FLY BY NIGHT

Jan 30, 2008

I was at 7000 feet as I crossed the coastline over the Oceanside VORTAC. The night sky was crystal clear, full of stars, the dark of the moon. A thousand feet below was the top of the cloud deck. San Diego Approach Control came on the radio. “Cessna Seven Four Foxtrot, turn left to zero niner zero, descend and maintain five thousand.” I pulled back on the throttle to start the descent. About a minute later I entered the clouds. In an instant the night went from smooth and calm to turbulent and requiring full concentration. I turned off the wingtip strobes to keep from getting disoriented by the flashes within the cloud. I kept my full attention on the instrument scan. Attitude indicator to directional gyro to vertical speed indicator to altimeter and back to attitude indicator to start again. Every couple of scans, I checked the airspeed indicator and cross checked the turn coordinator. Approach Control was giving me radar vectors so I didn’t have to give much attention to the nav radios and their output. I leveled off at five thousand feet with nothing to see outside but the landing light illuminated grayness in front and the rain streaking across the windshield.

“Cessna Seven Four Foxtrot, turn right to one seven zero, descend and maintain three thousand three hundred.” That sounded good as the ATIS at Montgomery Field had said to expect the ceiling at 3500 feet. Coming from above, that meant I should clear the clouds and see the lights of San Diego around 3500 feet. I throttled back again for a thousand feet per minute descent. Sure enough, as advertised, at three thousand six hundred I began to see the cloud glow from the city lights below. At three thousand four hundred I broke out of the cloud bottoms into clear air, visibility 30 miles. I could see all the way to Mexico. I flicked a knob on the GPS to bring up the moving map, made an adjustment to the scale so the map reached out 12 miles and there off my right wingtip was Montgomery Field, on the GPS and in the real world.

I tuned the number one navigation radio to the ILS frequency at Montgomery, I.D.’d the signal and within a couple of minutes the glideslope needle came alive. “Seven Four Foxtrot, turn right to two five zero, maintain two thousand five hundred until established, cleared for the ILS two eight right approach at Montgomery.” Within seconds the localizer needle started moving and I swung the plane around to two eight zero. I pulled back on the throttle and dropped 10 degrees of flaps to slow to 90 knots. “Seven Four Fox, Montgomery tower is closing right now. Switch to advisory frequency. Report back on this frequency to cancel IFR.” I made the call then intercepted the glideslope and started a five hundred feet per minute descent to keep the needles centered. Six miles to the airport and I had two radio beams to ride down to the touchdown zone on runway two eight right. The rabbit – approach guidance lights that appear to be running toward the runway threshold – appeared and a minute later the plane touched down lightly. Now I just had to figure out how to get a clearance back to Los Angeles with the tower closed.