On the first of this year (2009), on my way back from San Francisco, I got dropped off at Whiteman airport to pick up N7275R. The plane has been there over a month to have the HSI fixed – long long story on that by itself. $2500 later, seems like the issue was with the auto pilot and not the HSI and a mere re-initialization of the auto pilot fixed the issue. Oh well! Time will tell whether it is really fixed. This is only the third attempt by 2 different radio shops.
Anyways, back to the flight. The weather all over LA was pretty bad. Haze, fog and mist leading to visibilities from 1-2 miles. LAX was actually 300 ft overcast with visibilities of 1 mile. Hawthorne reported clear of clouds with 2 mile visibilities. WHP airport was VFR with no winds to talk about; but visibilities 3-5. I decided to do the flight from WHP to HHR.
I got into the plane and asked for a Tower Enroute from WHP to HHR. By the time I started the engine to the time I took off, it must have been at least 20 minutes – due to ATC delays, taxi, run-up etc etc. Anyways, once airborne I let the auto pilot do most of the flying so that I could focus on looking for traffic; since visibility was quite poor.
As I approached HHR, I was cleared for the approach and was tracking the localizer to Runway 25. It was getting dark (5:40pm ish) and reported visibility now was only 1 mile. Trust the instruments as they say!! The HSI had just come out of repairs, so as a backup, I tuned my 2nd VOR to the same radial. All was perfect. Autopilot flying the plane and tracking the LOC using the HSI. VOR 2 validating the HSI… Finally I was transferred to HHR tower. They told me to watch for a CHP helicopter that was tracking a LoJack – no issues; i had it in sight, It was time to focus on finding the runway. I was at 800 ft, just above the IFR minimums for that approach – but unable to see the runway. The GPS showed me as 1.4 miles out – and there came the runway lights. 2/10th of a mile more, and I might have decided to call it a missed approach and go to Torrance for the ILS.
The landing was easy. Bill Goddard (my IFR instructor) was at the airport and we chatted about the flight. This was clearly the first IFR flight I have done solo, where I have had to fly it down to minimums. Quiet a experience.
