Biennial Instructor Hour

It's been a while since my last entry but now I have a few things to write about, there will be further posts in the next couple of weeks. Firstly, here's a brief description of my first flight of 2013.

Further posts will include:

1- IMC Renewal Test in PA34 Seneca
2- SR20 Currency flight
3- PA34 Seneca Solo Flight


Every two years I have to renew my Single Engine Piston (SEP) rating by flying at least twelve hours, completing twelve take offs and landings and undergoing a flight of at least one hour with an instructor. These requirements have to be completed in the last year of validity of the SEP rating.

As I also have a multi-engine rating (MEP), I fly with an instructor more often than the single engine pilot may necessarily do. This is because a flight test is required every year for the multi rating. No flight test is required to renew an SEP rating. In addition, the flying club I use requires a six-monthly currency check as well. All this adds up to me flying fairly regularly with an instructor.

Two years ago I completed my biennial instructor hour in a Cirrus SR20, but this renewal was to be in my grouped Piper Arrow. As my Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC) rating was also due to expire soon, I wanted to combine the instructor hour with some instrument flying and an ILS at Blackpool.

The weather for this flight was not good. The report for Blackpool gave 4000 metres visibility with broken clouds at 400 feet. Those would be challenging conditions for a pilot in current practice, which I wasn’t! However, my instructor held an Instrument Rating (IR) which allowed him to fly down to only 200 feet above the surface still in the clouds, and that meant we were going to fly.

Almost immediately after take-off, I began flying on instruments only, so I couldn’t tell you when we entered the clouds. I looked up on a couple of occasions and all I saw was a milky whiteness. I checked the weather via the VHF radio and found it to be as expected, with a low cloud base of 400 feet. I contacted Blackpool approach and, shortly after selecting a transponder code, the controller came back to tell me we were identified and the approach would be radar vectors to the ILS, runway 28.

My first vector was heading 355 to maintain 2000 feet, before further turns to the left were given and I was asked to report established on the localizer. I turned us onto the final approach track and waited for the glide slope needle to move down the course deviation indicator (CDI). Maintaining 2000 feet, it wasn’t long before the indicator centred. I lowered the undercarriage and commenced descent towards my decision altitude of 550 feet. As the clouds were reported at 400 feet I was expecting to either see nothing at decision altitude and commence a missed approach, or be told by my instructor to continue down to his decision altitude of 200 feet.

I was calling off the altitude every hundred feet and at 600 feet I looked up to see the runway in a position suitable for me to land. This was the first time I’d completed a real (not practice) approach to minimums and it was a great feeling to know that I could do it. The cloud base was actually a little higher than reported, but it was still serious IFR weather.

I lowered the flaps to full and did a touch and go on the runway, transferring to instruments again shortly after take-off. We climbed up through the clouds and headed back to Barton. When I started to fly visually again, I found we were over scattered/broken cloud tops. A descent and visual landing back at City Airport rounded off the sortie.

I was very pleased with this flight as not only had I completed my biennial instructor hour, but had also refreshed my instrument flying currency and had an approach signed off by my instructor. This was doubly useful as it meant that my IMC renewal test the following week would only need to consist of one approach and not two. Therefore there should be less stress for my test, particularly as I was doing it in the Seneca, a twin engine aircraft.

The next post will detail how I got on with the IMC renewal test.