IFR Lesson 7 - It's Not Easy Being Green
11/30/2007 Filed in: Flying
IFR Lesson 7 - It's Not Easy Being Green
I point to the sleeping dragon that is some Evangelical group's 747 short that is even now sitting on the ramp at MQY. It easily dwarfs all of the corporate jets that, until today, appeared big to me.
Me: My God! Look at that monster!
CFII: Yeah, it's apparently a 747 short.
Me: I've never even heard of such a thing.
CFII: Me either until this one.
Me: Shhhh! You might wake it!
I decide that I no longer need to look for the runway environment on my approaches now. This beasty is now my de-facto landmark for all approaches into Smyrna. Might behoove me to kill power as I get close though so it won't hear me. You know, in case it's hungry.
After successfully sneaking past "Smaug" we take off into the wild blue yonder. Right away life gets busy as I have all of about 5 minutes between wheels up and when I'll intercept the DME arc into M33 (Gallatin). Having only flown a DME arc twice now, let me assure you that I'll need a minimum of 6 minutes to properly prepare for this one.
I get the set VOR frequency, ID it, and tune the CDI. This is as far as I get before the mistakes start piling up. Let's skip the narrative and make a bulleted list of mistakes to save us all some time, mkay?
o This approach is based on flying *from* the BNA VOR. I set the CDI *to* it. And left it there.
o It's an 11 DME arc. Not 10.
o Despite initially turning in the right direction, I get off the arc nearly a mile right away and can't seem to fix it.
o By fixating on the above I also manage to blow right through where I'm supposed to turn inbound.
I'm an IFR natural.
I manage to catch that last mistake within a few furlongs and crank my way over into a very nice question mark shaped turn for ATC. CFII catches all the other mistakes for me. Glad I brought that dude along, he's pretty handy.
The rest of the approach goes about as mediocre as you'd expect in light of the above. One last problem is that I failed to take into account (again) that we're flying away from the VOR, meaning the CDI is, of course, getting less sensitive. So while I thought I was doing a bang-up job of navigating, that one dot deflection turned into a rather ugly mess at the end.
Me: Ok, there's minimum.
CFII: You just broke out.
Me: (taking glasses off and looking) Um... where is it?
CFII: (silence)
I glance back at the chart. I should be right on top of it. If it were a snake I'd already be sucking venom from a gaping wound. As it is, I'm sucking other things in abundance.
Me: Really... where IS it?
(pause)
Me: Where the HELL is that runw... oh, THERE!
CFII: Good, now circle to land and give me a touch and go.
So I circle on around and end up really high. Er, strictly speaking, of course. I've prided myself on timing my visual approaches much better than previously. This one has put me a lot closer to the runway than I'm used to, and we started lower, so I had trouble judging just about everything. I have to slip down to the runway.
Me: Haven't done this in a while...
One bone-jarring TNG later and we're on our way to Bowling Green (KBWG) where I'll think of new and exciting ways to screw up the ILS 03 approach! Instrument flying is fun!
When we close in on BWG, there's a Seminole buzzing around in the pattern. Only problem with that is that I'm nowhere near the point where I can do CTAF radio calls during an approach I'm flying. From a workload standpoint, I'm just not there yet. We're going to fly the full approach, so he really shouldn't be a factor until we get somewhere near the final approach fix, but I know I should be making calls to clue him in. CFII agrees to takeover the radio for me. For that he's earned a mental hug and an "attaboy!"
Miraculously, the ILS isn't completely terrible but CFII has to prod me on this or that along the way. Unfortunately, co-dependence doesn't work well in single-pilot IFR so apparently I still have work to do.
After landing, we shutdown for a quick break.
CFII: On the way back you'll depart VFR and then call flight service to file in the air. Then pick up clearance from center.
Me: Hrm. I will?
CFII: (nods)
Geez, doesn't this guy ever stop teaching? He's a machine! Alright, wheels up then, Professor.
Off we go and after a few attempts, FSS finally acknowledges my existence. One air-filed IFR flight plan later and I flip over to get clearance. Center obliges and it's back to MQY for an unremarkable (hey, that's progress!) ILS 32.
Fortunately for us Smaug is based on the other side of the airport so I don't have to treat CFII to an engine-out ILS approach. Stop looking at me like that. I'm sure I could manage.
I point to the sleeping dragon that is some Evangelical group's 747 short that is even now sitting on the ramp at MQY. It easily dwarfs all of the corporate jets that, until today, appeared big to me.
Me: My God! Look at that monster!
CFII: Yeah, it's apparently a 747 short.
Me: I've never even heard of such a thing.
CFII: Me either until this one.
Me: Shhhh! You might wake it!
I decide that I no longer need to look for the runway environment on my approaches now. This beasty is now my de-facto landmark for all approaches into Smyrna. Might behoove me to kill power as I get close though so it won't hear me. You know, in case it's hungry.
After successfully sneaking past "Smaug" we take off into the wild blue yonder. Right away life gets busy as I have all of about 5 minutes between wheels up and when I'll intercept the DME arc into M33 (Gallatin). Having only flown a DME arc twice now, let me assure you that I'll need a minimum of 6 minutes to properly prepare for this one.
I get the set VOR frequency, ID it, and tune the CDI. This is as far as I get before the mistakes start piling up. Let's skip the narrative and make a bulleted list of mistakes to save us all some time, mkay?
o This approach is based on flying *from* the BNA VOR. I set the CDI *to* it. And left it there.
o It's an 11 DME arc. Not 10.
o Despite initially turning in the right direction, I get off the arc nearly a mile right away and can't seem to fix it.
o By fixating on the above I also manage to blow right through where I'm supposed to turn inbound.
I'm an IFR natural.
I manage to catch that last mistake within a few furlongs and crank my way over into a very nice question mark shaped turn for ATC. CFII catches all the other mistakes for me. Glad I brought that dude along, he's pretty handy.
The rest of the approach goes about as mediocre as you'd expect in light of the above. One last problem is that I failed to take into account (again) that we're flying away from the VOR, meaning the CDI is, of course, getting less sensitive. So while I thought I was doing a bang-up job of navigating, that one dot deflection turned into a rather ugly mess at the end.
Me: Ok, there's minimum.
CFII: You just broke out.
Me: (taking glasses off and looking) Um... where is it?
CFII: (silence)
I glance back at the chart. I should be right on top of it. If it were a snake I'd already be sucking venom from a gaping wound. As it is, I'm sucking other things in abundance.
Me: Really... where IS it?
(pause)
Me: Where the HELL is that runw... oh, THERE!
CFII: Good, now circle to land and give me a touch and go.
So I circle on around and end up really high. Er, strictly speaking, of course. I've prided myself on timing my visual approaches much better than previously. This one has put me a lot closer to the runway than I'm used to, and we started lower, so I had trouble judging just about everything. I have to slip down to the runway.
Me: Haven't done this in a while...
One bone-jarring TNG later and we're on our way to Bowling Green (KBWG) where I'll think of new and exciting ways to screw up the ILS 03 approach! Instrument flying is fun!
When we close in on BWG, there's a Seminole buzzing around in the pattern. Only problem with that is that I'm nowhere near the point where I can do CTAF radio calls during an approach I'm flying. From a workload standpoint, I'm just not there yet. We're going to fly the full approach, so he really shouldn't be a factor until we get somewhere near the final approach fix, but I know I should be making calls to clue him in. CFII agrees to takeover the radio for me. For that he's earned a mental hug and an "attaboy!"
Miraculously, the ILS isn't completely terrible but CFII has to prod me on this or that along the way. Unfortunately, co-dependence doesn't work well in single-pilot IFR so apparently I still have work to do.
After landing, we shutdown for a quick break.
CFII: On the way back you'll depart VFR and then call flight service to file in the air. Then pick up clearance from center.
Me: Hrm. I will?
CFII: (nods)
Geez, doesn't this guy ever stop teaching? He's a machine! Alright, wheels up then, Professor.
Off we go and after a few attempts, FSS finally acknowledges my existence. One air-filed IFR flight plan later and I flip over to get clearance. Center obliges and it's back to MQY for an unremarkable (hey, that's progress!) ILS 32.
Fortunately for us Smaug is based on the other side of the airport so I don't have to treat CFII to an engine-out ILS approach. Stop looking at me like that. I'm sure I could manage.