New member of the DA40 IFR club.

[Gasser]

Took and passed my IFR check ride today. It's been a great 5 months of training. The real iceing on the cake was my trip home. I filed and got to play in the clouds on the way home. What a blast. Now its time to use it. Trying to get this done while working and spending time with the family was a challenge for sure.

Of course on the way home in the clouds I developed a new vibration. I laughed at first and thought it was "automatic rough". But it was defiantly there. I determined it was the nose wheel vibrating. I had to use left rudder all the way home and that's never the case. My departure was with a cross wind take off and a gust blew me right and so I steered left just as the nose wheel lifted off. I think that caused it to stay to one side. As I sped up, the vibration got worse.
Once back on the ground taxi and all ground operations were as normal. I rode a wheele as long as I could. That's the first time that's happened to me.

[Jean]

Congrats Jeff !

[Gnomad]

Took and passed my IFR check ride today. It's been a great 5 months of training. The real iceing on the cake was my trip home. I filed and got to play in the clouds on the way home. What a blast. Now its time to use it. Trying to get this done while working and spending time with the family was a challenge for sure.

Congrats Jeff! It's such an awesome rating to have! The wonder of flying in and around the clouds never ceases to amaze me, plus it just opens so many doors making flights much more straightforward, or even possible on some days. File often!

[Gasser]

Thanks guys. I plan to. Eric, I've watched your IFR travel videos and hope to follow in your footsteps. I need a few gopro cameras

It was fun filing on the way home from my test as the clouds were really popping up. Before I'd fly home under all that. Today I flew through it and got on top. Descended down through them with out dodging and weaving and went home. Just awesome. got some good pics on the way home.

Totally worth the investment. What a great plane to train and play in.

[Colin]

Congratulations! It is hard work that pays off.

[Chris B]

Congratulations Jeff! Making that happen with all your other commitments is a huge accomplishment.

I hope to catch up with you RealSoonNow(tm)!

Chris

[Rick]

Congratulations Jeff!!!

[Moonshine]

Congratulations!

[rhoab]

Does anyone have an issue with flying IFR with engine past TBO? I just passed with1960 on the tach and am really starting to think about it.

[Moonshine]

I've got 1340-something on mine, but it had a year-year and a half of relative inactivity - I'm more worried about that then having 1960 hrs.
To make myself feel better, I change oil every 25 hrs, use W100Plus + Camguard, send the oil in for analysis and cut up the filters myself.
The Arrow I just used for my commercial has something like 3300 hours on the engine and a big ol' oil filter that allows for oil changes every 100 hrs. That oil is as dark as Satan's soul, but the plane seems to be doing ok.