WEEK 2

WHEN     : Wednesday 31st March 1999
WHERE    : SPX - SPX in N1219F, a Cessna 172N
WHAT     : ILS, ADF, airwork
WHO      : Dual instruction with Lee Simmons
HOW LONG : 1.1 flight; 1.0 hood; 0.4 ground.

  I'm steadily improving. I can feel it. The ILS approach today went nearly perfectly (things kind of went moderately pear-shaped in the last 300 feet, but the landing was still easily obtainable), the airwork went well and my head didn't explode when we tried to track outbound NDB "radials". I think my scan has got better. Of couse, I practised on Monday using Flight Simulator, because the weather was so bad we couldn't fly, so this helped. A lot of people say MS Flight Simulator is useless - but this is just not true. Flight Sim Avro Vulcan I even found use for it for my private ticket: practising the procedure for crosswind landings (I do have rudder pedals). For IFR, I've taken a faster plane than a C172 to try and speed my scan up (an Avro Vulcan, a big delta-winged bomber of the cold war era, pictured), and designed my own instrument panel for it with nice big instruments. Hurtling down the ILS with this thing at 150 knots certainly keeps your scan going! (The other thing is you have to be right on the money otherwise you'll not have time when the runway starts to appear to get over it and land due to the speed you're arriving at).

  We also went through a number of airwork exercises, like climbs, descents, maximum effort climbs (the sort of thing that when ATC says "Make a climbing right hand turn NOW or you'll hit an F-16 coming the other way"). The climbing turns I find really disorienting and it takes a lot of willpower to keep ignoring your body sensations and trust the instruments. Especially when the bank is done at 45 degrees, your airspeed low enough that you're bordering on a stall! It's a good exercise in controlling the airplane and knowing exactly how much you're going to get.

Conclusion

  Lee said today's session went well. Hopefully it won't be long before Lee feels confident that I can keep it the right side up all the time, and we'll get to do some actual instrument conditions. I just need to work a bit more on the final stages of my approaches, since this is where I'm still having some trouble.

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