We returned from a trip to Colorado on a Thursday with plans to fly to St. George, UT on Saturday morning. My youngest son had a recital and concert that he was playing in and while the University live streams most of them, they sound so much better in person.
Before departing Colorado I saw that the four hours going to and from Utah was going to put me past 50 hours on my oil change, so upon putting the plane in the hangar I started the oil draining. This way I could come back and complete the oil change before our flight. It’s been a while since I drained oil from a hot engine. Wow! What a difference that makes in the speed of the oil flowing out.
My plan was to complete the oil change Friday evening so we could leave Saturday mid-morning. Conditions were forecast low IFR in the morning, but by 9-10am it was supposed to lift to about 1,200-1,300’ ceilings. I am comfortable departing into a deck at that height. It’s high enough that I don’t have to transition immediately to the instruments when lifting off, and it is also higher than the MDA on the RNAV back into KFUL.
Tops were going to be between 3-5,000’ and the freezing level was above 10,000’ so I wasn’t concerned with icing. I know some of you are rolling your eyes at me, but even in Southern California we have to worry about the freezing level sometimes in the winter…
I passed my IFR Checkride September 29th, 2021. Since that date I have been diligent about staying ahead of the requirements for currency. When the weather was agreeable, I would go out to shoot an approach or two in actual conditions. When I couldn’t get in enough actual approaches, I would go up with a safety pilot and shoot two or three, even if I only needed one. After all I reasoned, if I am going to fly with a safety pilot, I should take advantage of it and get some extra practice.
Seven and a half years ago when I began my flight training, I started using myflightbook.com as an electronic logbook. At the time I also kept a paper logbook that my CFI could sign off on flights and endorsements. Since then I have gone just to the electronic version as it has the ability for a CFI/CFII to also electronically endorse flights.
It is a great (free) tool with a website and mobile app version available. For the data nerds out there, it tracks everything. I can see airports visited (when/how many times), plot them on a Google map distances, hours logged by month/year, planes flown and hours in type, just about any data you want to record it will keep track. With a click it will generate an 8710 form and it tracks your currency along with when your medical and flight reviews are due.
Everything looked great for the trip, until it didn’t. I will usually update my logbook once a month, but I’m getting close to 1,000 hours and don’t want to miss celebrating that milestone in the air. So, I logged on the website Friday to add our latest flights to Colorado and back, and that’s when I saw it. There in the currency section next to IFR – Airplane, in bold red font I read Expired: 1/31/2024, and then right below that in a smaller font “(Short by 0 Holds and 1 Approach)”.
What!? How could this have happened? Surely there must be a mistake somewhere I thought. I had just gone up a few weeks prior to complete a hold so that I wouldn’t lapse. I clearly remember looking and seeing that I needed a hold, and only a hold. (Yes, this is why eyewitness accounts are terrible.) When I had gone up with a friend as a safety pilot, I did a hold and shot one approach, just because we were there.
SoCal Approach was very busy that evening, so rather than ask for missed instructions after the approach, we just squawked 1200 and went VFR back to KFUL. Coming from the east I always check in over the water treatment plant and they always give a straight in for 24. When flying the RNAV 24 at KFUL they always give you vectors and have you intercept final at LEYMI. LEYMI just happens to be a little bit east of the water treatment plant.
If I had needed two approaches to stay current, I could have easily stayed under the hood going back to KFUL, checked in with “just east of the water treatment plant,” and flown the practice approach. More than once during my IFR training when ATC was extremely busy my CFII would play the part of ATC and give me vectors to intercept LEYMI.
But I didn’t, because I didn’t need two approaches, at least that was what I thought at the time. I was so sure there must be a mistake somewhere in my logbook that I pulled up all flights in the last 6 months that had approaches. There weren’t enough. Next, I looked at flights with either actual or simulated IMC time in the past 6 months. There were more flights, but they either had departures into IMC (no approach) or descents through IMC but breaking out prior to the FAF (doesn’t count).
I took another look at the forecast, on multiple different sites, and all of them were in agreement. We wouldn’t be able to get out VFR until at least 2pm, which meant we couldn’t get there in time to see his concert. Disappointed in myself for having let my currency lapse when I could have easily maintained it had I paid closer attention, I broke the news to my son that we wouldn’t be coming.
There was no reason now to finish up the oil change Friday evening, so instead I went to the hangar on Saturday to complete it. After that, I spent some time on some other things there at the hangar, looking up at the low overcast that seemed reluctant to release its grip on the LA Basin. Around 1:30pm I began to see the sun trying to break through, and by the time I was headed home just before 3pm the clouds had given up the fight leaving a very hazy, but clear sky.
A friend told me once “You could just put a G-3 approach in your logbook if you need it.”
“What?” I responded having no idea what he was talking about.
“You know, grab a G-3 pen,” he said referring to the Pilot Gel Rollerball pens, “and write in an approach and go” he finished with a smile and a laugh.
“I can’t do that” I replied.
I’m not going to get up on a soapbox and say that I have never done something that was maybe, possibly, in the gray areas of the FAR’s. Some of the following may or may not have occurred in the past 7 ½ years.
“Did we just fly through a cloud? No, that only ‘visible moisture,’ you could see the ground below and out in front.”
“I’m pretty sure we’re 1,000’ away from that cloud over there.”
“This looks like 500’ below those clouds above us.”
“I don’t know if this is 3 miles visibility” as you look out the windscreen at the dust layer you just flew into, “but two airports less than 8 miles away are both reporting 10 miles visibility so it must be better than 3 where we are right now.”
I really wanted to make that flight to St George. I was not concerned with my proficiency. I have 63 hours in the last 6 months, including night hours/takeoffs/landings, actual IMC departures and approaches, IFR flights, and simulated IMC with safety pilots. But according to the regulations, a guy that shot 6 approaches with a hold 5 ½ months ago and hadn’t flown in IMC or filed and flown IFR since is legal and I’m not.
“Nobody would know,” the little devil on my left shoulder whispered.
“But I would,” I answered back.
That is a line in the sand for me, and I won’t cross it. What goes in the logbook is accurate and true. And just like personal minimums for flight conditions, I also hold fast to the currency requirements. Whether it is carrying passengers day/night or the IFR currency requirements. It is a commitment I made when I started on this wonderful journey.
I love John Wooden quotes, and one of my favorites is about character.
He said, “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are. Don’t mistake activity with achievement. The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching.”
So, what is your proverbial line in the sand?
