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Final Approach
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2005
- Messages
- 9,488
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Display name:
Ben
Long IFR X-C
I am so wasted, but jazzed up at the same time. Although I had flown a monster 3,000 (yes, that’s three thousand) n.m. trip this past summer, it just wasn’t the same thing as this 300+ n.m. trip. For one thing, my teacher makes the IFR X-C a final exam. If he has to intervene, you fail. Long story short—I didn’t fail. If you like reading, here’s the rundown.
Preflight:
This was the easiest part. I am quite accustomed to doing flight plans, and tend to do them for short trips of even 30 n.n., just for the practice. We went over the numbers and the specific approaches, and I got the seal of approval. I got the weather, filed, and out we went to the bird. My nervous headache was beginning to get worse, but I was excited.
Leg one: KBWI-KHGR
I started my timer and pushed in the power and was on my way. I went into the “soup” at about 1,000 AGL. (I guess my CFII was being a nice guy, and letting me enjoy some CAVU for a few seconds.) Very soon we were on course to EMI. Not much to report here except that we were making better time than planned. My CFII then informed me that we would be doing the ILS at Hagerstown, instead of the VOR approach. I’ve only done this once. Common sense, however, had dictated that I review ALL approaches for ALL airports. My CFII didn’t seem surprised to see me pull out my annotated plate for this approach. The approach itself went reasonably well, though not scintillatingly well. I was happy to get my two dumbest errors of the day out of the way: 1) calling Hagerstown Tower “Zlin Tower,” which had both my CFII and the tower controller laughing for several minutes, and 2) performing perhaps the worst landing I’ve done in about a year. I felt good, ironically, because I knew I had gotten the worst of the day out of the way!
Leg two: KHRG-KCBE
We were up in no time, and headed on the essentially straight leg west to KCBE with the infamous LOC-A approach. For practice, I was not allowed to use DME, which was disconcerting, but not a deal breaker for the approach. On the inbound leg, though, there was so much turbulence, that I actually momentarily got nearly a full-scale deflection on the needle. I immediately stopped descending while simultaneously regaining the needle. I haven’t done this since I first started IFR lessons, but I didn’t let it get to me. My CFII pointed out that this would probably have been a bust, except that I did take the correct actions for safety. The deflection happened fast, but only lasted a few seconds. I beat myself up over that one, but I know it will all come out in the push time preparing for the checkride. Aside from this, the approach was flown well, with no other mistakes. As a bonus, my landing was much better here—not as smooth in the transition from hood to visual, but with a smooth touchdown.
Lunch break.
Peed. Ate food. Debriefed. Drank two cups of coffee. Filed the next portion of our flight. Peed again. Refreshed.
Leg three: KHGR-KLNS
I was feeling more confident now. I had anticipated some gotchas on this portion of the flight (such as how to identify intersections with one VOR and no DME), and the navigation went quite professionally. The nice controllers gave us permission to intercept the final approach course about 40 miles out! I flew the approach at KLNS better than the others, never deviating more than one dot. Ahhh—much better.
Leg four: KLNS-HOME!
From KLNS we were given a heading to fly, followed shortly thereafter by the words we all love to hear, “direct.” This part of the trip went by fast. I was fully in swing, now, and I was also back on my home turf, having been up to Lancaster probably 15 times. The approach back at Baltimore was the once-dreaded, now-beloved VOR28 Circle-to-land Rwy 33R. We do this approach when approaching from the northeast, even when given the visual, because the controllers are used to it, they set you up for it, and you are essentially flying a right base, anyway. This approach was the very best with the needle stuck in the center, followed by my best landing of the day. As we taxied back to the ramp in the setting sun, all I could say to my CFII was “thank you for this experience.” He said that he’d had fun, and that I’d done well.
In sum, I’d give myself a B+ for the approaches and an A- for the navigation portion, which was really the main point. I need to be able to “become one with all approaches,” but never fear: we’re going to nail everything down. No procedural errors today, and aside from that one brief incident, I wasn’t caught with my pants down. I’m very happy I didn’t do anything dumb like turn the wrong way or dial in the wrong frequency—those can be real deal busters!
I am so wasted, but jazzed up at the same time. Although I had flown a monster 3,000 (yes, that’s three thousand) n.m. trip this past summer, it just wasn’t the same thing as this 300+ n.m. trip. For one thing, my teacher makes the IFR X-C a final exam. If he has to intervene, you fail. Long story short—I didn’t fail. If you like reading, here’s the rundown.
Preflight:
This was the easiest part. I am quite accustomed to doing flight plans, and tend to do them for short trips of even 30 n.n., just for the practice. We went over the numbers and the specific approaches, and I got the seal of approval. I got the weather, filed, and out we went to the bird. My nervous headache was beginning to get worse, but I was excited.
Leg one: KBWI-KHGR
I started my timer and pushed in the power and was on my way. I went into the “soup” at about 1,000 AGL. (I guess my CFII was being a nice guy, and letting me enjoy some CAVU for a few seconds.) Very soon we were on course to EMI. Not much to report here except that we were making better time than planned. My CFII then informed me that we would be doing the ILS at Hagerstown, instead of the VOR approach. I’ve only done this once. Common sense, however, had dictated that I review ALL approaches for ALL airports. My CFII didn’t seem surprised to see me pull out my annotated plate for this approach. The approach itself went reasonably well, though not scintillatingly well. I was happy to get my two dumbest errors of the day out of the way: 1) calling Hagerstown Tower “Zlin Tower,” which had both my CFII and the tower controller laughing for several minutes, and 2) performing perhaps the worst landing I’ve done in about a year. I felt good, ironically, because I knew I had gotten the worst of the day out of the way!
Leg two: KHRG-KCBE
We were up in no time, and headed on the essentially straight leg west to KCBE with the infamous LOC-A approach. For practice, I was not allowed to use DME, which was disconcerting, but not a deal breaker for the approach. On the inbound leg, though, there was so much turbulence, that I actually momentarily got nearly a full-scale deflection on the needle. I immediately stopped descending while simultaneously regaining the needle. I haven’t done this since I first started IFR lessons, but I didn’t let it get to me. My CFII pointed out that this would probably have been a bust, except that I did take the correct actions for safety. The deflection happened fast, but only lasted a few seconds. I beat myself up over that one, but I know it will all come out in the push time preparing for the checkride. Aside from this, the approach was flown well, with no other mistakes. As a bonus, my landing was much better here—not as smooth in the transition from hood to visual, but with a smooth touchdown.
Lunch break.
Peed. Ate food. Debriefed. Drank two cups of coffee. Filed the next portion of our flight. Peed again. Refreshed.
Leg three: KHGR-KLNS
I was feeling more confident now. I had anticipated some gotchas on this portion of the flight (such as how to identify intersections with one VOR and no DME), and the navigation went quite professionally. The nice controllers gave us permission to intercept the final approach course about 40 miles out! I flew the approach at KLNS better than the others, never deviating more than one dot. Ahhh—much better.
Leg four: KLNS-HOME!
From KLNS we were given a heading to fly, followed shortly thereafter by the words we all love to hear, “direct.” This part of the trip went by fast. I was fully in swing, now, and I was also back on my home turf, having been up to Lancaster probably 15 times. The approach back at Baltimore was the once-dreaded, now-beloved VOR28 Circle-to-land Rwy 33R. We do this approach when approaching from the northeast, even when given the visual, because the controllers are used to it, they set you up for it, and you are essentially flying a right base, anyway. This approach was the very best with the needle stuck in the center, followed by my best landing of the day. As we taxied back to the ramp in the setting sun, all I could say to my CFII was “thank you for this experience.” He said that he’d had fun, and that I’d done well.
In sum, I’d give myself a B+ for the approaches and an A- for the navigation portion, which was really the main point. I need to be able to “become one with all approaches,” but never fear: we’re going to nail everything down. No procedural errors today, and aside from that one brief incident, I wasn’t caught with my pants down. I’m very happy I didn’t do anything dumb like turn the wrong way or dial in the wrong frequency—those can be real deal busters!
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