Three hours into a late afternoon flight from Sullivan, MO (UUV) to Rostraver, PA (FWQ) VFR at 9.5 on autopilot. Perfect weather but with a rapidly developing line of showers ahead (they weren't there when I took off). Descended to 3.5 to get beneath broken clouds. Thought I hit altitude hold with Nav and Track already selected on the AP. Started playing with Foreflight on the iPad kneeboard on my left leg to figure a way around the precip. Foreflight weather was intermittent, so I was heads down way too long. Finally looked around and I was passing through 2.1K in a slight descent. Still 1000 ft. agl, but was surprised and angry that I had lost situation awareness so badly that I was 1500 ft. below where I thought I was.
Lesson learned - our modern gadgets provide amazingly useful information, but getting and interpreting that info always must be secondary to flying the airplane and ALWAYS being aware of where you are.
Certainly an F grade for my pilot performance. And for those of you reading this who may be thinking new guy mistake - I've been flying accident-free since 1964 with over 8,000 hours, 870 in my RV-8A. Might as well try to learn from the mistakes of others - you can't live long enough to survive them all first hand.
Lesson learned - our modern gadgets provide amazingly useful information, but getting and interpreting that info always must be secondary to flying the airplane and ALWAYS being aware of where you are.
Certainly an F grade for my pilot performance. And for those of you reading this who may be thinking new guy mistake - I've been flying accident-free since 1964 with over 8,000 hours, 870 in my RV-8A. Might as well try to learn from the mistakes of others - you can't live long enough to survive them all first hand.