“This is so friggin’ cool,” Tom said as he flew through low clouds, mist and rain over the Eastern Shore of Maryland with me this morning. I have to agree with him — it was very cool to see the rain on the windscreen and hear it pelt the wings, to cruise through the clouds at 150 miles per hour, and experience the mental rush that comes from guiding an airplane from one place to another when you can’t see where you’re going out the window.
With a new vacuum pump installed in the airplane and all systems in the green, we took off around 8:15 a.m. and headed for Salisbury, Maryland. The goal of the lesson was to fly several instrument approaches and then return to base.
The photo above was taken on the approach into nearby Easton, Maryland. The tower controller there told us that there was a heavy rain shower over the airport moving toward us. As we approached the runway visibility in the rain shower dropped to about two miles, and while that was plenty for us to have have landed if we’d wanted to, instead we climbed back up into the clouds for some more fun.