Nice job. I really like that HDX!!

Not enough pilots talk about overcoming that overwhelming anxiety as you’re learning, and how to work through that. Thanks for sharing!

As an experienced pilot (over 18000 hours) it was interesting to watch your procedures. In IFR. Your autopilot is your friend and gives you the ability to better monitor rather than concentrating on hand flying. Very good job on a NPA also smart to bring along an observer on your first IMC actual flight. Having this video to review after is also very reassuring for you to understand your capabilities. One last thing good job at picking the right weather conditions to get your feet wet. Safe flying.

I could feel the IMC dread going down my spine just watching your facial expressions! Unfortunately there’s no cure for it, you can only try to manage it. During my instrument training, we lost the vacuum pump as I was setting up an LDA approach in low IFR (My CFII wrote a Kindle ebook about it!). That experience really scarred me but it was my single most valuable flight training lesson to this date. First, Don’t wait until you’re in the soup to transition to instruments. That sudden move from VMC to IMC is always unsettling. Second, focus on your breathing. Explore yoga breathing, it’s really effective (and I don’t even like yoga!) And finally, try to build as much actual IMC hours as you can. Flying under the hood just doesn’t have the same psychological effect of flying in actual IMC. Love the videos! Keep ‘em coming.

My very first time in the left seat of a Piper Warrior during a "get hooked on airplanes" flight we departed from KSEE in the early afternoon, around 2pm and headed north to mess around a bit, scattered clouds that day so CFI Brian decided to climb and get high. We then headed NE and worked our way up to 9,000 feet, which in the Piper took a little while as that trusty IO360 labored her way up. We eventually leveled off, pulled back the power in glass-smooth air with sparkly sun and killer blue sky. I realized I had been kind of holding my breath all the way up, so I finally relaxed, settled into the seat, looked around, (basically because I had been flying the plane, for the first time in my life) and felt this euphoric wave of peace settle over me. I looked over at Brian and said something like "Wow...I get it, this is it, this is why..." trailing off in I don't know... first-time pilot/flying bliss. Brian paused for a moment then laconically said "Yup". Basically, because there was nothing more to be said. You don't know until you know. There's only one way to find out and that is to go there. Well, simply put, the hooks were set deeply and permanently. That was five years ago, and in my mind, five minutes ago. So I was high on aviation. Upon reflection, perhaps a bit low on O2 also, I had become very accustomed to breathing chunky SanDiego sea-level air, and popping up to 9,000 feet was a bit of a shock to the system. Maybe that was part of the plan. In any case, we were only going to be up for an hour - it was time to head home so we made a long right turn to the SW to head back to KSEE. Now if you have ever done west coast flying there's this thing called the "Marine Layer". We were looking down at a solid, and I mean solid floor of clouds. It took literally 20 minutes to move in from the coast and totally sock in everything. Of course, I'm still flying the plane. I glance and Brian and say "ummm, ok, clouds,...now what?".. He says "just hold this heading, start descending at 500 fpm, and give me that book in the pouch by your left leg"... He starts flipping pages looking for the KSEE IFR approach plate. Then he says "well, it looks like your first time up will also include an IFR approach and landing at Gillespie". I was like "COOL!, what do I need to do?" "Just fly the plane for now, while I do some radio work". Meanwhile, we're still descending and approaching the muck. I'm a little worried, but confident in Brian's abilities, and I hear over the radio that ATC gave us a new heading. Brian says "OK, time for me to fly, I have the plane". I reply "you have the plane". I sit back and watch him get really busy in a quiet business-like way. Then I look outside and everything goes gray and murky in an instant. At that moment, that very moment, I felt this huge wave of calm and peacefulness wash over me as the universe got small and intimate. The big crazy world and all its randomness went away and in an instant, I was in this little world that made total sense to me. I had all these fascinating steam gauges, (backed up by a byzantine Garmin GS430 full of mysteries) and it all was immensely reassuring. Not a worry or care at all. Honestly, I liked this part more than the VFR, because now I had total control, and could trust the instruments, instead of my eyes. It seems strange but that's how I felt. Instantly comfortable, and at home like this is where I was always supposed to be, and I never knew it, because how could I? You don't know until you know. We worked our way down through the various turns and approach points finally dropping below deck, perfectly lined up with 27R, not far ahead, with a stable rate of descent, flaps set, about 70kts. We landed. Tired, and energized, relieved and happy, as only you can feel after an IFR approach and landing. Five years ago, five minutes ago. I miss it, dearly.

A great video, thank you for making and posting. That was really good of your friend to come along as a safety pilot.

That was cool, thanks for taking us along on that trip. Your honesty really helps the shared experience, cheers!

I am really enjoying your channel found it last week keep up the great videos stay safe out there

That is a busy and intellectual flight. It is amazing how much more we learn by reviewing the flight video we made. Enjoy the skies!

enjoyed the video! thanks for ATC in the background

Your videos are Rad! Thank You! See you up in MMH.

Great job. Love your new panel. Thanks for producing and sharing.

Thanks for the videos, it was a pleasure and is making up my mind to purchase the Skyview

It was great to see an IFR approach to my home airport for the first time. Awesome!

Great video, know the feeling

Love the editing and quality of the video! Keep it up, these videos deserve more attention

That was a great flight, thanks for inviting us along.

Really like your videos - thanks for producing and sharing.

Love your channel....love your honesty!

Spot on with the feeling of emotion in IMC!

Great video. I also have and had dread going into IMC. I do about the same thing as you. Focus on the instruments and tell myself to relax, everything's good, relax and in a short period of time it goes away.

Nice Job! Keep up the good work, and don’t give up. I just got my instrument in sept, and now am trying to stay ahead of the currency game and get some IMC time. Anxiety is normal and expected. Use that AP more too, once you get more proficient hand flying. It is a huge help and even though mine is a single axis, I’m sooo happy I have it for instrument flying. You have the makings of a good instrument pilot, really you do, keep it up!

love the honesty regarding the IMC dread in this video...while it may be old, it serves as a good resource for pilots who suffer the same. Great commentary below as well. Good to see we are not alone lol.

Another great video sir, I’m happy to see you using the hdx in instrument conditions and seeing what this puppy is capable of

New to your videos. Beautiful review of the Dynon. Great job updating the 6. Keep the comedy, love your taste. Love your chart overlays and markups and narration. What a welcome addition to the flight tubing community!

Nice job! Totally normal "errors" on that approach. Didn't hear your landing checklist though... excellent situational awareness and a beautiful plane. Thanks for the video!

Nice video. Thanks!

Omg bro yes yes I have the same damn feeling and I hate it! I thought it wasn't common. Thanks for sharing!

Great video, great flight! 😎

Love the graphics combined the clearance on the charts. Really helpful for those of us outside the area

Great video! Refreshing to watch a video which shows your honest reactions and mistakes and not just some edited flight which goes perfectly well. And the new avionics rig just adds another level of situational awareness to the whole flight.. Subscribed

You keep my flame for aviation alive when I am forced to wait :3 amazing content! I aspire to have the same life style. Thank you for keeping me company and upload the amazing content!

Simply excellent! Your sequence of and selection of shots, editing, captioning, and commentary, made this particular video both engaging and educational. Wow!

Yes! I felt this anxiety for the first time in an accidental VFR into IMC situation. The feeling of dread and panic at first is overwhelming.

Beautiful video Sir! I missed flying with all this crazy shut down!..

Great video work! Very engaging on the comments and so true! Flew Socal for many years, nice to see the familiar places are still popular!

I salute your RT discipline. Its the best I've yet to hear on KZfaq!

Outstanding video showing so much of what a pilot faces when in IMC. Instant subscribe!

Dude, highlighting the route was awesome.

I really like the human aspect of your channel. The mistakes you make and the emotions you're having are all part of the learning process, instead of something to be embarrassed about.

Nice video! I like the way you show the clearance on the paper map, really helps to see how that translates.

Very nice. Thanks for sharing!

Agreed! I feel the same way flying into IMC. After a few minutes, it's like I'm not even moving. All my focus is in the airplane.

Good video. Your honesty on your initial feelings upon entering IMC are appreciated. Thank you for sharing.

Wow. A humble pilot. Great video. All the best to you.

Congratulations for you channel! It is pretty interesting and well made. Happy landings!!

That was SUPER educational and thanks for showing a "real life" flight where your route wasn't perfect and you had to make some compensations. Good pacing in your video too. Well done as always!

And awesome videos and awesome commentary and airplane looks great...

Some of earliest flying experience was as a young guy in the right seat under IMC in various light and medium twins, a sort of almost human auto-pilot! I copped loads of shit from flying instructors later about my use of instruments and not using the visual horizon. I loved IMC and still love it.

Good stuff! Thanks!

Subscribed after watching your video. I really liked how you explain things during the flight, many other videos do not and for us who are planning on going to school makes alot of difference. Keep them videos coming. Also, that HDX is awesome. I was all excited seing everything it can do

Really enjoyed your video. I think you did a good job on the VOR-A approach. I had similar experiences into KPOC and it was IMC the whole time from KLGB to KPOC (ILS), got vectored around many times so spatial disorientation is real and these video's are a great example. Was flying CE-172SP G1000 but felt hypoxic without seeing a horizon. At a situation when I should have gone missed floating down the runway I choose to land coz my brain couldn't handle the missed approach. Its always safe to fly with another pair of eyes let alone another pilot.

Thank you for sharing. This is a great video. Yes entering clouds is always nerve racking but focusing on the instruments and planning ahead helps to over come those feelings. Your videos are very helpful!

Nice video, and nice setup!!

I control my breathing by inhaling and holding for two seconds and release and repeating till the anxiousness goes away. Works for me. Great videos

Another great video! Thanks for sharing!

I always get excited goin into IMC and when breaking out!

Awesome video, man! Loved it!

I wish I had this type of panel when I started flying in 1986. LOVE IT.

Excellent choice of Updating Avionics for hard IMC conditions

I like it man!! First time visiting your channel. Good stuff!!

Best Channel for GA, love your talk throughout the video,, my vote for best New up and coming KZfaqr. really down to earth explanations and experiences.

Well Done.

The production quality of your videos is simply fantastic...quality, humility, real life...best seen to date! As a fellow aviation enthusiast...thank you for sharing.

GREAT video, important to face the anxiety of IMC with total clarity

Exact same response, especially the “I don’t want to be here” feeling but then settle in and love it.

Great video and yes on the dreading the thought of entering IMC and especially hand flying the aircraft and on old steam gauges...the worst. Once I punched my IFR ticket, every flight I took for 4 months was solid IFR end to end. However, much the same experience. Once in the IMC and settled down, I'd get in the zone and actually enjoy the flight. I enjoy the coverage of an IFR clearance that I pretty much always file IFR...and they close my flight plan 😋

I owned a racehorse named Suana. She was named after that waypoint and was bred by famous aviator Allen Paulson. Great video and nice panel!

Heck, I am not a pilot just an aviation enthusiast in my 50's. I have flown with many friends as a passenger in their airplanes and every time we do enter the soup I feel that way. What's amazing is sometimes when we bust out of the clouds and boom there is the runway 1sm out I love it. Great Job sir may you and your family be safe. Getting the plates for the approach was awesome.

Love your content! Funny about your initial anxiety... I have the same feeling scuba diving for the first minute or so. To be honest, I don't use my instrument rating. Still working on my CFI, then I'll delve in to it more, and then work on the double-I. I've never felt I've been proficient enough to go in to actual by myself. I'll be using my sim, and PilotEdge ATC to get more comfortable. It's an amazing tool...

Fantastic video.. glad to be a subscriber👍👍

My first time in IMC turned into an ILS to mins. Foggy, low overcast, a serious day, rainy, no convection. Even experienced "the leans" first-hand, overpowering spatial disorientation, a great lesson in staying on the gauges.

I love how you overlay your clearance on the map for us. No one else does it and it’s such a great visual for student pilots. 👍

Having everything set up with your fmc and not looking out your side window at cloud's moving will help stop your anxiety getting into the zone on your instrumentation is key also knowing your terrain gives you a sense of confidence

Great dramatic editing during your confession of feeling dread entering IMC. Yes I have felt that anxiety upon IMC.

I have had an IR for a decade but had not used it in actual until the last couple of years, after having more training. I also am anxious for a minute or two and then love it. Just found your channel and like the content. Thanks

I am only 14 hours into getting my Private license up here in NorCal. I don't know from experience but I think I will enjoy flying in the clouds. Your videos always make flying in any situation look fun.

I got in the habit a long time ago of turning on pitot heat whenever I entered IMC regardless of temperature just to build in the muscle memory.

It takes a lot of courage to make and post a video like this. Thank you! Greetings from Phoenix, AZ.

Love the videos. I feel the same way when departing on a flight with IMC. Once I am in the soup, It takes me a minute or two (especially climbing into IMC vs. descending) to feel comfortable. Once I am comfortable, I feel a huge sense of accomplishment as a pilot at the end of a successful approach.

I was a CFI/II/MEI, and airline pilot for a very long time, and have been flying A320/21’s at my current airline for over 15 years and the proud owner of a PA32/300 (although east coast style, yo;) I STILL have pucker factor in the clouds when I’m by myself in my airplane. (010ovc is my personal min in my Cherokee)I think that will never go away for you. It hasn’t for me. Great videos!! My 13year old son and I love them and have been a subscriber.

My flight instructor was an old school Navy guy, and since we were flying in the Pacific NW, he would sneak in some time under the hood starting from my very first flight. Just a few seconds at first, then a minute, then a few minutes. He probably saved my life as I had a series of events that led me to being in full IFR on my student long cross country. This was all a long time ago, but the point is that my instructor was wise and made me comfortable with "the feeling" from the get go. Therefore, I always felt safe an in control in actual IMC when that came down the road in my IFR training and later flying. I highly recommend that teaching technique to any CFI's out there.

As a "virtual safety pilot," that was probably one of the easiest IFR flights I have followed. Through your "thinking out loud," I was able to both view and hear each aspects of your phases of flight in order to stay ahead of the airplane. With this social distancing "thang" going on, I was able to pull up the chart before the flight. Once rolling, CRAFT and observing you as you transitioned through phases was really easy. Excellent video.

Very Nice love it 👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽

Great content so far. (I just reached your question about entering IMC.) I don't necessarily have a sense of dread, but this moment is the most intense part of any IFR flight into actual conditions for me. Like you, after a couple minutes of intense scanning, I relax into it and thoroughly enjoy the experience. I get more nervous climbing into a low cloud layer then when shooting an approach to mins. THIS is the critical moment of any IFR flight.

Brief, brief and brief. My dread pretty much ended when someone explained anxiety is really just facing the unknown. With IMC I worried that I would be overwhelmed if I didn't prepare for the variables. So I started looking at all the most likely scenarios (yes there are a few of them) but.... you learn what to expect because there is still only so many things a controller can throw at you. I think that is where a little arrogance can be a good thing. If you know you honestly briefed the flight and did it correctly its fair to approach it with a bit of bravado. The secret is to do enough different approaches to keep it fresh and interesting and learn the possibilities so you have a expanded tool set in your brain. All this became fact to me when I have on occasion failed to brief the flight and that anxiety sneak in because I rushed it and knew it. I didn't brief so i didn't know what to expect. IFR is now more of a serious Game and interesting to see what surprises happen.

I share your sentiments about entering IMC conditions, I’m apprehensive every time, as if I can feel my blood pressure rising. Makes me focus on my scan and after a minute or so I’m completely relaxed. I’ve had an IFR rating for about three years now. I really enjoy your videos, nice job!

Your friend is a great addition to the cockpit. I need a duplicate friend for my IFR flights! haha Loved the video.

Great Video

Never had that feeling. I m a PPL SEP VFR only...I ve stopped flying since 3 years now. But when I was still flying, I used to take a friend of mine who was checking for traffic outside while I willingly blocked my view in front of the plane to simulate IMC. I did a lot of approaches back to my home airport on ILS. I m a child of flight simulation so had a bad habits of flying with instruments when I started my PPL training so I struggled initally keeping my eyes outside susprisingly. But when it came to instruments flying, it felt natural to me because I simply trusted my instruments and forgot all my other senses just focusing on the instruments and relying them is the best thing you could do and you did it well. Thanks for this great video....love it!

Eric, excellent video. Nice editing and love how you talk about your anxiety that we all get when we don't do this as the day job. Thanks for sharing. It is very interesting to see how your setup and workflow is compared to garmin stack.

Can I just say how amazing it is when you show the tower calls on a map!! Thank you!! I suck at radio communication and seeing what I’m hearing is amazing. Thanks again!

As a PPL I love your videos. Please make more!!!

its a big deal! congrats! situational awareness is much better now that we have all those pictures on the instrument panel. I took my instrument in 1995 with JC Brown, the 86 year old CFI who gave Orville Wright his check ride in a DC3. (i kid you not). My oral was invaded by the FAA, AND MY ORAL took four hours. By the time the joker from the FAA had departed, the weather started to deteriorate. So we got half way through it and all of sudden we were solid IFR (which aint supposed to happen) So i flew the ILS down to 100 feet, had controllers screaming at me, did a VOR APPROACH, NBD, and did everything to perfection except a certain procedure turn AT THE END. it was a mess. At the end, JC Brown told me it was a pleasure flying with me, which was a high compliment. The key thing is proper planning. The more you understand before you kick the tires, the more relaxing it will be. So my first actual was my CHECKRIDE. GOOD LUK!

great videos. Just passed my written working on my instrument hours- I get the same feeling glad to hear it "goes away" lol

That IFR flying and approach was a joy to watch. I am hoping to start IFR training soon and maybe someday I will be enjoying a panel like that as well. Keep up the good content! and be safe in these unusual times.

Very cool!

I was surprised to hear that you as well get a sense of dread and have those thoughts of "I just want out" upon entering IMC initially. I too have faced this and it can be very intimidating, even though I know everything I need to know to stay safe. Thanks for being brave enough to admit that, it helps to know i'm not alone in that lol.

In 1972, while at Camarillo High School, we towed my 1954 Chevy down that runway 'til it started ! Before it was Camarillo Airport but After it was Oxnard A.F.B. Great memories. Also, could do TWO touch and goes in a C-150 on each pass the runway was so long . 9,000 ft. Now it's about 6,000 ft. I think my dad flew at Whiteman in the late '40s and '50s. My brother in law drag raced a 1967 Camaro at Whiteman in 1969 or 70 (I was there). Small world, Nice flight and I have never been bothered by IMC but my instructors were Navy fighter pilots. They instilled large Cajones , FAITH in the instruments and a dose of common sense. Fun to see Southern Cal again from above the traffic . Thanks !

Thank you for being frank about being in clouds.