Day 19, Day/Night Cross Country Flight

Sorry for the delay in updating, but today is the first day I've had time since Wednesday to sit down and update the site. Thursday I went with Bill on my day and night cross country. The whole trip took 4 hours, 2 there and 2 back. Although it was supposed to be a VFR flight we filed the flight plan as an IFR flight plan (Instrument Flight Rules vs Visual Flight Rules). The reason we file IFR is because, even if the weather outside is crystal clear you still get priority routing with ATC and there's an added layer of safety since you're always on comms with approach control. They see you and can inform you of any nearby air contacts and so on. So we tool off and I flew Direct from KLZU (the airport) to NELLO intersection (an invisible intersection in the air. Once at NELLO we flew a victor airway to CHOOCHOO VORTAC over Chattanooga TN. Then we headed East toward ROCKET VORTAC north of Huntsville, AB then direct to KMDQ Madison Co. airport our destination.

The best thing about the entire flight was we were lucky enough to takeoff in a brand new 2008 Seminole with less than 300 Airframe Total Time hours. She still had the new car smell. And she flew smooth as glass. She had a hush kit installed which means extra equipment was installed to quite he 2 engine's noise from inside the cockpit. We could have flown with our headsets off and easily used the cabin speakers for radio communications.

As for the enroute legs of my flight they were pretty uneventful, as every good IFR flight should be. The fun part was descending from enroute altitude and being vectored by Approach Control for an instrument approach at Madison Co. and back at KLZU Gwinnett Co. on the trip home. I successfully completed my first instrument approach in an actual Seminole and it was a good feeling.

On the way home, due to 40 knot tailwinds we needed to burn some time since the trip is supposed to be 2 hours long one way. So we were cleared for the full ILS 25 approach at KLZU which means we were not going to be vectored in by ATC and I needed to fly the full instrument approach which is laid out on my Jeppesen approach plates. The approach has me flying to a specific NAVAID along the final approach course and turning outbound from the final approach course then conducting a procedure turn (basically a U-turn in the sky) to come back around and reintercept the final approach course and land. I conducted everything fine and when on final Bill had me go missed (again to burn off some more time plus it was awesome practice). I went missed and followed the published missed approach procedure which has me reintercepting the NAVAID along the final approach course and conducting a parallel entry into a hold turn where you conduct racetracks until further directed by ATC. We had already cancelled our IFR flight plan prior to me going missed on my first landing. I conducted the hold entry and pattern without any hiccups and I was feeling very good about the flight. Bill asked if he could land the Seminole this time since he needed shake some rust (you don't land much at all when you're an instructor since your student does all the flying) I agreed and he took the controls. Once established inbound from the NAVAID (or locator outer marker) he simulated loss of his left engine and idled the left throttle and flew the approach with one engine and we landed.

All in all a very fun, calm, and smooth trip!

Got back to the apartment by 11:30pm