IFR 6: Partial Panel, Unusual Attitudes, and Helicopters
I’m flying with instructor R today as instructor M is occupied. Both are very experienced and good teachers and I like them. We’re using the Cessna Pilot School program to I can move between instructors easily, their professionalism helps smooth this process too.
Instructor R and I have a constraint tonight. The airspace in this area closes at 8 pm for President Obama’s State of The Union speech. So it’s a shorter lesson and we just won’t go as far. Our agenda is to do partial panel, but also to review steep turns and do stalls.
After a brief of our plan, we loaded and started up (I’d already preflighted) then taxied out to the runup area. After the runup R gave me a clearance which I copied and read back. I know the CRAFT acronym for copying clearances (Clearance limit, Route, Altitude, Frequency, and Transponder code), but will have to practice copying them with some recordings from LiveATC on my iPod.
We headed out to practice under the class Bravo, but outside the SFRA (formerly the ADIZ). We ended up near Mount Weather. This is one of the government’s “undisclosed facilities” that is intended for continuity of the government in case of emergencies. It’s been there for decades and everyone knows about it. After 9/11 there was a building boom and it’s substantially larger now.
We did some clearing turns for instructor R - my foggles were on for some time now. Then we did steep turns. The goal here is different from doing the steep turns in private pilot training. In that training steep turns are part of the test standards, but now they’re to practice my instrument scan. So we go right, then left. On the latter I overshoot my heading. I need to lead my turn indication more. The sun is setting and I’m wearing sunglasses inside my foggles. The sunlight lights up the frosted area of my foggles and makes it harder to see the instruments - hence the sunglasses. They don’t solve the problem but they help.
We did some self-induced unusual attitudes next. I flew with my eyes shut to get a feel for what happens if I don’t pay attention. I proved again that humans can’t fly like a bird does. I need to trust and use my instruments.
After one or two of these then instructor R takes the plane and I get a closed-eye E ticket ride. Well, not quite. Nothing as bad as a roller coaster, but enough to make me loose touch with what the plane’s doing. Then, “Recover”. The plane is now mine, I open my eyes and check the gauges: airpseed, attitude, VSI initially and correct power, pitch, and bank as in the last lesson. No problems. As this isn’t an aerobatic plane there’s a limit as to the pitch and bank we’re using.
Next are stalls. Stalls in instrument conditions; this training gets stranger and stranger! (A stall is when the airplane slows enough that the wing stops flying, or at least doesn’t generate enough lift to support the airplane. It doesn’t refer to engine problems as the term does in cars.) The corrective to this is to get the nose down and add power. Part of pilot training in general is designed to make it an automatic reaction. This is the instrument version.
The stalls don’t cause me problems. I generally like stalls, slow flight, unusual attitudes and other weird airplane stuff. But I need to get the nose up faster on one after the airspeed is regained. In instrument conditions the ground isn’t visible.
We did some turning stalls too, they’re fun since I have to keep the airplane coordinated or risk the plane “falling off” to one side or another. That’s the first step into a spin. I keep it straight or correct the falling off with the rudder. The wings and their ailerons are not very effective at this speed.
After the stalls, R has me take off my foggles for a moment, we’re just off Mt Weather now, and three large government helicopters are low below us for their approach and landing at the helipad. They may be either taking Atty General Holder there or otherwise doing emergency prep for the speech tonight. (Holder is the cabinet member to be offsite for emergency reasons this time.) And we’re doing stalls (at a safe distance) above them. This is a strange part of the country sometimes.
Next is partial panel. Neither of us has official aircraft-grade covers for the instruments so R makes a cover with a piece of paper and I “lose” my attitude and heading indicators. The rest of the flight is without them. Of course, in the real world either or both may fail and they may do so silently. They just slowly stop working. Cross-checking all the instruments is how to catch this. I need to trust the instruments, but to verify them as well.
So I have the new turn coordinator, airspeed, altitude, VSI, and compass left to use. Turning by compass is strange. Due to the weights used to balance it the compass isn’t accurate unless I am both level and not accelerating or slowing. The amount of lead or lag in a turn depends on your latitude. In addition, I’m looking at the back side of the compass, so it turns opposite from what I’d expect.
I didn’t always turn the wrong way, but I did so enough times to need to work on that more. And for remembering the lead/lag instructor R showed me a trick later. Draw a compass rose with the usual N at the top and then draw a line from W to E. Above the line write “before”, below the line write “after”. That’s the direction of the lead or lag. Then, always use a lead/lag of 15 degrees. That’s generally close for where we fly, and if you’re not quite there then you can adjust the remaining 5 or 10 degrees easily later with a count: three degrees per second in a standard rate turn.
We flew partial panel back home with R giving me vectors there. He and instructor M have a different style, M works the radios for me at this stage. R gives me hints and I work the radios. The hints will get fewer as training progresses and M will stop working the radios too.
My heading is a little off in the pattern and the wide downwind that R intended me to have doesn’t work out. As you’d guess heading control is more difficult without a heading indicator. So with not enough room for a standard rate turn, he has me remove the foggles abeam the numbers instead of on final.
All in all things feel pretty good now, I’m near the end of BAI and it’s coming together. I have mental bandwidth left over for more than just scanning the instruments and flying, even when partial panel. I know that in the clouds and without an instructor partial panel would be more sweat-inducing. But I’m sure I’ll get more practice before I’m done. Some things to work on: bank must be dead even in partial panel to maintain heading or to read the compass. I’ve got to get better and using the mag. compass as well. Also, make sure that for turns I’m on the bank angle with the correct lead or lag.
Next lesson is a BAI review, then on to the navigation stage!