A Night of Firsts

The Backstory

In July I got my IFR rating after one failed oral and a few months of intense study to make sure I didn't fail twice. Great instructors came to my aid to fill in the gaps with addition training so that I could get my rating.

Since getting my rating, I've flown exactly three solo IFR flights, all which started at my home field of MYF, and all which ended at my home field.

The first of my solos was sort of a right of passage. A friend who is a pilot pointed out that "if you don't go out do that first flight (in IFR conditions), soon, you never will". He predicted I'd experience something similar to what a pilot feels just before his first solo during his or her private training. So, a week later, I did it. An ILS MYF to MYF. Conditions in excess of my personal minimums regarding ceiling and visibility at the field. It took a whole .7 on the hobbs. He was right, it was a bit of a challenge to do this all alone. But what a load off my shoulders for doing it! I had conditions in my favor: it was severe clear on the approach end of the flight, but cloudy on departure (as typical here in San Diego) and I managed 30 or 40 seconds of IMC at the start of the flight. Popping up out of the clouds while in a climbing turn to 090, and not being under the hood to witness it was magic. And so I crossed that milestone off my list.

During the past eight or so weeks, I've been working on my next goal, to transition off of steam gauge and onto GPS. Two planes have been involved in this process, a 172N with a Garmin 430, and a 172N with a Garmin 650 (most of my IFR time has been in a Piper Cadet where the only GPS in the plane was in my iPhone). To walk the learning curve, I made few VFR flights close to home to get used to the radios. I also did some playing with simulators and reading of the FAA advanced avionics book, among other things. Recently, I sat as a safety pilot for a friend during a night IFR that was based on GPS approaches and a 650, and I marveled at the difference between this and steam gauges.

What's that light mean?

Which leads us to tonight, when it was time for me to take the next step. I took up a 172 with the 650 and with a simple goal, to fly the GPS as if it were stream gauge, and build upon my experiences with the radios I had already gained in VFR flight. In extreme VFR conditions, with unlimited ceiling and 10 miles visibility, and a dew point spread of 20C, I filed IFR once again from MYF to MYF, this time with the plan of flying a VLOC-based ILS approach.

The aircraft is one I am very familiar with, as 14 years ago, I flew it from San Diego to Jacksonville Florida, VFR.

The only material differences from when I flew it back then was that it now had an upgraded avionics stack (primarily the 650) and a fancy looking digital EGT/Engine/Fuel monitor (EDM 900). Below the monitor were some placards advising, among other things, that pilots should lower the nose should annunciations go off, to reduce the heat of the engine in climb, etc.  I read these carefully.

Directly in front of me, was an LED light with the word "engine" placarded below it. I glanced at it, and took note of it's existence. More on that light later.

Before we get to the flight, let me set the stage by going thought all of the "firsts" that occurred for me during this flight:

1) first IFR flight in a Cessna 172. Not my first flight in a C172 by any means. Not a problem.
2) first IFR flight using the 650 as primary in VLOC mode. I used all the skills needed already with some flying in VFR conditions, I should be ok here, too.
3) first near-dark IFR flight (takeoff was about 60 minutes prior to sunset). I'm night current, plenty of experience flying at night, and I have a headlamp and two hand-held flashlights at the ready, in case I get diverted somehow. And the flight really won't be at night based on the planned duration, but I will get a taste of what it might be like to fly at this time of day. All sounds good.

Now for the two unexpected firsts:

4) first declaration of an emergency during an IFR flight (well, actually, technically the first declaration of an emergency ever).
5) first visual approach clearance (because there was no way I was going to fly anything else after declaring that emergency).

To describe 4 and 5, let me try to recount the radio back and forth that occurred with ATC. If you are an IFR rated pilot, this is the best way to describe it (VFR pilots, try to read along, but certainly read below for the lessons learned, they apply to you as well).

MYF tower: Cessna 123, contact so-cal.
Me: Cessna 123, contact so-cal
Me: So cal approach, Cessna 123 heading 270 1200 for 3000
So cal: Cessna 123 radar contact climb maintain 4000
Me: Cessna 123 climb maintain 4000.

And so it went, I was soon cleared to a heading of 090, as expected, and at around 3400 feet, somewhere above and to the north of MYF, the "engine" annunciator LED in front of me went yellow.

Ok. Maybe not good.

So, what does that mean? Clearly, some kind of engine issue. A glance at the engine monitor didn't really indicate a problem to my eyes.

Am I really all that prepared to expertly interpret its display?

Fact is, I don't know nearly enough.  I don't know if it is a warning that can be ignored, or even if it is coupled to the monitor. For all I know, it means the engine is about to blow up.

It took about 5 seconds to process it all and do something.

Me: So cal, Cessna 123 I need to get down, an annunciator just went off indicating an engine problem.
So cal: Cessna 123 descend 2800 feet
Me: Cessna 123 descend 2800 feet

10 seconds later:

Me: So cal, I'd like to declare an emergency.
So cal: Please state nature of emergency, fuel on board, number of occupants.

So, I go thru it. Calmly. They ask if I need assistance on the ground, I say negative.

A bit later:

Me: the annunciator is no longer showing, but I still want to get on the ground.

(likely cutting back on the engine and descending took it out of the state that led the annunciator to go off)

So cal: Do you have the field in sight?
Me: Yes, at my 4:30 (it was also maybe 2 miles back, I'm still at around 2000 feet, and high as a kite).
So cal: cleared visual approach Montgomery 28R. Contact tower 119.2
Me: Cessna 123 cleared visual approach 28R contact tower.

Me: Montgomery tower Cessna 123 inbound for landing.
Tower: Cleared to land 28R - do you need any ground assistance?
Me: Negative.

I commit to the landing, because I don't want to try and go around with an unknown engine state. A giant forward slip gets me down fast and on the glideslope (glad I practice those!). This is followed by an uneventful landing.

So, what did I learn?

While I had a lot of firsts tonight, I found I was able to manage the situation because I was careful in selecting what new things I introduced and the degree to which they were new.

1) flying IFR in a Cessna 172 was new, but flying a 172 was not. Said another way, if I had never flown a 172 before, this might have been quite a bit more stressful of an experience, as I might have not been able to get down to the glideslope as I wanted to, or I may have landed badly due to poor airspeed choices.

Additionally:

2) by flying in the immediate area of my home base airport and flying the simplest possible approach, I reduced what I had to worry about as a new IFR pilot, which helped me manage the situation better,

3) by just flying VLOC, instead of trying to tackle a GPS approach, the actual IFR part of the mission was completely familiar to me, and again this helped me to respond more readily to what happened.

But in terms of learning, two things standout:

a) it really is ok to declare an emergency. No sirens went off, the world didn't come to an end. Doing so helps you get what you need in a situation where inaction might otherwise lead to a bad result.

The thought of declaring an emergency, and acting on it, didn't come too hard, and I am thankful that I didn't hesitate. I'm not surprised by this, as everything that I've read and everything that I have been taught supports the decision I made. While it wasn't a big emergency, like an inflight fire, it was a situation that was unexpected, not well understood, but clearly could have led to a more dangerous situation had I not taken decisive action. In declaring an emergency, I communicated to ATC that something wasn't right with the flight, what I wanted to do to handle it, and that I needed to do it now, making sure the controller knew this in suitably strong, clear, and unambiguous terms. Declaring an emergency does this for you. You have to make the decision yourself to declare, following what your best information and training is telling you to do.  ATC won't argue, or ask you to prove why you think the situation merits an emergency declaration or not.  What they will do is ask you what is wrong, and what you want to do about it, and then help you toward accomplishing that goal.

Afterwards, on the ground with the plane tied down, I called the owner. I told him what happened. And he told me how to respond to the yellow light (it wasn't nearly that big of a deal, it still had to turn red to be of any concern, and only then if the red persisted any length of time). Therefore, finally, and most importantly, I learned that:

b) I failed myself by not reading the documentation cover-to-cover, with comprehension, before flight, so that I would know how to interpret the annunciator that went off. I also needed to understand the relationship between that LED and the EDM 900 (I still have questions about it, just now found the manuals online and plan to do the reading soon).

It's my responsibility to know everything pertaining to the flight and that includes required equipment, and gauges are required. Tonight proved that one little light going yellow can surely bring you down in a hurry if you don't know  exactly what it is trying to tell you. Had I done my homework more completely, what should have been a smallish step forward on my path towards flying GPS-based approaches would have gone on as filed, instead of ending up with an emergency declaration and an early landing.

A final thought: I'm really glad that I committed to landing and not going around (I had an incident back in 1994 that I won't go into here that really enforced that sort of thinking). One can read plenty about accidents that have occurred because pilots did otherwise only to find themselves painted into a corner where the only option was landing in a grocery store parking lot or into a grove of trees. I'm really glad to see that I considered this in my response, and took steps to get down on the runway on the first attempt.