Kaye
Line Up and Wait
Had a good workout yesterday practicing approaches. My original game plan had to be scratched because of nav outages at the 2 airports I wanted to use. Made a change of plans and set off with the CFII. The whole flight was a learning session, of course….isn’t that what I’m paying the CFII for…..but he did pull a new trick on me. We were returning to JYO on an IFR flight plan, and there was plenty of turbulence with the weather system that was passing through. I was hand flying the plane and trying to review and set up for the approach…..yeah, I know, those without AP’s do it all the time, but it’s certainly challenging for me, especially with the wx. I have a slaved HSI, and the CFII reached over, flipped the slave switch to free and then turned the heading card so I now had a failed HI. This was a first for me. Sure we’ve worked with failed instruments, but they were just covered up. Makes it real easy to switch your brain gears to change your scan. But this time, it’s not covered, and damn, it’s hard to ignore that HSI….it’s right there in your view as you’re scanning the AI.
Of course, that’s why you carry stickies so failed instruments can be covered. But my stickies are in the flight bag sitting in the back seat. And I’m already working hard to maintain altitude and heading, oh yeah….and reset the localizer in to nav2…..etc. etc. There was no way I could reach in the back seat to dig out the stickies. And then my GPS and MFD “died” so I no longer had their help. ATC didn’t know I had an “emergency”, so my final vector to intercept the localizer was really tight….guess who blew thru it cause I couldn’t completely ignore that stinkin’ HSI. My instructor let me struggle, ATC let me know I went thru the localizer and gave me a new heading, and I finally completed the approach without “crashing”.
Wow, what an experience to have the distraction of a failed instrument. Oh, and I’ve learned my lesson….ALWAYS have my stickies handy.
Of course, that’s why you carry stickies so failed instruments can be covered. But my stickies are in the flight bag sitting in the back seat. And I’m already working hard to maintain altitude and heading, oh yeah….and reset the localizer in to nav2…..etc. etc. There was no way I could reach in the back seat to dig out the stickies. And then my GPS and MFD “died” so I no longer had their help. ATC didn’t know I had an “emergency”, so my final vector to intercept the localizer was really tight….guess who blew thru it cause I couldn’t completely ignore that stinkin’ HSI. My instructor let me struggle, ATC let me know I went thru the localizer and gave me a new heading, and I finally completed the approach without “crashing”.
Wow, what an experience to have the distraction of a failed instrument. Oh, and I’ve learned my lesson….ALWAYS have my stickies handy.