I learned about distraction in IMC from this.
A few years ago, a Cessna I jointly owned was sold, and I bought a Cirrus G2 2004 to replace it.
I had more than 1000 hours flying in various cockpits, including some with ‘steam-driven’ instruments – and a love of aerobatics.
The Cirrus was much cleverer than me, and it had a daunting array of buttons and knobs, with a glass cockpit and two big screens.
I decided to upskill, so the next step was an instrument rating.
I found a great IR instructor through the Tauranga Aero Club, and after many hours of training, those mysterious buttons were making more sense and I loved the autopilot for the long flights.
Keeping up the instrument rating can be a challenge for a PPL pilot who flies only for personal trips.
But I was a happy boy.
My approach to approaches
For me, approaches have two options.
The first is the GPS, which is my usual go-to and the easiest.
The other is flying the arc, which – for the VFR pilots reading this – involves flying a direction to a radio beacon at the airport called a VOR, and then turning to fly a constant arc on a radius of a required distance to the airport, called the DME.
Brimming with confidence, then it all went wrong
After a year with an instrument rating, I was brimming with confidence.
But everything went wrong one day in early October 2023 as I was flying alone, heading to Palmerston North, and practising flying manually into cloud.
The weather wasn’t great. It wasn’t CB but there was rain on the ground and a very strong south-westerly wind at 10,000 feet.
I wanted to fly the right-hand VOR/DME arc, which is 14NM from Palmy, approaching from Tauranga heading 183 degrees, slowing down to 120kt and making an 80-degree left turn. I then repeated right 10-degree turns to keep the DME distance at 14NM.
When intercepting the 250-degree approach heading for NZPM Runway 25 I would make a rate one right turn from the arc and begin my descent.
I bumped my way past Mt Ruapehu, and, with the high wind, I knew I was in for some turbulence coming off the Ruahine Range.
Fourteen nautical miles east of Palmerston North puts you over Woodville, which is downwind of the range and can be very bumpy.
There was severe turbulence that day, but that was what I wanted to practise in, so what could go wrong?
In doing my flight planning, I had looked into the details of the Ansett New Zealand Flight 703 crash on that mountain range in 1995 in IFR weather. So I should have been aware of the chances of something happening.
I entered and flew the arc under the control of Ohakea Approach, on 125.1 MHz descending to 6000 feet. All was going well and according to plan.
I had preselected Palmerston North ATC on 120.6 MHz and had all my ducks in a row, sounding very professional on the airwaves.
Like being shot at
I followed my plan to fly manually IFR in the cloud to complete the arc and turn on to 250 degrees.
I was settled down using a solid selective radial scan with the instruments.
The turbulence was terrible as I entered my rate one turn right, and I was very busy being a single pilot.
Then Ohakea told me to change to Palmerston North Tower on 120.6 MHz.
I obediently went to change frequency to the preselected 120.6 MHz, but my hand was bouncing around so much that I could not put my finger on the button.
I took my gaze off the instrument panel, steadied my right hand on the dash, watching carefully to get my finger on the correct button.
Then a horrible alarm sounded in my headset.
When I looked back at the artificial horizon, it had all gone brown with no blue horizon visible!
You’ll know that old saying – aviate, navigate, communicate – well, I went straight to communicate and lost the rest.
I was then in a right-hand spiral dive with no visibility in the cloud, and heading for a scenic close-up view of the Ruahine Range.
I have no idea how I pulled out of that one, but maybe my aerobatics experience and training helped.
My instructors had often put me into a turning climb or descent with eyes closed, then made me recover on instruments alone, but the AH had always had a horizon to see.
Not like this with a brown screen of death.
When I pulled out of the dive, I had lost about 3000 feet and was heading north!
Palmerston North Tower casually mentioned that I was at a low altitude – her calm voice was reassuring. I’m convinced my earlier professional-sounding radio voice had been replaced by the opposite.
I told her I had lost the approach – a gross understatement – and I followed instructions to switch back to Ohakea Approach for help.
The voice on Ohakea 125.1 MHz had all the calming influence I needed, and they vectored me back onto the Runway 25 approach and stayed with me until I was clear of cloud and had PM in sight.
Palmerston North ATC then allowed me to turn right off the approach to fly visually to Feilding and land.
I have had some scary events in my life, including being shot at by nasty people with automatic weapons, but this adrenalin rush was right up there with the best of them!
I was a bit shaken up and I have since had some chats with pilots experienced with Palmerston North’s winds.
Apparently, the best thing to do in a south-wester, is approach for Runway 07, and then, when visual to NZPM, join a circling right-hand downwind to land on RW25 and thus avoid the bumpy mountains to the east.
But the big lesson for me is that simple things matter – don’t be overconfident. Practise when conditions are good.
And always aviate the aeroplane first.
And only when you have full control of the aeroplane, navigate – and communicate only when the navigation is taken care of.
Photo: iStock.com/Sandi Smolker