First off, the relevant line from my logbook:

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Reading across the top line, there is the date (7/5/92), and a bit of airport ID code soup that translates to "Starting at Mount Comfort, Indiana, thence to Sidney, OH, Akron/Canton, OH and terminating at Allegheny County airport near Pittsburgh. Aircraft was a Piper Warrior, N8383T. In particular, this one:
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It's Sunday afternoon, July 5th, 1992 and it's time for me to head back to New Jersey. Of course, during my daughter's birthday party, (whick is why I flew to Indianapolis in the first place) we get hit by a squall line in advance of a cold front that extends exactly along my proposed route of flight: V50 from Indianapolis to Dayton, V12 to AGC (Allegheny County). The front is moving obliquely to the southeast. Darn: I was hoping to go VFR. I begin to watch radar summaries on the Weather Channel intensely.

We go out to the airport and lo and behold, the front is south of Mount Comfort: The southern and western quadrants are black with CB's and lightning; northeast is light and sunny. It's an amazing contrast.

I launch with the intention of paralleling the front in the clear on its' backside. South of Muncie, I turn east, and follow the edge ofthe clouds, a few miles away. I get to Sidney, Ohio, and notice that it's getting a little dark ahead and to the left of course. I land and wait out the isolated showers at Sidney, and take off towards Pittsburgh, still VFR, roughly following V210. Along the way, I listen on Flight watch, and pick up Terminal Information Broadcasts for a couple of airports along my route, and casually watch a twin Cessna a couple thousand feet beneath me trying the same tactics.

Anyway, I skirt a large Cumulonimbus (Thunderstorm) northwest of Columbus, and notice with some amusement that my Automatic Direction Finder (a primitive navigation instrument that will only point at a radio station) won't point at anything else. I've heard of this, of course, but this was my first experience with it. As I get south of Akron, I see that continuing visually is not going to be an option, so I tune Canton approach, give my DME mileage to Briggs VOR, and get a visual approach to runway 01, following a SAAB commuter airliner. I needed a pitstop anyway.

I topped off the plane and called Flight Service: the weather is improving rapidly in the Pittsburgh area: 4000' and 5 miles, occasional 800' scattered. AGC is calling 2000' broken, 1000' scattered. It's getting dark; I file and launch into a beautiful evening sky.

I'm cruising at 5000' when I notice I'm in clouds by the excruciating reflections of my strobes FLASHFLASHFLASH....argh. I stab at the switch and am rewarded by darkness. Pittsburgh approach sounds exhausted: I can hear the fatigue in the controllers voices. They've had a busy day, what with a nasty front and generally IFR weather all evening.

"8383T, Where you going? You direct Wheeling or something?" This guy sounds tiiiired.

"Yessir, that's the clearance I got"

"83T, cleared direct AGC, expect a visual approach to 28 at Allegheny County"

The controller has just cleared me to fly direct to Allegheny County Airport, and to expect a visual approach to the airport, which means that they will vector me to some place from which they expect I will be able to see the airport to land. He then clears me to descend to 3000 feet.

This clearence sets up one of the most amazing visual experiences of my life, bar none. Put on your imagination cap, and sit next to me in the right front seat. Let me move that junk for you.

The air is absolutely smooth, above the cloud deck on a humid night there is little to no turbulence, and the engine is at a low power setting- all in all it's very peaceful here, right above the clouds, which stretch out below like a cotton carpet under the dark starry sky above, with the waxing crescent moon just providing enough light so that we can make out the forms of the clouds sliding past beneath us, ghostly shapes slipping behind us. The instrument panel lights are turned all the way dowm, and if you look at the wingtips you can see the red and green glows of the nav lights. We are in eastern Ohio, heading towards Pittsburgh. Its 9:30 PM and the sun has just gone down. Did I mention that it has rained almost all weekend here?

It seems that every community in the area has postponed their fireworks celebration until 9:30 PM on Sunday night. Whatever forces that have conspired to put me here, in this airplane, above this valley, on this night at this time with these clouds are Fortunes, indeed. Suddenly, for miles around me, the clouds light up from below in a riot of color...blues, greens, reds, oranges, yellows. It's astonishing....I pick up the microphone to call someone, but I don't know what to say. I just get to sit there cruising above this Technicolor-gone-mad cloud deck with my mouth agape.

Rudely, the Air Traffic Controller breaks in:

"83T, do you have the airport in sight? 10 o'clock, 4 miles"

Nothing over there but clouds. Hmmm. Pretty closely packed scattered, I'd say. I see the beacon flash once through a break in the clouds, but certainly not near enough for a visual approach.

"83T, Negative on the airport, too many clouds there."

"83T, turn right to heading 110, vectors for the ILS 28"

Well, darn. After all that light show, I get to shoot an ILS for my second real approach. Should
be OK, I figure, with an 800 foot ceiling. I remind myself that I'm still new at this. I review the approach plate and set it up. 1502' Decision Height...set up the inbound heading on the OBS as a reminder...set the ADF to McKeesport as a sanity check...ID the localizer...vector to 360...vector to intercept the localizer...Cleared for the approach...contact tower at the marker inbound.

The intercept goes OK, I cross the marker, do the 5T's and flip
to the tower frequency, where I hear:

"Allegheny Tower, Cessna XXXXX, missed approach"

"Cessna XXX, execute the published missed approach procedure: did you ever break out of the clouds?"

"Negative, we lost our glideslope halfway in"

*Ulp*...it appears that there isn't any 800 foot ceiling: I'm inbound, I thumb the button and try to sound collected: "Allegheny, 8383T inbound on the ILS 28". I'm on the approach anyway, I might as well do it as I've been taught. I doublecheck the DH. I check it again.

2300 ft, I'm in the clouds and my world consists of a pair of crossed needles and a few instruments to tell me how I'm doing. I don't have any time for anything else but the few instruments before me, and to react to their demands. Fly down, fly right, not so far down, 2000 feet, so much for the 800' scattered. 500 feet, everything is starting to get sorta twitchy, geez, the clouds are getting kinda light...300' AGL I see something...yes, a rabbit, some runway lights, they're tilted a little to the right, oh I'm banked left a little and it gets dark again, and I'm out of the clouds at 350' Whew. I pull off the power, hit the landing light and land right at the fixed-distance markers.

Wow. I begin to think of taking my pulse.

"83T, left when able, taxi to parking....did you happen to notice when you broke out?"

"ahh, about minimums, maybe a little above."

I hear some Beechcraft check in with the tower, and hear him miss the
approach. I taxi over to Corporate Jets, and shut down. I get out and
watch the airport beacon sweep circles on the bottoms of the clouds for
a long, long time, thinking about rain, fates, and Technicolor castles in the air.

Wow. That's all I can say to that. And thank you for taking us with you on that trip 20 years ago.

20 years ago!

Very cool, pjern. Thanks for the flight!

Also, cool to read a mention of Mount Comfort. My side of town!