So Much Work For Those Two Words - Instrument Airplane

Posted this one somewhere else, but wanted to share with the gang on
the newsgroups.

Dave

Well, after one year, two instructors, 9 hours actual, and nearly 70
hours of training I passed the instrument checkride. It was
originally scheduled for Tuesday, but if you read my other post you
know that it was IMC followed by t'storms, so we did the oral. I
didn't realize how well it went until yesterday when I decided to fly
one last practice session before the big day. My instructor and a few
other people that worked at the school told me that the DE, who is
also the manager of the flight school and FBO, said something along
the lines that I was one of the best prepared applicants he had ever
seen. That was great to hear and I hoped it would have a halo effect
today.

I made it to the airport around 12:15 and the DE arrived at 1:00,
which was the scheduled time. After preflight we got underway after
he gave me my clearance and I picked up the ATIS. As it was mid-day,
it was fairly bumpy as I tracked to the Sparta VOR. But I was
diligent with my heading and altitudes. We departed Sparta on the 022
radial and I contacted New York Departure to request two ILS 27
approaches at Stewart International (SWF). We received vectors and I
briefed the approach. Other than receiving a bad vector the approach
went fine, and at Decision Height I flew the missed as published to
the Kingston VOR.

The entry was a parallel entry and I quickly established myself on the
outbound course, flew out for a minute, then intercepted the inbound
course. My instructor was up with another student in the same area
and since I could hear him I knew he was following what I was doing.
Back on the ground he admitted he was a little concerned when he heard
us request the second ILS. After one trip in the hold the DE covered
the AI and DG for a partial panel LOC approach. I placed the LOC
frequency in the #2 radio as not to be distracted by the glideslope,
and placed Kingston VOR in the #1 to ID the final approach fix,
POPOW. Well, we received another bad vector and I also forgot that
the LOC was in #2 so I flew through it, but soon realized the error of
my ways and corrected. But between the bad vector to intercept the
localizer and diverting attention somewhere else, I missed the final
approach fix. So, four miles from the threshold I'm still at 2500
feet MSL. Although I'm not proud of it I had to make a dive and
drive. Fortunately Stewart has a 10,000' runway, but my landing was
as crappy as they come. I knew I was going to be busted, but I was
prepared to go missed if necessary if I couldn't make the field.

After the touch and go and not hearing I had failed, we climbed out
and did a few timed turns, followed by steep turns. I had done steep
turns the previous day and was able to nail them with nearly zero
altitude fluctuation. In fact they were my best steep turns to date,
including private. Then we did unusual attitudes. I heard this DE
was aggressive on unusual attitudes but his nose-up unusual attitudes
ended with the plane veeeery close to stall. I'm usually pretty good
with unusual attitudes, but on the first one I ended up pushing over
too much, pulled a few negative G's and put us into a dive, from which
I quickly recovered. He had me perform another nose high unusual
attitude partial panel, and my recovery was far smoother the second
time. We followed this by two nose low unusual attitudes, then flew
direct to Sparta to fly the VOR 6 approach at Greenwood Lake. At
Sparta I entered the hold/procedure turn and flew the approach with no
problem. We descended to MDA and because Rwy 6 was in use and he
wanted to see a circling approach, he had me overfly the field for a
circling approach back to Rwy 6.

Once established on the downwind and descended to pattern altitude, he
gave me a heading and an altitude to fly back to Caldwell. We flew
back to Caldwell partial panel with the DE giving me vectors and
descent instructions to simulate a no-gyro approach. He had me take
the hood off on final and 130' AGL and again I made another crappy
landing. I think this one was due to the relief of not hearing that I
had failed up to that point. Overall, 2.4 hours on the Hobbs. I am
totally beat, but it was certainly a fair checkride. As he prepared
my temporary certificate he told me that based on Tuesday's and
today's performance he had no doubt that I should receive an
instrument rating, and that I had performed well on all the required
tasks.

Thanks to all that have read this far and those on this board that
provided encouragement. And best of luck to others working on your
ratings, instrument or otherwise.

Dave

David B. Cole wrote:

Posted this one somewhere else, but wanted to share with the gang on
the newsgroups.

Dave

Well, after one year, two instructors, 9 hours actual, and nearly 70
hours of training I passed the instrument checkride. It was
originally scheduled for Tuesday, but if you read my other post you
know that it was IMC followed by t'storms, so we did the oral. I
didn't realize how well it went until yesterday when I decided to fly
one last practice session before the big day. My instructor and a few
other people that worked at the school told me that the DE, who is
also the manager of the flight school and FBO, said something along
the lines that I was one of the best prepared applicants he had ever
seen. That was great to hear and I hoped it would have a halo effect
today.

.
.
.

Thanks to all that have read this far and those on this board that
provided encouragement. And best of luck to others working on your
ratings, instrument or otherwise.

Dave

Congrats! From what I hear, the instrument is one of the toughest
ratings. I don't have an ATP so I can't compare it to that, however.

Now the rest is a matter of getting out and using the rating to really
hone your skills and gain experience in a wide range of weather and
circumstances.

I'm just finishing up an BFR & ICC after four years of no flying. The
BFR was trivial as the basic flying skills came back almost immediately.
The instrument skills were about at the level of when I was 80%
through my initial training. You know, the point where you know what to
do, but just can't get it to all come together. Well, last night was my
third flight, second on the ICC, and things are starting to click again
and the old habits are coming back. Hopefully, one more flight will get
the rust off. I still don't have the confidence I had 5 years ago when
I was flying IFR in IMC pretty regularly in the northeast weather and
traffic. That will take a few more months of flying to regain, I suspect.

Enjoy the new found capability!


Matt

"David B. Cole" wrote in message
m...
one last practice session before the big day. My instructor and a few
other people that worked at the school told me that the DE, who is
also the manager of the flight school and FBO, said something along
the lines that I was one of the best prepared applicants he had ever
seen. That was great to hear and I hoped it would have a halo effect
today.

....

Once established on the downwind and descended to pattern altitude, he
gave me a heading and an altitude to fly back to Caldwell. We flew
back to Caldwell partial panel with the DE giving me vectors and
descent instructions to simulate a no-gyro approach. He had me take
the hood off on final and 130' AGL and again I made another crappy

You flew with Rich Greene, right? It sounded like you finished up training
at CDW, and he's the only manager/DE I know of there. I flew with him last
July for my IR checkride... posted about it here as well. I'll say one thing
about him: if you pass his checkride, you KNOW you deserve the rating.

Congrats are definitely in order here! Now don't get like me and only fly
every three or four weeks... make it part of your routine (as I'm going to
try to do over the next few weeks), and keep the skills sharp!

--
Guy Elden Jr.

Matt and Guy,

Thanks for the advice. I read Weather Flying by Buck and Instrument
Flying by Taylor before starting the rating, I think it's time to take
another look at them now that I have my IFR license to learn.

Guy,

I took the checkride with Markus, who is the manager of Mac Dan.
Certainly tough, yet fair. I had a great time working with him. I
also heard the same thing from everyone that knows him. If you can
pass with him, you deserve it.

Dave

David B. Cole wrote:

Matt and Guy,

Thanks for the advice. I read Weather Flying by Buck and Instrument
Flying by Taylor before starting the rating, I think it's time to take
another look at them now that I have my IFR license to learn.

I also own and read both years ago, but probably a re-read is in order.
It has been 10 years since I read them. I also liked Peter Dogan's
instrument flying book. I found it one of the most understandable early
in my training and just read it again as a refresher. I need to get a
new version as I have the original and it is pretty dated with regards
to airspace and other such things and it was pre-GPS.

I made my first flight in actual yesterday from ELM to BFD and back.
Shot the GPS to BFD and weather was below minimums so I got to shoot a
real missed approach in actual, something I'd never done before. We
didn't plan to land at BFD anyway, but it was fun to fly along at the
MDA and seeing next to nothing. My instructor did catch a glimpse of
the runway as I was climbing out, but we'd have never gotten down to it.

I did learn one lesson. If center doesn't clear you to change to
advisory frequency, suspect something. I assumed it was because the
weather was below VFR at BFD and plus my flight plan had a remark that
we were only shooting the approach and missed at BFD and then returning
direct to ELM. I was cleared for the approach and then heard nothing
else. My instructor commented that it was odd we didn't get "handed
off" to CTAF frequency, but he also rationalized it as due to the really
low weather and no plans for us to land there. Well, I called missed
approach and still no response from center. I was just about to call
again when Cleveland called and asked what I thought I was doing. I
told him I was flying the missed. He then, in a very sarcastic tone,
asked how I knew what altitude I was climbing to. I replied that it was
charted on the missed.

He was very busy and I think he just forgot about us. I reminded him
that my flight plan said I planned to shoot the approach, fly the missed
and then direct to ELM. He then said "climb to 7000", but gave no
aircraft ID. I waited to see if another airplane replied as I assumed
it was for someone else and the ID had been stepped on. After maybe 20
seconds, I called again as asked if the 7000 was for me. He said
something like "I assigned it to you some time ago." The next
transmission came from a different voice, and a much less grouchy one I
might add, and cleared me direct ELM. Still not sure what happened, but
I think he was overloaded, forgot about us and didn't hear the missed
call. Next time I'll call if I don't get the "frequency change
approved" call within 10 miles or so of the field. Every flight is a
lesson...


Matt

Matt Whiting wrote:
I made my first flight in actual yesterday from ELM to BFD and back.
Shot the GPS to BFD and weather was below minimums so I got to shoot a
real missed approach in actual, something I'd never done before. We
didn't plan to land at BFD anyway, but it was fun to fly along at the
MDA and seeing next to nothing. My instructor did catch a glimpse of
the runway as I was climbing out, but we'd have never gotten down to it.

I may be reading more into that last statement than you intended (and if
I am, please correct me), but I'm wondering what you would have done if
you thought you could have gotten down to it?

Once you decide to go missed, all efforts to find the runway should stop
and your full attention paid to flying the airplane, getting it climbing
again and navigating the missed procedure. You never want to get into a
situation where you start the missed, catch a glimpse of the runway,
change your mind about the missed, and make an attempt to land.

With two pilots, the other pilot (in this case, your instructor) should
have been exercising a little CRM by monitoring your instruments to make
sure you've got positive rate of climb established, followed checklist
items like gear and flaps up, and are following the right track.
There's no value to his looking out the window to see if he can catch a
glimpse of the runway.

The next transmission came from a different voice, and a much less
grouchy one I might add, and cleared me direct ELM. Still not sure
what happened, but I think he was overloaded, forgot about us and
didn't hear the missed call.

Yeah, sounds like it. The only thing to do in this situation is
remember the "aviate, navigate, communicate" mantra. Sort out the
confusion with ATC, but make sure it doesn't distract you from your
primary task of flying the airplane.

Roy Smith wrote:

Matt Whiting wrote:

I made my first flight in actual yesterday from ELM to BFD and back.
Shot the GPS to BFD and weather was below minimums so I got to shoot a
real missed approach in actual, something I'd never done before. We
didn't plan to land at BFD anyway, but it was fun to fly along at the
MDA and seeing next to nothing. My instructor did catch a glimpse of
the runway as I was climbing out, but we'd have never gotten down to it.


I may be reading more into that last statement than you intended (and if
I am, please correct me), but I'm wondering what you would have done if
you thought you could have gotten down to it?

Nothing as we didn't plan to land, it was simply a round robin training
flight. My instructor was simply pointing out that even though we saw
the runway at that point, it wouldn't have been sufficient to execute a
landing.


Once you decide to go missed, all efforts to find the runway should stop
and your full attention paid to flying the airplane, getting it climbing
again and navigating the missed procedure. You never want to get into a
situation where you start the missed, catch a glimpse of the runway,
change your mind about the missed, and make an attempt to land.

I agree. I was flying the missed ... it was the instructor who was
looking down for the runway.


With two pilots, the other pilot (in this case, your instructor) should
have been exercising a little CRM by monitoring your instruments to make
sure you've got positive rate of climb established, followed checklist
items like gear and flaps up, and are following the right track.
There's no value to his looking out the window to see if he can catch a
glimpse of the runway.

I think it was more curiosity on his part as to how well I'd flow the
approach. I was less than one bar off at the MAP and I believe the 89B
is something like .3 NM full scale after the FAF. So, I should have
been only about 0.06 NM off the runway.


The next transmission came from a different voice, and a much less
grouchy one I might add, and cleared me direct ELM. Still not sure
what happened, but I think he was overloaded, forgot about us and
didn't hear the missed call.


Yeah, sounds like it. The only thing to do in this situation is
remember the "aviate, navigate, communicate" mantra. Sort out the
confusion with ATC, but make sure it doesn't distract you from your
primary task of flying the airplane.

Trust me, I did. I was flying the missed procedure whether the
controller liked it or not. We were in actual, with ceilings less than
500' over mountainous terrain. No controller was going to distract me.
However, the missed at Bradford for this GPS approach was pretty much
a straight ahead climb to a hold, so it didn't take a lot of effort to
fly it.

I'm still not a fan of the King 89B. I flew with a Garmin when I had my
Skylane and, at least for me, the Garmin was much easier to learn and
fly. The King with its cumbersome knobs for page and option selection
simply isn't intuitive. I much prefer arrows for menu selection as it
more closely mimics a keyboard. Whoever dreamed up using a rotary knob
for cursor movement should be banished from avionics design!

I'm sure I'll like the 89B more as I gain familiarity, but the interface
just doesn't seem natural as compared to the Garmin which operates much
more like a PC or PDA. Even my instructor, who has flown this airplane
for many years with the 89B, still doesn't have it all figured out and
occasionally turns the know the wrong way or can't find the page he
wants at first. I can see why Garmin became so popular, so fast.


Matt

Matt Whiting wrote:

I'm still not a fan of the King 89B. I flew with a Garmin when I had my
Skylane and, at least for me, the Garmin was much easier to learn and
fly. The King with its cumbersome knobs for page and option selection
simply isn't intuitive. I much prefer arrows for menu selection as it
more closely mimics a keyboard. Whoever dreamed up using a rotary knob
for cursor movement should be banished from avionics design!

I'm sure I'll like the 89B more as I gain familiarity, but the interface
just doesn't seem natural as compared to the Garmin which operates much
more like a PC or PDA. Even my instructor, who has flown this airplane
for many years with the 89B, still doesn't have it all figured out and
occasionally turns the know the wrong way or can't find the page he
wants at first. I can see why Garmin became so popular, so fast.

FWIW, I first learned on the 89B (and later the 94, I think). I now fly
club airplanes that are all 430ed. I find the BK more intuitive. I
suspect that "intuitive" in this case really means "most like that on which
I learned".

After all, it's not as if we've evolved for GPS use grin.

On the BK, for example, I never turn the knob the wrong way. I often do
with the Garmin; it just seems backwards to me for some reason.

However, I do need to add a caveat: I've been using computers and graphical
interfaces since well before MSFT entered the market. To me, "PC
interfaces" (ie. the MSFT window manager) seem terribly counterintuitive.
The modal Apple interface is, to me, no better. But the same reasoning
("not what I first learned") applies here.

One win the Garmin has for me over the BK (there are a few, but this is the
largest) is that the Garmin is more easily read. If I were starting from
scratch, that could very possibly put me in the Garmin buyer's camp.

- Andrew