First ILS Approach

I know what some pilots may be thinking. Why is a twenty-some hour student pilot flying an ILS Approach? Well, my enthusiasm and my instructor's optimism got the better of us today. FSS declared 'VFR not recommend'. The fog looked like it was burning off quickly, we had 5 plus SM visibility at the airport and a thin layer of fog above us. We could see the Sun poke through. We decided to go flying. Now, I could pin this on my instructor as his misjudgement. But, at twenty some hours, the student has to start learning to be firm with his decision making. I should have called off the flight.

So the 0.6 hour flight was short. After taking off from Manassas and turning to our Westerly heading towards Fluky, I climbed to FL020. What I saw for many miles was a blanket of white. Not even a spec of ground. Disorienting? Somewhat. I kept thinking that I was flying to far South and had this strong desire to turn right. Before we reached the edge of the SFRA, my instructor radioed approach control for an ILS approach back to Manassas, confirming that the plane is instrument certified.

The conversation between us and Potomac Approach was a series of exchanges, confirming altitude and heading changes. At the time we were west/south-west of Manassas, having taken off from 16L (heading 160 degrees for non-pilots). We were vectored northward (360 degrees) climbing and holding FL027. My instructor, Bill, maintained 105 knots, keeping the carb heat on. Speed is important since we were the slowest thing out there. To not hold up traffic, Approach brought us in tight to DORGE ( the middle marker ). I am not entirely certain of the distance but I believe we picked up the localizer for 16L at around 3 to 4 miles out, so we intercepted the glide slope pretty close to DORGE. That leaves plenty of time for a small slow plane to nail the glide slope at FL027. Since we were vectored into the proper altitude on glide slope, we did not need to dial up ARMEL on the 227 radial for positioning.

The fog was breaking at around 700 AGL. On a faster plane, the PIC is flying instruments while the copilot is looking for the runway. As soon as he sees it, the copilot takes over so the PIC does not have to readjust his vision ( a couple seconds at this point is too long ). Although not as smooth, Bill and I did roughly the same thing. Once I had the runway in sight, I took control. Bill had plenty of time as we are SLOW. It is more a matter of learning crew resource management.

In crew resource management, I did not sit idle while my instructor followed vectors to the glide path. I looked up the localizer frequency, kept checking the directional gyro, looked for traffic, and made sure the checklists were followed: carb heat on and landing lights on.

All in all, still a good lesson.