I had planned to fly mid day but awoke to fog and a forecast for IFR through early afternoon. CC was going to come along so I told her we would likely have to scrub the flight. I still needed to be at the airport for a 9 AM meeting so off I went. The weather I was seeing was a lot better than forecast. I called CC and said we were on for 10:30.
As the picture shows, not very IFR at the airport. I finished my meeting and headed over to the plane to get ready. The coast was clear but inland was still cloudy. I figured this would make for a picturesque flight. On departure I pulled the power way back and started a slow climb. When flighttseeing, no need to burn a lot of gas and go fast. As advertised the weather was clear by home but cloudy around the rest of town. Leveling at 3000 we slid over to the West side and passed over Cecil field.
The smooth air and puffy clouds were crying out for a practice instrument approach. I already had flight following so after briefing the plate, I called approach and asked for an IFR clearance. I was soon cleared and vectored for the GPS 36R. The controller kept me high and tight so it was good practice. The clouds were soft and not too deep. We broke out at 1,200' and soon went missed. Tower had us fly runway heading for a bit but we soon had a left turn to 270 and were back on approach.
Approach was busy so we waited our turn and climbed to 3,000' where we were able to check in and cancel IFR. We then enjyed flying back to the coast and CC did some practice followed by a return to the airport. I had an acceptable touchdown and we were soon pushing the plane back into the hangar. Forecasts are great and all but you need to not be too reliant on them. I was supposed to fly Saturday and the forecast was for good weather. Well that didn't happen and I spent the day on the ground.
