Yesterday, for the first time since I got the instrument rating 5 years
ago, I had to hold for real.

It was a reposition flight from Mobile Downtown to Pensacola to pick up
an Angel Flight. When I checked the weather at home at 6am, fog was
reported everywhere on the central Gulf Coast - the nearest legal
alternate I found was Birmingham. Mobile was below minimums, but PNS
was just at minimums and forecast to improve slightly. When I took off,
BFM was still below minimums for the ILS, and when I checked the PNS
ATIS it was 1/4, indefinite ceiling 100.

The PNS approach controller reported the RVR as 100 with that "are you
sure you want to do this?" tone (don't you just hate to hear that tone
from a controller?), so I told him I'd try one ILS, then go hold a while
if I missed. Sure enough, at DH there was no sign of any lights, so off
to the Saufley VOR I went to wait.

Holding is boring. After a couple of turns to get it nailed, ones
attention tends to wander. It becomes a real effort to remember to
restart the clock outbound each time. I must admit I missed the
outbound flag drop a couple of times in the first 30 minutes and had to
check the GPS to know when to turn back inbound.

It was about this time that a series of technical problems started.
First, the HI bug started sticking, then the portable GPS started losing
satellite link every time I keyed the radio (fixed that by moving the
antenna to a different spot on the glareshield). There were more
problems later.

30 minutes' wait only got the RVR up to 200, so I told Approach I wanted
30 more. I could see the fog becoming patchy south and west of the
airport, but I still had to start considering my fuel state: I might
actually have to fly 250 miles to find somewhere to land with reserves.
Unlikely, but ya gotta go with it. The thought of being above a
thousand square miles of 100' ceilings with low fuel is enough to make
me very conservative.

In the event, after about 20 minutes a C-208 came in and completed the
approach and the rvr was up to 400, so I asked for vectors for another
try. The next technical glitch appeared at the outer marker when the
flaps refused to work until I toggled the handle a few times (at least
it wasn't the landing gear!). That problem dealt with, I headed down
the glide slope with more than usual concentration on keeping the
needles centered; I wanted to make this one. This time I saw enough
lights at DH to give me 100 more feet, and that was it: made it.

By the time the Angel Flight pax were loaded (something of an ordeal)
the field had gone from socked-in to VFR. Very typical Gulf Coast
autumn morning.

Post script: more tech problems.
The pax Lightspeed 25XL headset wouldn't power up - no big deal, I'm
used to things like that with that headset. The next thing was more
serious. My WxWorx setup, which has been solid for a year, crapped out
on me. Actually, it was the Sony notebook it's hosted on. The USB com
port the WxWorx receiver is plugged into went away. I like to do a lot
of things in airplanes, but troubleshooting pc com port problems while
IFR with a couple of nervous pax aboard isn't one of them. I wrapped
the cables up and stowed the pc. This might have been a flight killer
if there had been a lot of convective stuff around. Still, it made me
realize how much I like having other features of the system available,
particularly METARs and TAFs.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM