Hello all,

I am working on my instrument rating right now and I want my next aircraft to be IFR capable. I also really like stuff like the Just Highlander, but my budget may be more along the lines of an older certified aircraft.

Is it impractical to want to be able to fly IFR in light IMC conditions in such an aircraft? Here is a typical situation I would want to be able to go IFR.

S10 is in class G airspace. Sometimes we will have morning fog that hangs around the airport, as well as some clouds that will somtimes sit right over the canyon. I will wait hours before it is legal to leave but drive a mile and have blue skys. There is also sometimes a thin layer between me and the eastern platue.

Or there is what happened wednesday. I was enroute to KSFF because I needed to get a piece of paper signed at the FSDO. We flew around the clouds out of Chelan and found a 4500 foot ceiling and about 20 miles vis most of the way to the class C outside Spokane. Felts was forecast VFR all day, Felts ATTIS was 3500 and 3 miles when we got close enough to pick it up. By the time we were ready to call up Spokane approach Felts was IFR. It was calm, didn't seem to be any icing, and we were almost there. If we had been in an IFR aircraft, and been instrument rated, we could have either just planned on going IFR and filed as such before leaving home, landed at Davenport (which we did anyways) and filed IFR to Felts, or even got a pop up clearance (although I was taught thats not admired by ATC unless absolutly necessary)

So, what I am asking here, any of you Rans S7, or Highlander guys have IFR capable aircraft? This may all be a mute point because I am also drawn to Maules, and I can almost afford to buy an older 180 HP Maule and several I have looked at have a VOR with glideslope, some even have a Garmin in the panel.

Someday when and if I can afford it, and have the experience, I want a high flying, fast, IFR airplane I would be willing to fly over the Cascades in less than perfect weather, but for now my wants and needs are to be able to be able to stay IFR current, gain experience, and have the option of light IFR and to have some margin of safety in MVFR and night cross country flying.

D.

Just a quick curious question. If your at Chelan with the base of the clouds at or below the canyon rim. Will you still be able to contact ATC before you enter the clouds which may be at or below the canyon rim and also you may have poor radio reception? Or I don't know, maybe you do have good radio reception in that canyon and can contact ATC.

58Skylane wrote:Just a quick curious question. If your at Chelan with the base of the clouds at or below the canyon rim. Will you still be able to contact ATC before you enter the clouds which may be at or below the canyon rim and also you may have poor radio reception? Or I don't know, maybe you do have good radio reception in that canyon and can contact ATC.

An instrument rated pilot in an instument rated aircraft can actually fly through clouds in class G airspace without contacting ATC. If that is a good idea is another story but I am told that it is done.
To depart Chelan under an IFR flight plan, one would file the plan via the phone and get a void time clearance that is probably good for about 10 minutes. Before the end of that void time clearance, you would climb out of the class G, and into the class E where you can contact ATC. The main reason for Class G airspace is that ATC radar does not reach the area due to obstructions and therefore can not be controlled. Over Chelan it is 4800, I can get Seattle Center on the radio at about 4500.
I would think the scary thing would be that once off the ground at a airport like Chelan, there is no way to return to it under IMC. You would have no other choice but to fly to Wenatchee (scary) or Moses Lake/ Ephrata (60 miles)
I am not sure how I will feel about this once I have actual IMC time under my belt. For now, my personal minimums for VFR are fairly high. I think once I am an Instrument rated pilot with actual IMC experience that my VFR personal minimums will be raised and I can feel safe about the 1 mile/clear of clouds class G minimum, and be legal (and not die) if it becomes a little less than that on the way to clearer skys.

D.

My 2 cents...It kind of defeats the purpose of a highly capable, fun, simple, experimental, 100mph airplane when you add 20 lbs and $10,000 worth of avionics. If your seriously only wanting an IFR platform to take off a few hours earlier through the fog then sleep in and save yourself a couple years worth of gas money in the panel. The only experimental homebuilts I've seen that are IFR capable are RV's that are cruising at 160mph across the United States. Of those half of them cannot legally fly IFR because they get sick of all the extra tests and inspections it takes to keep it current and legal and they let the inspections lapse. BTW I learned to fly at SFF. Cool field...heard Felts Field Aviation doesn't even exist anymore.

When I asked this question, I was thinking this http://dynonavionics.com/docs/SkyView_intro.html would make a homebuilt IFR legal, but as I read more, it will not.

The Cessna 150 I fly is IFR certified with only a single VOR with localizer and glide slope. Lots of flip floping the nav radio to find your fix. My instructor says if I can learn to do it well (simulated) in this, anything else will seem a like a lot less work. I only sort of agree.

Learn to fly IFR well with your simple single VOR and anything else will be easy is right. You will really and truly develop situational awareness for IFR navigation. Same with an ADF if you have one in the panel.

Would I ever want to go back to that for NAV? Hell no. But I'm sure glad I learned it.

Gump

You will want a GPS and a VOR that feed a CDI or an HSI. Having both a CDI and an HSI via glass display would be a dream machine. You could do it in both a Rans or Highlander and it would be 'cool -- but as others said defeat the purpose and add a lot more $$$. I would not want to be in real IMC in either of those planes though. You are correct that the experimental avionics out there will not be IFR certified from what I know. That said you could install a whizbang experimental glass display, install a single NAV/CDI for the certification and reference the whizzbang. Lot's of cool stuff you can do with cash -- but a certified IFR plane with steam gauges is more economical upfront.

For me, my dream backcountry plane would be a Sporstsman 2+2 IFR certified with the experimental whizzbang glass.

Happy training on your Instrument ticket -- it's a lot of fun and challenging.

Learn to fly an ADF, not practical in todays world but as GUMP said a single CDI nav and ADF only flying will teach you a ton.

Everytime I start thinking this or that would be neat, I come back to one airplane. I guess I just need to buy a Maule. Most I have seen in my price range are IFR with steam gauges. If I add a GPS, I will be fine for what I need it for and have saved enough money to offset the fuel burn.

Nothing to be ashamed of. Last night I dreamed that I bought an M7 with an IO-720. Woke up in a cold sweat.

Zane wrote:Nothing to be ashamed of. Last night I dreamed that I bought an M7 with an IO-720. Woke up in a cold sweat.

Had a similar nightmare the other night

58Skylane wrote:

Zane wrote:Nothing to be ashamed of. Last night I dreamed that I bought an M7 with an IO-720. Woke up in a cold sweat.

Had a similar nightmare the other night

If your going to dream, dream big.

I am so torn between having the ability to travel fast and far, and being able to fly into all the places I have been riding to for so many years. The more I get into learning about how to fly instruments, the more I want to do it, and get really good at it. But, at the same time I have been reading Contact Flying and working on my Champ. There is so freakin' much to flying and it is all so gosh damn awesome.

DavidB. wrote:If your going to dream, dream big.

I am so torn between having the ability to travel fast and far, and being able to fly into all the places I have been riding to for so many years.

This is the conundrum we all live with in aviation and limited funds.

29singlespeed wrote:

DavidB. wrote:If your going to dream, dream big.

I am so torn between having the ability to travel fast and far, and being able to fly into all the places I have been riding to for so many years.

This is the conundrum we all live with in aviation and limited funds.

Very true. I hope I can eventually offset some of it by becoming employable as a pilot at least part time, and the rest of the time working as an A&P. I have so many pipe dream ideas. I have been known to be able to put my lofty ideas to use before, so I am working to do it again.
One idea I have tossed around is getting my CFI, buying a float plane, and doing float rating on lake Chelan as well as hauling people up lake to some of the hard to get to areas. Chelan Seaplanes offeres the service in a Beaver, but at $700 an hour for charter, they don't do much except the winery tours and the daily Stehicken taxi.
There is a guy here who does pick up and drop off in Seattle in a Cherokee. He says he doesn't do enough business to really make it pay, but then again, he is in an even smaller out of the way town with no tourist activity and no one has ever heard of him (no marketing what so ever, not even a web site) Same goes with our local air taxi NCAT, but he flys forward air control for fires all over the NW in the summer and doesn't care to get the passenger business.
A paycheck to paycheck existance I am sure, but I have made money before. It's nice, but it's not everything. Plus, my smart and beutiful wife is kicking ass in this crappy real estate market and has promised me some start up money when she sells some of her big listings, so who knows, maybe I can live a life of leisure as a boy toy wanabee bush pilot ; )

D.