I was headed down to Santa Monica (KSMO) to meet a friend for dinner before proceeding to French Valley (F70) to stay with my sister for the night. Clear skies leaving NorCal and a 50kt tailwind at 10,000 feet, giving me a 215kt ground speed (nice!). I knew the weather was rainy in SoCal and I was ready for the Santa Monica GPS approach in IMC.
On the short trip down I was checking the XM WX and the the weather at KSMO was much worse than forecast…below minimums for this approach. When I was handed off to SoCal they told me that an aircraft had gone missed about 30 minutes prior. So I didn’t want to try that in IMC. Hawthorne was closer to where my friend lives, and the reported weather was better there, so I figured I’d divert and get picked up there. SoCal vectored me to the KHHR localizer and I commenced the approach in IMC (not too comfortable having never done this approach in actual IMC before). Well the weather did not cooperate here either, and I had to declare a real missed approach! First time for me. As I was climbing away I saw a glimpse of the runway for a half-second…but way too late to land.
Now what? I was starting to get concerned about fuel (1 hour remaining). Having been weathered out of two airports, I decided I should go inland to French Valley and either skip the dinner, or refuel and try again in an hour. Once on the ground and with full tanks of fuel, and METARS showing that the weather had improved at the coast, I decided to go back to Santa Monica and have the dinner as planned. So I filed and lifted back into IMC for the short flight to KSMO, where I got another actual approach and was able to land this time.
Dinner in Santa Monica (italian, on the 3rd Street Prominade) was great, as was the night flight back to F70.
Lessons: WX is often better than forecast, but sometimes it’s so far worse than forecast that you can’t land. Remain flexible and ready to cancel. Stay sharp on instruments! I didn’t like doing the KHHR Localizer in IMC when I had not done that approach in VMC before.