IFR Lesson 2 - Even Better Than the Real Thing
11/20/2007 Filed in: Flying
IFR Lesson 2 - Even Better Than the Real Thing
Bright and early, I'm back in the sim today at 7am, well-rested and fully prepared to blow through some assigned headings and altitudes. And with vigor.
Between failing my DG and attitude indicator, CFII appears to be having a grand ole time. Think I'll load a virus on the computer he's using tomorrow to see how HE handles adversity.
He shows me a thing or two about VOR tracking and how best to stop tracking in sinusoidal waves around the course. How dare he! I'm an artist, man! S-turns around a radial could be my Mona Lisa on flightaware.com.
Then he deems me ready to try my first approach. He hands me the VOR/DME RWY 18 approach into Shelbyville. With a lot of hand holding, I fly the approach reasonably well. Between now and checkride time I'll just need to eliminate the hand holding, or at least reduce it to a surreptitious caress of the leg. But I'm more or less satisfied that I didn't mangle my first one. Er, approach, not caress.
After lunch is my first IFR lesson in a real live airplane! We're going to fly the DA-40 as it's just come out of maintenance after some dude had a tail strike. Ack! I do a mega-thorough preflight on it, we climb in, start up and... hmm... shouldn't the RPM and MP gauges work? We shut down and try again. Nada.
Me: So that's it?
CFII: (sigh) Fraid so.
Ahh... airplanes. As my friend says, they're either broke or gonna be. This one, apparently, is at least the former.
Bright and early, I'm back in the sim today at 7am, well-rested and fully prepared to blow through some assigned headings and altitudes. And with vigor.
Between failing my DG and attitude indicator, CFII appears to be having a grand ole time. Think I'll load a virus on the computer he's using tomorrow to see how HE handles adversity.
He shows me a thing or two about VOR tracking and how best to stop tracking in sinusoidal waves around the course. How dare he! I'm an artist, man! S-turns around a radial could be my Mona Lisa on flightaware.com.
Then he deems me ready to try my first approach. He hands me the VOR/DME RWY 18 approach into Shelbyville. With a lot of hand holding, I fly the approach reasonably well. Between now and checkride time I'll just need to eliminate the hand holding, or at least reduce it to a surreptitious caress of the leg. But I'm more or less satisfied that I didn't mangle my first one. Er, approach, not caress.
After lunch is my first IFR lesson in a real live airplane! We're going to fly the DA-40 as it's just come out of maintenance after some dude had a tail strike. Ack! I do a mega-thorough preflight on it, we climb in, start up and... hmm... shouldn't the RPM and MP gauges work? We shut down and try again. Nada.
Me: So that's it?
CFII: (sigh) Fraid so.
Ahh... airplanes. As my friend says, they're either broke or gonna be. This one, apparently, is at least the former.