AOPA Pilot Magazine - June 2024 - 101

back and forth, like an angry golfer looking
for a lost ball in the leaves. It was only
when close to the station that it would
consistently show an accurate bearing.
However, some mental gymnastics were
involved in making sure you flew a straight
line versus getting blown off course by the
wind and " homing, " a term I'm not sure
is used in aviation anymore. Accurately
tracking a bearing was a learned art, and
in any kind of wind or rain, it was hard,
especially with the quality of equipment
in the typical trainer at that time.
One advantage of the NDB approach
was that you could fly almost any
approach over almost any AM radio
antenna (conditions permitting). In college,
my CFII would have me practice
different approaches over the DeLand/
Tomok NDB to force me to do the math
in my head accounting for winds and to
prevent me from flying an approach by
memory, or worse, by guess and by golly.
When I finished school, I was still working
on my rating, and when I went home,
one airport nearby had an NDB approach.
I essentially memorized it and flew it
" successfully. " In this case, successfully
means I flew the memorized headings,
turns, and times in calm weather conditions.
When it got windy, the corrections
were always the same, so I memorized
those as well and convinced myself that
I was pretty good at this.
I wasn't. I flew the same approach on
my IFR checkride and bombed it. It was
a humbling realization that I had to start
over, that my academic understanding
of the processes and procedures was in
no way a match for what reality would
require. It turned out to be one of the
best things that happened to me. My
non-DeLand CFII and I spent hours
both on the ground and in the airplane
repeatedly going over the mistakes
I made. He made me teach the NDB
approach to him, which forced me to
really understand it. At some point, it
clicked. I redid my NDB approach for
the examiner, and I nailed it.
Fast forward several months. I decided
to rent an airplane in DeLand and fly
down to the southern part of the state to
visit my old roommate and his wife. The
flight down was at night-calm, peaceful,
VFR-just what a cocky kid needs to
reinforce his inflated sense of self. When I
returned, it was a typical Florida morning
in the fall. Low-lying fog was hugging the
ground, slow to burn off as the sun seemed
to take its time. I wasn't in a hurry yet, but
I could tell that time would become a factor.
I had to get to DeLand to return the
airplane. The fog was denser than forecast,
but I could legally go. Legally. The visibility
on takeoff was less than stellar, but I
was on top of the clouds and in the clear
in less than 100 feet.
It was a humbling
realization that I had
to start over, that my
academic understanding
of the processes and
procedures was in no way
a match for what reality
would require.
The ride north was smooth as glass,
and I set up and studied the NDB approach
I had flown many times. I also set up for
an ILS into Daytona as my back-up if I
couldn't get into DeLand. It began to hit
me that this was the real deal: I would be
making my first instrument approach as a
rated IFR pilot down to minimums using
the most difficult approach there is to fly.
It's called a nonprecision approach, but it
requires some of the most precise flying
one can do.
I remember beginning the descent.
My hands were clammy and my knees
shaky. The tops of the clouds hadn't
moved much, but they had moved,
which was a good sign. The ceiling and
visibility were reported to be right at
the published minimums. I extended
the flaps and slowed early. I locked the
ADF needle right on the inbound course.
The Morse code was playing clearly in
my ear. Around me, as I entered the
clouds, it got bright, then dark. My eyes
moved between the attitude indicator,
airspeed, altimeter, and ADF card. There
was no bug on the altimeter that I could
set, so I had to constantly remind myself
when a miss would be necessary. As I
descended toward the minimum descent
altitude, the ground became visible outside
the door window, but not in front
of me. With only a few feet to go, I got
a glimpse of the runway lights. I had to
blink a few times to convince myself they
were real.
A final look at the ADF card verified
my relative position, and I recognized a
few of the now-visible landmarks. Dew
from the clouds began to run back on the
windshield, but I'd found the correct runway
and airport. I landed and taxied to
the ramp. As I turned in the keys and paid
my bill, I acted like the whole thing was
no big deal. But the truth is that it was a
huge deal, that I had gotten lucky, that
busting my IFR checkride had probably
saved my life. My hands were sweaty, my
ears were ringing, and my stomach was
in knots. I replayed that approach in the
eye of my mind for weeks, and I flew it
on a desktop simulator several times after
just to reinforce that I had done everything
correctly.
I had not shown great decision making
in flying that morning; I had lived in
Florida for four years and knew the risk
of such thick ground fog in the fall, and I
had put all my eggs in one basket regarding
my flight home. Even getting into
Daytona with an ILS that morning would
have been a challenge. On the way home, I
was both giddy with accomplishment and
chastising myself for doing what I said I
wouldn't do. There was no FlightAware to
check my work, and probably just as well.
The FAA never called, and the FBO kept
renting me airplanes. But I was much more
deliberate about my decision making going
forward. In many ways, the memory of that
approach continues to drive much of my
risk analysis today.
Isn't that what experience is for?
Chip Wright is an airline pilot and frequent
contributor to AOPA publications.
AOPA PILOT / June 2024
101
AOPA Pilot Magazine - June 2024

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