Busted IFR Checkride

David Brooks wrote:
On my instrument ride, the day was very windy giving moderate turbulence
down low and probably a 40K wind higher up. It took me about 3 circuits
to get the holding pattern nailed on both wind correction angle and
timing, but the DE saw that I was getting it closer each time and that
was all he cared about. I think demonstrating good judgement and good
situational awareness is much more important than holding the needle
centered all the time.


Me similar. I got blown right across the inbound track on the first
outbound. Luckily I caught it and my SA recovered enough that I was quickly
back on the inbound course. The only thing he dinged me for was not using
the localizer for added SA on an NDB hold (I was trying to do the NDB hold
without "cheating", I guess).

Yes, it is hard to know what any given DE wants to see. My DE is a
corporate pilot at the company I work for. He was very open while on
the ground about what he wanted to see and told me that he needed to see
each PTS item performed using only the navaids appropriate to each item,
however, he would also ask questions during the ride about what I would
do if an approach like an NDB had an ILS to the same runway also. I
told him I'd use the localizer and marker beacons as additional
confirmations of the NDB and time, and that seemed to be what he wanted
to hear. I felt at ease with him right from the oral part of the test
on through, so if I wasn't sure what he wanted to see, I just outright
asked him. I didn't try to read his mind. And if something didn't go
the way I wanted it to go, I talked out loud about what was wrong and
what I was doing to correct. He seemed to have no problem with that at
all. I talked my way through all three circuits of the hold and kept
saying what I was doing each time and why so that he also didn't have to
try to read my mind.

However, I've heard tales of examiners that really didn't care for
pilots who did that. I guess you just have to try to understand your
DE, just like you had to figure out what any given college professor
wanted to see on tests and papers.


Matt

Stan Gosnell wrote:
Andrew Sarangan wrote in
. 158:


When you have a crosswind, the hold will not be a race track pattern.
The outbound should not be parallel to the inbound if there is a
crosswind.


Why? After the first lap, you should know where the wind is and make
appropriate heading corrections to maintain some semblance of a racetrack
pattern, and you should usually have some idea of the winds, anyway.

Because of the effect of the wind during the turns. If you fly the "off
the holding course" leg parallel to the holding course, then you will
end up either turning either too short or crossing the course on the way
back. The fly a true race track pattern with a cross wind component,
you would have to fly variable bank turns as we all did when practicing
turns around a point in the wind while practicing for our private. This
is REALLY hard to do when you can't see the ground!


In real life, though, nobody cares what the pattern looks like, as long as
you stay in protected airspace. I try to keep it as oval as possible,
though, just out of pride.

But if you do this in a stiff crosswind, you will end up having to make
one of the turns at a greater than standard rate and the other at less
than standard rate in order to roll out on the holding course each
circuit. I believe that is why the normal recommendation is to double
your inbound wind correction angle on the outbound leg (assuming you are
holding towards the station). This will give you a nonparallel outbound
course, but will allow both of your turns to be closer to standard rate.


Matt

Ron Rosenfeld wrote:
On 22 Apr 2004 23:59:48 GMT, Andrew Sarangan wrote:


I never understood why holding patterns are so damn important. I have
received a holding clearance only once in my life. Why are they required
for the recency experience and the checkride? Also, why are the entry
procedures so important? Is there any example where an incorrect entry
procedure would have caused an accident?


The only requirement for a holding pattern is to stay within the protected
area. Getting to the holding fix and turning the shortest way to remain
within the protected area can be a simpler (and acceptable) method of
getting into the hold than the "recommended" procedures.

From the IR PTS holding procedures: "Explains and uses an entry
procedure that ensures the aircraft remains within the holding pattern
airspace for a standard, nonstandard, published, or nonpublished holding
pattern."

So far as it's usefulness, just a few days ago I missed an approach into my
home base because the ceiling was below minimums. The missed approach
procedure included a holding pattern. My plan was to hold for a 1/2 hour
and then try the approach again. If that didn't work, I would be off to my
alternate. Of course, my fairly new CNX80 made holding pretty simple. The
box even adjusted the holding pattern size (and shape) to account for the
winds!

That is definitely cheating! :-)


Matt

Roy Smith wrote:
Ron Rosenfeld wrote:

Of course, my fairly new CNX80 made holding pretty simple. The
box even adjusted the holding pattern size (and shape) to account for the
winds!


How does it know what the wind is?

My club has the CNX-80 in four of our planes now. It's a cool radio,
but there is certainly a learning curve. I've got about 25 hours behind
box now, and havn't learned everything there is to know about it yet.

Seems like it would have to have an internal compass or some other
source of heading information to do this trick.


Matt

Matt Whiting wrote in message ...
Dave Jacobowitz wrote:
I did make some mistakes on the checkride. One of
which was flying on a vector right through the FAC
on a partial-panel VOR-A approach to TCY. I was
behind the plane, had not dialed in the OBS as
quickly as I should have, when I did, the needle was
already on the wrong side.

I'm just refreshing myself on the regs getting ready to re-enter flying
after several years off, but I seem to recall that you could have
something like 2/3 or so needle deflection before you are out of
tolerances on VOR tracking. Unless you had FS deflection, I don't see
why the DE would have or should have failed you.

I think it's a judgement call. Yes, it was within the deflection
allowed on the PTS during an approach. However, I didn't even
know where I was relative to the FAC prior to twisting the
OBS appropriately, and then it took me, maybe five seconds
to mentally accept the fact that I was past where I wanted to
be. So, it was a short loss of situational awareness,
which he could have failed me for.

On my instrument ride, the day was very windy giving moderate turbulence
down low and probably a 40K wind higher up. It took me about 3 circuits
to get the holding pattern nailed on both wind correction angle and
timing, but the DE saw that I was getting it closer each time and that
was all he cared about. I think demonstrating good judgement and good
situational awareness is much more important than holding the needle
centered all the time.

Ah, I've heard several people say that a windy day is better
for a checkride because it's hard for a DE to know the
difference between pilot-induced and weather-induced
sloppiness. I think there might be something to this, but
only people who have tried it both ways can know for sure.



-- dave j

Andrew Sarangan wrote:


If you have a crosswind, you can't maintain a racetrack shape if you want
to do standard rate turns. That is why we double the wind correction on
the outbound. The goal is to make standard rate turns on both ends of the
holding pattern, not to keep the outbound parallel to the inbound.

Your collective "we" doesn't include all of us. ;-) If your churning along at
200 or 230 knots, standard rate is useless. It then becomes a 25-degree bank
achieved. In fact, that is what the writer of the holding pattern criteria
presumed, because the criteria were rewritten in 1963 to account for military
and transport jet operations.

Little biddy puddle jumpers have more airspace than they could ever use. ;-)

Andrew Sarangan wrote

If you have a crosswind, you can't maintain a racetrack shape if you
want to do standard rate turns. That is why we double the wind
correction on the outbound. The goal is to make standard rate turns on
both ends of the holding pattern, not to keep the outbound parallel to
the inbound.

Gee...thanks for the explanation Andrew, and to think that for all of
these years, for a one minute pattern, I've been teaching that one
should *triple* the drift on the outbound leg. We taught it that way at
PanAm long before the FAA changed the AIM as follows.

From AIM 5-3-7

(c) Compensate for wind effect primarily by drift correction on the inbound
and outbound legs. When outbound, triple the inbound drift correction to
avoid major turning adjustments; e.g., if correcting left by 8 degrees when
inbound, correct right by 24 degrees when outbound.



Bob Moore

Bob Moore wrote in
. 8:

Andrew Sarangan wrote

If you have a crosswind, you can't maintain a racetrack shape if you
want to do standard rate turns. That is why we double the wind
correction on the outbound. The goal is to make standard rate turns
on both ends of the holding pattern, not to keep the outbound
parallel to the inbound.

Gee...thanks for the explanation Andrew, and to think that for all of
these years, for a one minute pattern, I've been teaching that one
should *triple* the drift on the outbound leg. We taught it that way
at PanAm long before the FAA changed the AIM as follows.

From AIM 5-3-7

(c) Compensate for wind effect primarily by drift correction on the
inbound and outbound legs. When outbound, triple the inbound drift
correction to avoid major turning adjustments; e.g., if correcting
left by 8 degrees when inbound, correct right by 24 degrees when
outbound.



Bob Moore


OK, now I'm confused. If you triple the correction, wouldn't the inbound
turn be less than standard rate? What am I missing here?

Andrew Sarangan wrote in
. 158:

If you have a crosswind, you can't maintain a racetrack shape if you
want to do standard rate turns. That is why we double the wind
correction on the outbound. The goal is to make standard rate turns on
both ends of the holding pattern, not to keep the outbound parallel to
the inbound.

It won't be a perfect racetrack, true, but I said "some semblance of a
racetrack", as the original poster was talking about one that didn't
resemble a racetrack at all. I don't try for perfect standard rate turns,
I try for keeping a general distance from the inbound course, usually using
less than standard rate on the turn into the wind. If the turns are
somewhat less or more than standard, I don't care. With GPS, this is all
easy enough. If you're doing NDB holding, then you have no idea what shape
your pattern is, and at least I don't care. Blindly applying all rules of
thumb all the time isn't something I advocate.

--
Regards,

Stan

Matt Whiting wrote in
:

Seems like it would have to have an internal compass or some other
source of heading information to do this trick.

It has to know your heading and airspeed. Knowing this, calculating the
wind is trivial. Most boxes require the pilot to input this information,
because the normal airspeed and heading indicators don't have electric
output. With new glass cockpits, this information becomes available to the
boxes.

--
Regards,

Stan