Instrument Currency

My instrument approach opportunity this summer has been few and far between. With the airplane being down for major engine work for almost two months and working on my CFI, I havn't had much opportunity to keep instrument current by flying six approaches in six months.

So today I went out in the 182 with my regular CFII and executed some instrument approaches. My plan was to fly a couple of ILS's at KPWT and then do the published missed approach hold just to make sure I knew how to use the Garmin for just such an occasion. Typically missed approach instructions are given by ATC, so flying the missed approach as published is something that needs revisiting once and a while. After KPWT I planned to fly the GPS 23 approach at KSHN since ceilings were reported as 700' and I could get some actual instrument time.

Turned out that KPWT was also IFR, and there were several other airplanes holding and waiting for their turn to fly approaches. We ended up going to KTIW and I shot the ILS 17 approach a couple of times following by the published missed, which is a hold over the outer marker. Runway 17 was the opposite direction of landing traffic so I experienced some localizer/glideslope interference as other airplanes briefly blocked the ILS signal. This was really noticable when trying to fly one of the approaches coupled to the auto pilot and the auto pilot wouldn't track the localizer accurately. It finally clicked with me as to why the ILS critical areas are there.

After KTIW, we headed over to KSHN for the GPS 23 approach and then ended up holding while waiting for another airplane to complete their approach. After that, headed back to KRNT for one more GPS approach.