I somehow let my instrument currency lapse. In fact, the last time I was in IMC was nearly couple of months ago. Since I have 10 hours to burn in the C182RG, I decide to use the opportunity to go out and do a bunch of approaches.
Fortunately the weather is cooperating---for the last couple of weeks as I've gone out, the ceilings have been nice and low, allowing me to go into actual IMC, and leave the cursed foggles behind. Spent two days last week and two days this week in almost solid IMC for a couple of hours at a time.
I had forgotten just how disorienting this is. Flying under the foggles is one thing, but flying in the "soup" is entirely another. A whole different level of concentration that is required to maintain proper attitude, fight those erroneous "instincts", and keep everything right side up.
And flying those approaches was much more difficult than I remembered. Just two months of not flying an approach, and the accumulated "rust" was considerable. For one thing, everything happens significantly faster on a 182RG than in a C172. And the complex aircraft gives you more things to have to worry about in the approach phase. But that's really no excuse. I had a tough time overcoming my tendency to fixate on one thing or instrument, while everything else went to heck in a hand basket. For the first couple of approaches, I was truly embarrassed at the basic mistakes I was making. After 4 sessions, I'm technically "current" (that is, legal to fly IFR) again, but that just seems like asking for trouble.
I know all instrument pilots due this, but I am vowing to not let so much rust accumulate. Time to do more IFR flying more regularly.
