"Steven Barnes" wrote:
I got my IR last August and finally got to log my 1st post-checkride actual
approach. All while the airport I was landing at was reporting 10 miles and
clear below 12,000. More like 1,200. All day long this place was reporting
clear skies. All day long it varied between 1,200 and 1,700.

Yeah, it happens. Nothing, but nothing, beats a set of human eyeballs
in the location right now to report what the weather is doing. I've had
ATC try to sell me a visual when I'm looking at a solid cloud layer
below me. He's sitting in a room with no windows looking at a computer
readout of some automated system, but I'm looking at clouds. Who should
you believe?

ATC read me the AWOS before I heard it and we were planning a decent to MSA
then a visual landing. The bases were only about 700-800 below me, but I
just couldn't keep visual. I ended up flying a full procedure turn LOC
approach. Bah. Just enough to keep my in the clouds until descending past
the FAF. (and yes, i will be logging that approach g)

After you landed, did you give ATC or FSS a pirep? It would have helped
the next guy out. Wouldn't it be nice to be the next guy listening to
the AWOS from 30 miles out and have ATC tell you, "I've got a pirep from
10 minutes ago of 1200 overcast"?

Third lesson? Be very familiar with the
equipment in your plane. I was flying a Diamond Star I was recently checked
out it. We had gone through auto pilot usage, and I used it for most of the
flight, but when it was time to make the procedure turn, the plane wasn't
turning. I didn't have something set. I think I forgot to switch the 530
from GPS mode to VLOC once I activated the approach. Shoot I can't remember
if I even hit APR on the autopilot now that I think of it. I ended up hand
flying the approach.

Most instructors (I'm guilty of this too) try to keep their students
from using "crutches" like GPS and autopilots. The idea is we want to
make sure the basic skills get learned. Unfortunately, this often
results in students not knowing how to use these very useful systems to
their best advantage. Setting up for an approach in IMC is no time to
be trying to figure out how the autopilot works.