Ones and Zeros

After discussing this with instructor M (who got a kick out of his alias in my blog), we scheduled the simulator again tonight. I’m not looking forward to this, I have a hate vs tepid friendship with that simulator. I was going to say love-hate relationship, but it is nowhere near that warm. Tonight the tepid friendship would become even less warm. But M doesn’t want me to get used to flying the plane without the turn coordinator and that won’t be replaced for a few days yet.

On tonight’s menu was IFR clearances, more BAI (basic attitude instruments) with level flight, turns, and turning climbs and descents. Then we’d do some new things as well. It is key to practice the older stuff though as all this needs to be automatic - like riding a bike. After all there will be navigation, radio traffic and more to deal with later on.

IFR clearances follow an acronym, like many things in aviation. This one is “CRAFT” which stands for Clearance limit, Route, Altitude, Frequency, and Transponder code. Clearance limit is the point on your route you are cleared to. If I don’t get further clearance by that then, I’m to hold at that last point.

Route is the big item. It’s the route I’ll be cleared to fly. This many involve fixes, radar vectors, airways, and VORs. What I’ll be looking for is “cleared as filed” or “cleared direct”. But what I’m likely to get is going to be rather more involved. There’s an online site LiveATC.net where there are clearances I can practice copying. There are shorthand abbreviations that pilots develop, the FAA even has a list of suggested shorthand abbreviations. I’ll have to learn that or develop my own shorthand.

Altitude is the altitude I’m cleared for and would also include any climbing or descending. Frequency is the radio frequency to contact. Right now while taking a clearance, I’d be talking to clearance delivery, or perhaps the tower. The F in CRAFT is the frequency for the departure control. And last, is the transponder code for the transponder that ATC’s secondary radar uses, this is so they can see me on their radar scopes and know who I am.

After I copied a couple clearances from instructor M, we proceeded to the simulator, actually a FTD or flight training device. The radio work doesn’t bother me, I’m not afraid of the microphone. In this area near Washington DC I have a lot of practice at talking to Potomac Approach and other ATC. While I don’t always know quite what to say - that’s why we’re practicing CRAFT - with a little practice I’ll get the “what to say” part polished.

I think of radio comms as a network protocol in speech. There’s only so many kinds of things that ATC and pilots say to each other. So I think of messages, message formats, and possible message sequences.

Then, on to the sim. The simulator has a different feel than the plane, that’s not a terrible thing in itself. But it doesn’t have the feel of any of the few planes I’ve flown either. It uses a spring to simulate the yoke force which doesn’t feel right. And I can’t seem to get the hang of the trim either. So, I’m always holding pressure on the yoke (in or out) and it is very difficult to be precise in my control like that. However I will have to come to peace with it sooner or later.

We did the BAI work with level flight, turns, and turns with climbs and descents. The latter requires tracking the instruments, remembering where to level off, and maintaining the correct rate of climb or descent at the same time.

Finally, we did a simulated approach on a localizer. Or several. Now, I’ve never managed to land a simulator very well. I can land a plane in a gusty crosswind, but not a simulator in no wind. Go figure. And I didn’t manage to exceed my past experience in this sim either.

The localizer is a narrow arc of radio waves. As I get closer and closer to the runway it’s leading me to, the lateral distance across this arc is shorter and shorter. My corrections should get smaller and smaller to stay in the arc. So naturally, I was overcorrecting more and more till it all ended badly. The second time I called “go around” and M vectored me (and reset the sim) for another try. This third try didn’t go any better.

I’m going to have to do several things: get a feel for this @&#@$ simulator. And, get ahead of the plane so I can stop overcorrecting. Not my best lesson so far. But I’m sure they’ll get both better and worse. People keep telling me this is a hard rating to get.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 at 18:44 and is filed under aviation, flying. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.