I touched the wheels down in the soft green grass, and all I could think about was Jim Richmond looking down on me. Smiling with his soft grin, as I, the youngest Carbon Cub builder, had just landed back at the same airstrip where I developed my love for aviation.

I rolled into a turn to the right to line up with the drop point. We were hit by ground fire and the sound did not resemble a rock hitting a tin can that we normally heard. The round had come through the window of the right front door of the aircraft and hit a litter stanchion. After continuing the mission and landing back at Saigon, one of the Vietnamese kickers came up and handed me some shrapnel.

As we approached the halfway/decision point, we checked in with Flight Service and sure enough, Bella Bella was now reporting marginal VFR and the clouds below us weren’t as dense as we were able to start seeing the rugged Canadian coast below. We continued with more confidence. After two and a half hours of flight, we made it to a blue skies and puffy cloud Bella Bella.

On this leg the visibility started rapidly dropping in the smoke haze and we were getting worried.  The ceilings were lower than forecast too. We were basically out of flight following range and hoped we didn't meet a huge yellow CL-215 water bomber.

While I was training for my instrument rating, my instructor taught me what real partial panel was. No skid ball, that was easy to lose. No attitude or directional gyro, simulating a vacuum failure. Vertical speed didn’t mean much, so it got covered up, and who needs airspeed when you can set power and hear feel what’s going on. Besides, the altimeter is still there, along with the turn needle and the LOC/ILS.

Instrument training is demanding, but at its most basic the goal is quite simple: keep the wings level and the needles crossed. Do that a few times with an examiner and you can pass the checkride. But if your goal is to really use your instrument rating (and do it safely), there's a lot more to consider.