chemgeek
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chemgeek
Or you can get an ATC directive that requires the dance of the seven veils (hurried, frantic unf***ing) to get re-configured with only a few minutes to get sorted. While this is less likely to happen while in real IMC, it happens frequently in training. On an IPC, I was sitting fat, dumb, and happy being vectored to final for an RNAV approach (the controller assured me this would be vectors to final) when I get a last minute clearance to an intersection that is not an IAF or intermediate waypoint on the approach, but an waypoint that has a transition to one of the IAFs. And it is minutes away. Talk about fumbling with buttons...it got sorted, but I was thinking how much simpler the ILS would have been to fly. I don't do VTF anymore, no matter how high the stack of Bibles ATC swears on that this will be vectors-to-final.Yeah, but. Push the wrong button and it leads to having to push a whole lot more buttons to unf*** what pushing the wrong button ef’d up. There have been some accidents where there is no doubt in my mind that buttonology is what killed the pilot.
No doubt GPS approaches are sooooo much simpler to fly and monitor, but you have to be up to snuff on your buttonology. Last minute changes can be the devil to sort out, and there are lots of gotchas in Garmin-GPS-land, such as HILPTs you have to delete when on a NoPT TAA arrival, and remembering to not follow any advisory vertical guidance past the DA on an LNAV approach. These are not things you have to do on an ILS or LOC approach.
My CFII swore up and down that a Garmin 430 should know not to include the HILPT if approaching on a TAA NoPT heading. Nope. The autopilot will take you around the HILPT, no matter what, unless you manually delete it. My home drome has this issue, and I discovered it the first time during an IPC. Glad that was sorted before doing it in IMC on a return trip home. The advisory vertical guidance issue cropped up at a nearby airport. Following advisory vertical guidance at night beyond the DA will take you through a cumulogranite hill. (I like flying the stepdowns anyway--give you a better chance of breaking out early if possible, and there should be no cumulogranite in the way if you are flying the approach as published.)