Wet in Denver?! Whaaaasaat???

[denverpilot]

Saw the weather forecast go to “rain for the next six hours” and about jumped for joy... now to see if it’s connective... well, not really, just soggy as hell...! Yay!

1.7 on the Hobbs, 1.2 in IMC (pretty much from takeoff to landing on both, there were tiny breaks in things but nothing that was legal VMC... once in a while a glimmer of ground contact below but nothing useful straight ahead for a horizon ever) ...

Two ILS approaches, one at KFTG, one at home base KAPA.

Learned something about my GTN when controller vectors you through final and back going to KFTG. The auto flip to VLOC gets very confused. I’m intercepting what I thought was the localizer for KFTG and it’s not behaving. I had forked up the GTN but good.

I mess around following the track and watching altitude while the controller says “I see you west of the approach course” and I reply I’m fixing it, while fiddling with the GTN and then say screw it, slam the ILS frequency into Nav2 and say, that’s better.. and finish.

Looked up what it was doing on the ground... wasn’t vectored in VTF mode back across the course so the GTN gave up and left the ILS in Standby in Nav1.

Tune and identify, kids.

Anyway. Landed out of that dog’s breakfast of an ILS... and it was that bad. Probably the worst ILS I’ve ever flown, but survivable. I did think hard about missing it early and asking for a vector back to start it over again, but I knew the terrain and the approach and even have most of the frequencies memorized over there, so continued.

Any other approach I would have said, “Nope.” Maybe still should have, but it worked out. Lesson learned.

Used the restroom (without any hidden ramp fees - ha! - and no, not to clean my shorts...) then re-filed back to home and muuuuuuuch better.

ILS 35R to 6100’. I was soooooo ready to go around... boom, runway in sight. Nice. Right where it should have been.

The yuuuuuge vectors to the east were because DEN is landing north in this slop. Had to send me under all the arrivals on the way over, and around them on the way back. Kept calling traffic to me. Ha. Not gonna see ‘em in this soup, but thanks...

And there’s a lake in my hangar when it’s raining...

But the airplane is reeeeeeeealy clean now!

 

[BrianNC]

Man, that hangar gets kinda wet when it rains huh? Should it really be holding that much water in there?

 

[denverpilot]

Man, that hangar gets kinda wet when it rains huh? Should it really be holding that much water in there?

Some “brilliant” person put asphalt sealer around the base many years ago, and it held up only on the downhill side. LOL.

I need to go poke a big hole in it.

@jesse remembers one time when he visited when my chocks were frozen to the floor in the little depressions where the tires sit on a winter evening.

Learned a trick that day... hot water from the FBO coffee pot will melt that crap just long enough to break your chocks free.

But yeah, 70s “portable” hangars with water running through them have interesting places to catch the water for a while. Normally we’re so dry here it doesn’t matter, but it kinda sucks that ours catches water right in front of the “people door”.

I wore a t-shirt that would dry quickly in rain, shorts, and boat shoes knowing I’d probably be having to “dock” the airplane. Looked like a beachgoing tourist climbing into the airplane, I’m sure.

Ha. The shorts were the camo shorts, too, since they were clean. Ha.

My “highly professional CFI” look as I squeaked and squished across the floor to go inside to use the restroom at KFTG. Hahahahaha. At least the girl at the counter didn’t say anything snarky about my wet dog and squeaky shoes look. Hahaha.

 

[bnt83]

Its funny how the GTN makes everything else look antique, including that CDI connected to it.

(this thread is a reminder I need to start instrument training…)

 

[gkainz]

my rain gauge shows .89" from about 6 hours of showers over here in the foothills.

 

[mscard88]

Our airport rents hangars for $250/mo. The older hangars rent for $200 as they form lakes too so ya get a discount. County airport, but a local Doc built 30 hangers before the county took over, so he has that going for him. Nice guy, flys a 180 and has a Tiger Moth, restored.

 

[luvflyin]

@denverpilot . Can you give a little more detail on what happened with the ILS at FTG? I may be flying with a GTN soon.

 

[kayoh190]

@denverpilot . Can you give a little more detail on what happened with the ILS at FTG? I may be flying with a GTN soon.

Welp folks, it finally happened. Someone asked @denverpilot to give MORE detail.

 

[luvflyin]

Welp folks, it finally happened. Someone asked @denverpilot to give MORE detail.

Oh boy. I was finally first at something. I want bonus points and trophies and stuff

 

[SaltH2OHokie]

Normally we’re so dry here it doesn’t matter, but...

Ask my wife about that "normally we're dry..."

We were in Denver for 4 days earlier this year. My wife had some tourism brochure that she kept pointing to through the snow and rain that touted Denver's 300+ days of sunshine per year. Our visit hit during the other 65 days, apparently.

She'd randomly shake her head and go "300+"...

 

[denverpilot]

@denverpilot . Can you give a little more detail on what happened with the ILS at FTG? I may be flying with a GTN soon.

Maybe. Ha. As best as I can tell, on VTF crossing the approach course it never put the ILS into the Nav1 Primary spot, it left it in Standby. It never understood we were intercepting an ILS. And I’m not 100% sure I didn’t kick it out of VTF since I was messing around.

Would have been easy to check it, of course and I should have.

After that I just jacked it up punching more buttons.

I knew the needle wasn’t right so I forced it back into FTG direct and then shoved the ILS frequency into the Number 2 Nav, which I should probably be in the habit of anyway, since I have two glideslope receivers and specifically asked to keep the second one!

With the iPad I knew I was still on the approach course and hadn’t started down yet, so obstacles and such weren’t a worry.

But basically I wasn’t “established” properly and should have taken a vector back out. It was a mess.

If I wasn’t being stubborn trying to make it do what I wanted, the second Nav should have been where I went first. In fact the ILS should have already been there. Wasn’t hard to fix, but it was a bad setup on my part.

When it didn’t point anywhere near sane when manually flipped to VLOC, I should have been able to just look down a CDI and continue and ignore it.

 

[kayoh190]

Oh boy. I was finally first at something. I want bonus points and trophies and stuff

Hey, I'm jealous - I'm never first at anything. B average, baby!

 

[kayoh190]

If I wasn’t being stubborn trying to make it do what I wanted, the second Nav should have been where I went first. In fact the ILS should have already been there. Wasn’t hard to fix, but it was a bad setup on my part.

(I know I like to joke around, but the added detail *is* nice, btw )

To me having the second nav tuned is the big take-away here. There are some avionics setups that I've flown thousands of hours behind, yet I still find new and interesting ways to completely screw things up. Sometimes it's the automation's fault - most of the time it's mine. Point is, it's always nice to have that backup source of information when the primary screws the pooch. As you said, it's there - might as well use it!

 

[denverpilot]

(I know I like to joke around, but the added detail *is* nice, btw )

To me having the second nav tuned is the big take-away here. There are some avionics setups that I've flown thousands of hours behind, yet I still find new and interesting ways to completely screw things up. Sometimes it's the automation's fault - most of the time it's mine. Point is, it's always nice to have that backup source of information when the primary screws the pooch. As you said, it's there - might as well use it!

Yep. That was a huge planning mistake. The other critical thing is if the panel isn’t showing what’s expected, figure out why, like yesterday. Lots of accident recordings now start with “What’s it doing, now?” these days.

 

[denverpilot]

Ask my wife about that "normally we're dry..."

We were in Denver for 4 days earlier this year. My wife had some tourism brochure that she kept pointing to through the snow and rain that touted Denver's 300+ days of sunshine per year. Our visit hit during the other 65 days, apparently.

She'd randomly shake her head and go "300+"...

Blue skies today!

 

[azure]

Glad you got a chance to practice your skills in actual! I miss the days I could do that regularly, in Michigan.

Learned something about my GTN when controller vectors you through final and back going to KFTG. The auto flip to VLOC gets very confused. I’m intercepting what I thought was the localizer for KFTG and it’s not behaving. I had forked up the GTN but good.

I mess around following the track and watching altitude while the controller says “I see you west of the approach course” and I reply I’m fixing it, while fiddling with the GTN and then say screw it, slam the ILS frequency into Nav2 and say, that’s better.. and finish.

Looked up what it was doing on the ground... wasn’t vectored in VTF mode back across the course so the GTN gave up and left the ILS in Standby in Nav1.

That sounds a little like how an undocumented 480 "feature" bit me one time shooting the ILS 9R into KPTK in decently "hard" IMC. I've always relied on auto-slew so as not to have to do the "twist" thing manually. I wait to switch the 480 output to NAV until it sequences to a leg on the FAC and auto-slews the course pointer. This time I was coming from the east, was being vectored to final (but I NEVER use VTF), so once vectored to intercept the localizer I switched to NAV because the 480 *should* have been on the FAC. But I noticed I was having trouble intercepting the localizer. It seemed to be reverse sensing, and the controller got snarky with me: "Having a little trouble finding the localizer today, are we?" I finally realized that it had NOT sequenced to the leg I should have been on and manually slewed the HSI, at which point everything was cool.

The reason that happened is that I had done Direct to KPTK when I was still east of the field. On the 480, Direct-To flight plans work differently than normal flight plans. On a normal flight plan, the approach replaces the last leg of the plan; with Direct-To, the approach is appended AFTER the airport in the flight plan. My 480 still had me enroute to the airport and since I had never crossed it, the course pointer was on 270 instead of 090, hence the reverse sensing.

I got Keith Thomassen to address the issue in the last revision of his book on the 480, since this is discussed nowhere in any of the official docs or the pilot's guide, or in earlier versions of his book.

Anyway, a good learning experience for me, and an important takeaway to NEVER ASSUME YOU KNOW and ALWAYS VERIFY what your GPS is doing.

 

[murphey]

What's VTF? Anything like WTF?

 

[kayoh190]

What's VTF? Anything like WTF?

It’s actually the first time I’ve seen VTF as well, but given the context I assume it means Vectors(s) To Final.

 

[luvflyin]

What's VTF? Anything like WTF?

They go together, like WTF kind of VTF was that?

 

[luvflyin]

Maybe. Ha. As best as I can tell, on VTF crossing the approach course it never put the ILS into the Nav1 Primary spot, it left it in Standby. It never understood we were intercepting an ILS. And I’m not 100% sure I didn’t kick it out of VTF since I was messing around.

Would have been easy to check it, of course and I should have.

After that I just jacked it up punching more buttons.

I knew the needle wasn’t right so I forced it back into FTG direct and then shoved the ILS frequency into the Number 2 Nav, which I should probably be in the habit of anyway, since I have two glideslope receivers and specifically asked to keep the second one!

With the iPad I knew I was still on the approach course and hadn’t started down yet, so obstacles and such weren’t a worry.

But basically I wasn’t “established” properly and should have taken a vector back out. It was a mess.

If I wasn’t being stubborn trying to make it do what I wanted, the second Nav should have been where I went first. In fact the ILS should have already been there. Wasn’t hard to fix, but it was a bad setup on my part.

When it didn’t point anywhere near sane when manually flipped to VLOC, I should have been able to just look down a CDI and continue and ignore it.

Think I got it. So in addition to changing the ‘flight mode’ from GPS to VLOC automatically, it will ‘load’ the Localizer Frequency automatically also?

 

[jesse]

I don't trust any of that **** and I make sure the radios are tuned, identified, NAV set, and needles indicating things that make sense prior to intercepting the final approach course. What's the point in keeping your NAV setup as GPS guidance when you're getting vectored to final? If your NAV needle isn't doing something useful (it isn't set to GPS on vectors to final)...you're not staying in front of what's happening..and you're counting on some software engineer to take care of that for you. F that. Relying on that isn't a good way to operate. Configure that thing for an ILS in advance like I taught you!

It's very common for airports to have the ILS flipped the wrong way, configured for the wrong runway, LNK makes that mistake all the time. Configure your things in advance and you'll know there's a problem long before you're confused on the final approach course.

 

[denverpilot]

Think I got it. So in addition to changing the ‘flight mode’ from GPS to VLOC automatically, it will ‘load’ the Localizer Frequency automatically also?

Yes. If it sequences correctly it’ll load the Nav radio when you activate the approach.

Someone elsewhere may have hit upon it. I may have forced it to VLOC prior to being on the approach. Then it will go to whatever is in the primary in Nav and not have a chance to flop it for you.

The brain mistake is not following the approach checklist.

Approach (right approach, briefed, etc)

Source (What’s our Nav source(es) for this approach

Tune (tune ALL the radios that can receive that source - big mistake here)

Course (set all the OBSs and the bugs if you got ‘em), Identify (another mistake here, the Garmin auto-ID makes you lazy and I get bit by it infrequently but enough that this step shouldn’t be eliminated — it’s just a button press on my audio panel since I can copy Morse code)

Minimums & Missed (re-announce them from the initial briefing — the approach isn’t over until you break out...) is my standard approach brief these days.

ASTCIM. It’s a crappy mnemonic but I have it memorized and internalized and should be damn well doing it. And did on the second approach.

Just a tad rusty. I just did a good solid IPC recently so the airplane control and scan and what not were solid and the aircraft was always somewhere my brain went first, but the GTN incorrect setup was a minor distraction in this case instead of a major problem and confidence rattler. If I was way behind the airplane it would have been a “missed-right-now” thing, go back and do the procedure correctly.

But key point was to keep figuring it out or go missed. Slapping the frequency into Nav2 should have already been done, but knowing to do it right-freaking-now-because-the-GTN-doesn’t-make-sense and having enough SA to know the GTN was out to lunch, probably of my own doing, was better than nothing. Automation and lack of understanding what it did is a severe “gotcha” in all this gadgetry.

You know what worked perfectly? A King radio hooked to an OBS dedicated to it. No modes, no screwing around, tune it and the needles are up. Done. Which... is why we asked to keep it and move that top OBS down a notch.

Unless it’s fried, it’s hard to screw up a direct connected to a dedicated OBS ILS/LOC/VOR receiver.