I'm working with several private pilots now on their instrument ratings. One of them, Sam, is on the verge of finishing his rating... as is typical, he has to finish his written(!), needs to get comfortable and consistently competent handling multiple approaches at multiple airports in quick order and we need to do the required IFR dual cross country flight. This flight has to be at least 250NM cross country flying IFR "in the system" with three landings and three different types of approaches.
I devised a plan of three airports and three different approach types only 277NM (straight line distance). The VOR 19 at Paso Robles, the ILS at Castle AFB and last the GPS Z 31R at Reid-Hillview. We had the plane for today.. the weather looked good, if not great, and everything was good to go. Well, it was good to go as of Thursday mid-day anyway.
Thursday night I get a text. A private pilot student says he needs the plane we had reserved Saturday for his check ride. I've received many many texts like this before and 9 times out of 10 the person ends up not doing the ride. So I told him we wouldn't give up the reservation but if he actually was ready to go and the check ride would happen of course he could take the plane. Late Friday night I get the expected text that he wouldn't be doing the check ride. We were good to go again.
I get up and feel better than I had all week as I was recovering from a cold. I check the flight plans Sam emailed to me. I notice the first flight plan had San Lois Obispo indicated as an alternate. Hmmmm... the previous night Paso Robles was forecast to be VFR or at least high enough ceilings to do the VOR approach. I looked at the weather and Paso had ceilings below 200 feet and < 1/4 mile visibility and it wasn't forecast to get better. I messaged Sam told him to just file SBP instead of PRB since we knew PRB wasn't an option.
When I get to the airport Sam was ready to go, except he forgot to change the flight plan for the leg to Castle now that we were going to a different airport. No problem, he could cancel the plan and we could re-file once we got down there.
Then in a final scan of weather conditions I look at the satellite combined with the current conditions and realize 3/4 of the route to SBP and all of 7/8 of the route from SBP to MER was currently and, on a quick check of the TAFs, was forecast to be below minimums for the ILSs available on the route. The high pressure system that made this a great flying day also capped the fog and that, combined with calm winds, met the fog was not going to burn off as normal.
I told Sam it's not a great idea to fly over an entire 100s of miles over a couple valleys socked in with fog so low that you can't land an instrument approach - in a single engine airplane. We would have no options if we had an issue that required a landing en-route.
Not to be deterred we decided to try a northerly route. Santa Rosa to Chico to Reid-Hillview looked promising. Plenty of airports with plenty of approaches well above minimums along the route, more than enough distance, this would work! Sam cancelled the other flight plans and filed a new one going to Santa Rosa. We'd try for the ILS and take the VOR if we had to. We were good to go!
We get in the plane, it starts up strong. Get the weather and we're ready to go... Sam radios ground and as he starts his call it goes from very clear to broken and unreadable. I see the TX light flashing in time with the broken sounds coming from our plane. Ground said they didn't understand. He tried again with no difference. I do the call and my radio works great so we get our taxi clearance and I tell ground that we'll troubleshoot the issue with the other radio. I joke with Sam that I could do all the radio work - but we both know that's not a great idea. The last feature of my cold is a the occasional coughing fit - not something you want flying IFR in the system.
As we turn onto the taxi way I was thinking, we had a lot of issues and we haven't even gotten off the ground yet, maybe this is not a good day to fly. I said to Sam, "I'm thinking of invoking the 3 strikes rule." He let out a breath of air he seemed to be holding in and said, "I'm glad you said that. I was thinking the
holes in the swiss cheese are starting to align." We agreed to see what the radio did in the run up before making a final decision.
We got to the run-up and before doing anything else Sam fiddled with the mike switch to see if he could get it working again. His first test call worked for 75% of the call. I had him to it again and it was broken and unreadable again. That was it. We decided today is not our day. I radioed ground and got permission to taxi back to Squadron 2.
A beautiful flying day wasted. Or was it? Who knows why things happen the way they do. If there's one thing I've learned in aviation its do not try to force the issue. We have 4 alternate schedules set up for the required cross country flight. ONE of them will have to work. I hope. The initial forecast for our first attempt doesn't look great... but you never know what a week will bring.
