Prepping for IR checkride - questions

My examiner left our panel mounted VFR GPS on while I was doing partial
panel stuff. After that approach, I noticed him casually turn the GPS to a
page that didn't give me any useful info. Not sure if it was on purpose or
not. At least it gave me a chance to see how the winds were affecting my
ground track. Made the next 2 approaches, even without GPS, a bit easier.


"Paul Folbrecht" wrote in message
...
_Excellent_ point. My VFR GPS helps so much for situational awareness
(I have no DME), and I'm still struggling a bit with whether to use it
on the checkride. As of now I have it on the copilot yoke anyway
(because I need my chart clip and timer on my yoke) but I can still look
at it if need be. One component to the question is whether or not the
DE will just choose to make me do without it anyway.

It really helps to know how far you are from the station, using DME,
GPS, or a crossing radial. Five miles out, you still want to be
tracking back to the radial. One mile out, calling it close enough
and holding heading makes more sense. Without a good idea of how far
out you are, it's hard to know which is the right strategy.

I still remember one training flight I took years ago where I saw the
CDI head out to the peg and confidently said to my instructor, "We're
almost on top of the VOR, so I'm not going to chase the needle; I'll
just hold heading and wait for the To/From to flip". In reality, we
were still a bunch of miles out and he just sat there watching me head
off into space.

In article ,
"Steven Barnes" wrote:

My examiner left our panel mounted VFR GPS on while I was doing partial
panel stuff. After that approach, I noticed him casually turn the GPS to a
page that didn't give me any useful info. Not sure if it was on purpose or
not. At least it gave me a chance to see how the winds were affecting my
ground track. Made the next 2 approaches, even without GPS, a bit easier.

I'm sure it was on purpose.

A couple a weeks ago I did an IFR dual Cross Country with a student who
had his Garmin 295 (VFR GPS) Mounted in the airplane. I fully believe
in using everthing you got and were were IMC for about 1/2 of the
flight.

Just as we intercepted the Arc for a VOR DME approach in IMC I noted
that the the GPS appeared to be frozen. We flew the full approach to an
actual missed. We never did see the airport and then shot the ILS at
another nearby airport and and were climbing out for our return flight
before we felt like we had enough time to see what was going on with
the GPS. It was completely locked up and still showed us on the Arc for
the VOR DME Approach. We finally had to remove the batteries to reset
it as even the power switch was frozen.

Your DE was just simulating this exact scenario. It was great lesson
for my student.

Brian
CFIIG/ASEL

On Wed, 22 Dec 2004 03:39:08 GMT, Steven Barnes wrote:

My examiner left our panel mounted VFR GPS on while I was doing partial
panel stuff. After that approach, I noticed him casually turn the GPS to a
page that didn't give me any useful info. Not sure if it was on purpose or
not. At least it gave me a chance to see how the winds were affecting my
ground track. Made the next 2 approaches, even without GPS, a bit easier.

On my checkride, I did everything possible NOT to use my VFR panel mounted
GPS on my partial panel approach UNTIL the DE gave me a subtle hint to use
"every available" tool in my plane.

With that subtle hint, it didn't take me long on my partial panel approach
to code in DRCT JAN, put it on the CDI page and fly my partial panel with
the help of the GPS.

I had to set the CDI page to show my track and desired track, all while
flying the plane.

The DE's rational was that you lost vacuum, you still have electrical, so
use all tools available on the electrical system.

On my full panel approaches, the DE was glad I used the GPS to monitor the
tracking of my flight in the CDI window. It helped me figure out the
crosswind component to set my header bug on my localizer and ILS
approaches. I never use the map feature anyway, so it felt comfortable for
me on the CDI window on my checkride.

Allen