WHEN     : Friday 9th July 1999
WHERE    : SPX - BPT - SPX in N1219F, a Cessna 172N
WHAT     : Approaches - ILS and back-course
WHO      : Safety Pilot: John Sollinger
HOW LONG : 2.0 flight; 1.8 hood

  Due to a week of really bad weather, followed by two weeks of having just too much work to do, I finally got out with a safety pilot. I've managed to fly VFR in this time; arranging to go flying VFR is much easier since I don't have to schedule a safety pilot for that, so I can go more or less any time I'm free. However, when doing hoodwork, I like to give my safety pilot a little bit of notice!

  Since it's almost a month since I put that hood on, I decided a trip to Beaumont would be good to refresh my communication skills, en-route IFR navigation and LOC-BC approaches. I made a note of all the frequencies I'd be using before hand. Then we launched. The day had been rainy, and there were some remnants of the earlier day's convective activity scattered around, so John had to vector me around a couple of them. It was smooth cruising at 3,500 feet all the way to Beaumont. I called Beaumont Approach at SMITH intersection (hey, I have my own intersection!). It wasn't long before we were being vectored for the ILS - we were getting vectors before even crossing V20, which goes direct to BPT VOR. The wind wasn't strong, but there was enough to give the approach controller kittens trying to vector me. He gave me a heading that he thought would work...but put us too close to the approach course. He then gave us a left turn to a heading of 150 degrees (we were flying 25 degrees). I hadn't seen the localizer needle whizzing across the gauge (which John then told me it had just done - I should have caught that), so I thought it was a bit strange we were being given a left turn instead of a right turn. I asked the controller to confirm a left turn, and he he confirmed it, so I started the turn (he then explained what had happened). We were cleared for the ILS, and I managed to make one of my best ILS approaches so far. The needles stayed pretty much in place as I remembered Lee's voice going "small corrections...small corrections...".

  I did a touch and go, and Tower soon turned us back over to departure. We were then vectored around for the localizer back-course for runway 30. I decided that I would end this in a missed approach since it would otherwise be a downwind landing with 10 knots on the tail (BPT has plenty of runway, but I want to reduce wear on the tires!) This approach was not as pretty! We got vectored in fairly close to the final approach fix (ROVEZ intersection, 3.8 DME from the threshold). On a back course, the needle is reverse sensing. A combination of being vectored in close and a bit of momentary confusion nearly had me peg the needle! Unfortunately, I overcorrected and shot through the course, then corrected back, but forgot about the crosswind. Now we were pretty close to the missed approach point, and the needle was sensitive, so I almost pegged it again. I'm going to have to practise these back courses!

  At the MAP, I went missed. Our missed approach instructions were to turn on course for Houston Gulf, and we had no altitude restriction. A few minutes later, tower turned us back over to departure. We flew back at 4500 feet. There were a few clouds scattered about, and John vectored me around any that got in our way. John also kept telling me how pretty it was with the sunset shining off the clouds! Unfortunately I couldn't look. John got a really pretty ride home, where...well, I saw the inside of my hood and the flight instruments! (This is why everyone hates flying under the hood, I can't wait until I can do real IFR).

Conclusion

  I need to go back to Beaumont and work on that back-course. However, it was a good session. I did notice that at the start of the flight, my scan had suffered a little due to the big gap I'd had, but it came back quite quickly. Going into Beaumont is fun, you get to exercise your communication skills, and the controllers at Beaumont are very friendly (it's a good place for primary students because of this - it'll help them get over their communication anxiety).