Santa Monica VOR-A Approach in IMC

This was a Tower Enroute IFR flight from El Monte Airport (EMT) to Santa Monica Airport (SMO) in a Grumman AA1A two seater small airplane. There was a large rain cloud east of SMO near DARTZ intersection. For the spacing, I had to fly a holding pattern in the rain cloud. As soon as I flew into the cloud, VSI indicated 500-800fpm lift followed by the same rate of sink! It was very bumpy ride. After the holding, I did a SMO VOR-A Rwy21 approach, and landed sunny SMO. At the last scene of this movie clip, I made a 90 degree turn to the taxi way then I saw the rain cloud that I flew into and from.
flying IFR IMC holding clouds rain flight Grumman AA1 American Yankee Aviation SMO EMT Santa Monica coollastsamurai



































