Flew to Aurora Oregon for the FAA's Hypoxia Chamber with Darin and Chad.
Another IFR moring but today it wasn't fogged in. They were reporting the ceiling around 1200ft with the tops between 4000 and 5000. That was both here and in Oregon so I'm definatley going to get some actual IMC. Well hey this is the kind of day I've been practicing for.
We broke out of the clouds around 4500ft and it was absolutely spectular.
The Olympics off in the distance.
Not long after this they got us down to 4000ft and we went back into the clouds.
We even were in between a layer for awhile.
Just broke out on the GPS 35 approach at Aurora.
Nicely lined up with the runway.
About 10 minutes later Chad showed up. He had flown IFR from Paine Field.
Here is the FAA's Hypoxia chamber. They had it set for 27,000FT and we went in for 5 minutes without oxygen. I felt pretty weird after the first minute but then I got pretty used to it. The only problem was I couldn't really remember anything when I came out. The instructor told us about the activities we had done and I was shocked I didn't remember them. All in all we learned alot and it was a great experience.
Afterwards we walked to Langdon Farms Golf Club for lunch. It was probably pretty close to a mile away but it felt great breathing oxygen.
At about 2:00P we headed for home IFR. Things had improved a bit but it was still overcast at 2500ft or so.
I'm not sure if it was just the lighting but it seemed a little "thicker" on the way home. Darin took a picture of my gas cap and it almost appears to be floating out there all by itself.
Same deal, it wasn't too long and we popped out on top.
They didn't have my fly my filed route at all. Instead they told us to fly 010 for awhile then direct to Olympia. It all worked out great and actually saved us some time.
Back at Pierce County things had really improved. Fortunately we did get to fly through one cloud on the approach so I was able to log it.
Back