IFR to Penticton

Breaking out at Langley

Flew to Penticton last weekend on an IFR flight plan.  Had the wife and my smallest girl in the aircraft with me.  First time I had taken them on an IFR flight.  We had planned to go out to visit family and to float down the canal there, but of course, that morning the weather in Vancouver was overcast at 2,000'  No way out of the lower mainland.

So we filed IFR.  Flight planning was completely straightforward.  The only wrinkle was that both conventional approaches to Penticton (NDB and LOC/DEM) had NOTAMs that made them not authorized until October 21st!

There are rocks under the clouds

Now, the weather was forecast to be scattered all day, and the weather briefing was fine.  So I planned on a visual approach, with an alternate at Kelowna that has a precision approach if required.

The take-off from Langley was simple although the airport was busy for a such a poor weather day.  The actual departure was something else however.  We were in the clouds in minutes and I was promptly and frequently vectored around traffic.  The altitudes were stepped up in increments of 1,000.  However, we were usually cleared for the next highest altitude just before we arrived at the previous one.



Part of the Penticton beach

Quite a bit of that vectoring was done in IMC.  We did break out at about 4,500 feet and the remainder of the flight was done in visual conditions.  Soon enough we were cleared all the way to 11,000 and deposited on heading of 060 and cleared direct to the Princeton VOR.

This was a bit of a puzzle.  I could not pick up the VOR signal at the point that they cleared me to it.  I maintained the heading and climb, and quickly selected a track using the direct function on the vfr GPS, but there was no signal on VOR.  While I was puzzling if I should advise them up popped the flag and the needle came alive.  I flew the GPS track while monitoring the VOR needle, which did jump around quite a bit at that range.  The signal got much stronger as we leveled off at 11,000 feet.

I was on oxygen using a canula, while Anne-Marie and Mattea stayed comfortable and took a nap.  They did miss out on some excellent scenery.



On the ramp in Penticton - turns out it cleared up!

The clouds were overcast with occasional breaks, and steadily climbed up until we were skimming just over the tops at 11,000 feet.  As we approached Princeton I was getting worried that we would be unable to make the visual approach given how solid the cloud cover was.  But as we reached Princeton there was a nice big hole (the whole valley) to lower down in.  I could see that there was plenty of gap (bottoms at about 8,000) so I cancelled IFR and slipped down to get under the clouds.

There was still enough room to fly direct to Summerland and make a visual approach from the north.  An easy downwind entry into the pattern (there was no one else up) and land on runway 34.  Total air time of 1.2 which is 0.3 longer than normal, but that was entirely due to be vectored around during the departure from Langley.



Mt. Baker during the return trip the next day