A visit to Bar Harbor

My frequent co-pilot, cousin Ken Wellington, and I went to Bar Harbor for the weekend to visit with family. We left White Plains about 8am and had a beautiful trip across Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and up the coast of Maine. We were at 7,000MSL with great visibility and few clouds.

When we departed, the weather reports said fog was over most of the Maine coast and Bar Harbor Airport (BHB) was reporting ceilings of only 200ft but they were forecasted to lift by 10am. Our scheduled arrival was for 10:20am. I wasn't too worried because my filed alternate destination airport was Bangor (BGR) which had 500ft ceilings and an ILS which allowed approaches down to 200ft which was within my comfort zone.

View of the Maine Coast

As the photo above shows, the fog was not cooperating for our arrival, however the ceilings at BHB had come up to 300ft AGL -- 100ft above the ILS minimums, but much lower than I had ever flown on an instrument approach. To date, my lowest approach was with 800ft ceilings and a 640ft MDA -- a cushion of 260ft while still at 620ft AGL. To shoot the approach for runway 22 at BHB with 300ft ceilings would mean a cushion of only 100ft and at only 210ft AGL! Oh, and that previous time was with my CFII in the seat next to me making sure I did everything right. What to do?

I reasoned that if I was going to try an approach to near minimums, this was a good one to try. The top of the fog layer was at 1,200ft MSL so we could remain in visual conditions during the beginning of the approach. The missed procedure was a straight out climb to 2,000ft before turning towards the holding fix which would get us back into visual conditions prior to any manuevering. I deemed the conditions as favorable and forgiving as one might have for an approach to minimums, so I decide to give it a try.

Bangor Approach Control gave me vectors to intercept the localizer for the ILS Runway 22 at 3,000ft and 12 miles out. We get established on the localizer and soon intercept the glideslope which begins our decent into Bar Harbor. First notch of flaps, gear down, 17" manifold pressure gives us 500ft/min decent at 110kts -- perfect. At 2,100ft MSL, we reach the outer marker and are still above the fog bank in beautiful sunshine with a sea of white below us. I check and double-check everything -- it all looks right. At 1,300ft we enter the clouds and the entire world goes white -- no visual reference at all. I ease the MP back to 15" which slows us to 90kts. The altimeter continues to register our decent -- 900ft, 800ft, 600ft and still no visibility, just white. At 500ft (remember the ground is down there at 90ft MSL) I begin to see glimpses of the ground below us but still no forward visibilty. And then it happens -- we break out below the clouds and see the runway is straight ahead!! We are just below 400ft and right on the glideslope. I pull the power back to 13"MP, put in full flaps and make a decent landing on the centerline of the runway. WOW!

I was relieved to be down, yet elated I had flown the approach perfectly and made a successful landing at an airport near minimums. My immediate thought was to thank Andy Alson, the CFII who trained me to be an instrument pilot. The picutre below shows what the weather looked like from the ground.

Bill Evans met us at the airport, but declined to go for a ride due to the poor weather. Bill is a pilot, although not current, and he used to own a Socata Tobago in the 90's. He made the appropriate oohs and aahs over the plane and we went on our way to his home in Bass Harbor.

Link to photos of the weekend: http://jhwellington.shutterfly.com/8