy as we hit updrafts and downdrafts.

After about 1.6 hrs, it was all over. We flew back to Coulter, and just chatted about various things, and landed. It was a relief to shut down and go into the airconditioning for about a gallon of water. And now I have a white ticket with "Instrument Airplane" on it.

The whole process of going for the IR has done a tremendous amount for me - I've learned such a lot, as well as getting much more proficient using ATC services!