bluesky74656
Line Up and Wait
So, I took the flight. It went about as I had expected. Here are the details.
The context of the flight is that I'm most of the way through my Instrument training. I still need about 15 hours of instrument time before I can be signed off for the test, but I'm flying to PTS standards in a 172. So my instructor, knowing that after I got my Instrument rating I wanted to step up anyway, suggested that we start doing some instrument time in that. This would serve two purposes: it would save me some money by killing two birds with one stone and it would really push me to see at what point my instrument flying would start to fall apart.
We spent about an hour before the flight going over systems and the numbers for the plane. I was pretty familiar with the concepts from reading about them here, but it was good to be comprehensive. Then we filed a pretty long round robin with multiple approaches, and did a thorough walk around of the plane so that he could point out some of the new features to check.
The P factor on takeoff wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting, in fact I had a bit too much right rudder in to begin with. Once in the air, the thing did climb like a rocket. Once we reached our assigned altitude I started leveling off the same way I do in the 172, by pulling the power back. I had it down to about 13 inches before my instructor corrected me, telling me just to trim it down and let it accelerate. In the 172, there's not a huge difference between its climb and cruise speeds. In the Bonanza there is. First lesson.
At our first stop we flew a pretty decent localizer approach, but the missed got away from me a bit. At slower speeds I can start the plane back up then spend a few seconds looking at the plate to make sure I know what to do on the missed. In the Bonanza there was so much going on in the very short climb that I couldn't spend as much time as I needed looking down at the plate. I'll definitely need to make sure I do a better job briefing the missed.
On the next approach my instructor and I both got a bit disoriented as to where exactly we were in relation to the final approach course. Fortunately I figured it out first, but not before approach called us out on it. Made the low approach, and this time the missed was less complicated than the first approach so that went alright, but I forgot the cowl flaps on the climb. There are so many knobs!
The third approach was a VOR, and we requested the whole thing own navigation which went splendidly. After the missed, approach routed us around the Class B airspace to complete the round robin, which was by far the worst approach of the night.
The number 1 nav/com had been flaky at best all night, so we had been flying everything off of Nav 2. I commented on the way over that we'd therefore be flying the localizer approach, as the glideslope was on the number 1 CDI. My instructor said that since the glideslope and the localizer don't share all their circuitry that we might still be able to get glideslope information on Nav 1 and localizer on Nav 2, so I tuned both to the ILS frequency, and looked at the chart to be ready to fall back to the LOC approach if necessary. We intercepted the localizer and had no glideslope information, so I fell back to the LOC approach and in doing so made a critical error: I tuned the flaky Nav 1 to identify the FAF by a cross radial. It never showed us passing that radial. Eventually my instructor had me look out at the airport, and I could see that we were way too high. In a 172 I would have cut the power, dumped all the flaps and swung into a slip to try to get down, but I was less confident in my ability to pull that off in the Bonanza. My instructor wanted to show me just what that plane was capable of, so he asked for the controls, then dropped the gear and flaps, pulled power way back, slowed to about 70 knots, and the plane dropped like a brick. We touched down just past the PAPI with no problem.
So, certainly not perfect, passably good, but just about how I expected the flight to go. Here are some of my general thoughts on the Bonanza.
First, I loved how stable it was. Normally in the 172 I'm getting bounced all over the place, but in the Bonanza I could hold the VSI to within 200fpm at most times.
Second, there's a big difference between climb and cruise speeds. That means a lot of trimming. And then some more. What I found happening is that I would change the power, then trim for level flight, and then a minute later find that the plane was climbing or descending again. As the speed changed, I needed to keep up with the trimming.
Third, lots of air going over the control surfaces means small inputs make a big difference.
Fourth, the V-Tail threw me off a little bit. My instructor taught me to fly IFR by controlling the turn coordinator with the rudder only. So I ended up making most of my turns while on the instruments with the rudder alone. This doesn't work in a v-tail. I would push to start the turn and it wouldn't want to go, so I would push harder and harder until it finally started turning. Then I would push to stop the turn, and it wouldn't stop, so I'd push harder and harder until it finally did, about 15 degrees past where I wanted it to. Then I would start over-controlling on everything because turning felt so heavy. It was only at the very end of the flight that I realized the importance of making coordinated turns in this plane, so I'm looking forward to getting another shot at that next time.
The context of the flight is that I'm most of the way through my Instrument training. I still need about 15 hours of instrument time before I can be signed off for the test, but I'm flying to PTS standards in a 172. So my instructor, knowing that after I got my Instrument rating I wanted to step up anyway, suggested that we start doing some instrument time in that. This would serve two purposes: it would save me some money by killing two birds with one stone and it would really push me to see at what point my instrument flying would start to fall apart.
We spent about an hour before the flight going over systems and the numbers for the plane. I was pretty familiar with the concepts from reading about them here, but it was good to be comprehensive. Then we filed a pretty long round robin with multiple approaches, and did a thorough walk around of the plane so that he could point out some of the new features to check.
The P factor on takeoff wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting, in fact I had a bit too much right rudder in to begin with. Once in the air, the thing did climb like a rocket. Once we reached our assigned altitude I started leveling off the same way I do in the 172, by pulling the power back. I had it down to about 13 inches before my instructor corrected me, telling me just to trim it down and let it accelerate. In the 172, there's not a huge difference between its climb and cruise speeds. In the Bonanza there is. First lesson.
At our first stop we flew a pretty decent localizer approach, but the missed got away from me a bit. At slower speeds I can start the plane back up then spend a few seconds looking at the plate to make sure I know what to do on the missed. In the Bonanza there was so much going on in the very short climb that I couldn't spend as much time as I needed looking down at the plate. I'll definitely need to make sure I do a better job briefing the missed.
On the next approach my instructor and I both got a bit disoriented as to where exactly we were in relation to the final approach course. Fortunately I figured it out first, but not before approach called us out on it. Made the low approach, and this time the missed was less complicated than the first approach so that went alright, but I forgot the cowl flaps on the climb. There are so many knobs!
The third approach was a VOR, and we requested the whole thing own navigation which went splendidly. After the missed, approach routed us around the Class B airspace to complete the round robin, which was by far the worst approach of the night.
The number 1 nav/com had been flaky at best all night, so we had been flying everything off of Nav 2. I commented on the way over that we'd therefore be flying the localizer approach, as the glideslope was on the number 1 CDI. My instructor said that since the glideslope and the localizer don't share all their circuitry that we might still be able to get glideslope information on Nav 1 and localizer on Nav 2, so I tuned both to the ILS frequency, and looked at the chart to be ready to fall back to the LOC approach if necessary. We intercepted the localizer and had no glideslope information, so I fell back to the LOC approach and in doing so made a critical error: I tuned the flaky Nav 1 to identify the FAF by a cross radial. It never showed us passing that radial. Eventually my instructor had me look out at the airport, and I could see that we were way too high. In a 172 I would have cut the power, dumped all the flaps and swung into a slip to try to get down, but I was less confident in my ability to pull that off in the Bonanza. My instructor wanted to show me just what that plane was capable of, so he asked for the controls, then dropped the gear and flaps, pulled power way back, slowed to about 70 knots, and the plane dropped like a brick. We touched down just past the PAPI with no problem.
So, certainly not perfect, passably good, but just about how I expected the flight to go. Here are some of my general thoughts on the Bonanza.
First, I loved how stable it was. Normally in the 172 I'm getting bounced all over the place, but in the Bonanza I could hold the VSI to within 200fpm at most times.
Second, there's a big difference between climb and cruise speeds. That means a lot of trimming. And then some more. What I found happening is that I would change the power, then trim for level flight, and then a minute later find that the plane was climbing or descending again. As the speed changed, I needed to keep up with the trimming.
Third, lots of air going over the control surfaces means small inputs make a big difference.
Fourth, the V-Tail threw me off a little bit. My instructor taught me to fly IFR by controlling the turn coordinator with the rudder only. So I ended up making most of my turns while on the instruments with the rudder alone. This doesn't work in a v-tail. I would push to start the turn and it wouldn't want to go, so I would push harder and harder until it finally started turning. Then I would push to stop the turn, and it wouldn't stop, so I'd push harder and harder until it finally did, about 15 degrees past where I wanted it to. Then I would start over-controlling on everything because turning felt so heavy. It was only at the very end of the flight that I realized the importance of making coordinated turns in this plane, so I'm looking forward to getting another shot at that next time.
