IMC Rating - Lesson 01

Some strange goings on at The Tiger Club at the moment and it seems that their aircraft are all grounded. It appears from an email I received that there is a dispute between them and the airfield operators at Headcorn. I hope whatever the problem is, it can be resolved and their aircraft are free to fly again.

Meanwhile after buying a book I thought would be an interesting read "Radio Navigation & Instrument Flying" I've decided to do the IMC rating and this morning I went up to Rochester to do my first lesson. My instructor is my previous PPL instructor so it felt like old times. The course I'm doing is going to be done in a C172 which is also a nice change.

So, it went really well today. Basically we went out to the Faversham area and did some general handling. My Foggles (the glasses you put on to obscure your sight outside of the cockpit) went on at the end of the climb out so in the end I had around 55 minutes IMC.

Things we covered were general handling and a bit of radio navigation (VOR tracking and DME work). The first few hours are going to be built around this. I think because I had been doing some simulator work previously the scan process wasn't so alien and as Mike said "You knew what you was doing" in the debrief.

I'm not sure what the future is for the IMC rating but first things first, I have to give this a good go and get through it. There will be some really challenging times ahead for sure.

Brakes On: 11:00 Brakes Off: 12:05
Total Time: 1:05 | IMC Rating: 0:55

Total Hours = 53:00 DUAL + 21:00 PIC [P1] + 2:10 [PICUS]
Total IMC Rating: 0:55

Total Time = 76:10