IFR 10: Holding and Brain Freeze
Instructor M and I are flying today. Our task is to practice holding patterns around an NDB and VOR both. There’s one NDB near here that also has a VOR nearby. So we head there.
I’ve been diagramming ADF and DGs from the last lesson. I’ve been reading up on holding patterns, and I think I’m really prepared now. So, we brief the lesson and go flying.
I track down toward our practice area and our first hold target. I’m happy with my heading and altitude control. I’m finding several things; First, the less I mess with the flight controls, the better my control of the plane. I’m tending to over control. Flight is smoother if I emphasis trim and make only small corrections.
Second, if I allow myself 100 foot tolerance on altitude, I’ll use all of it. But if I allow myself only a 50 foot tolerance, I’ll keep my altitude within 50 feet. My expectation of what I can do is important.
My hold entry is a direct entry. But as that’s too easy, M takes control and we go for a short jaunt. When I have the airplane back and look at the VOR indicator and the DG (Directional Gyro) and promptly go in to brain freeze.
I see a bunch of numbers and can’t make sense of them. I find the heading for the VOR and turn to it. But I have no idea how to enter a hold or where to head in the hold. Or as the Three Stooges said, “I’m tryin’ to think but nothin’s happening!” I’m not nearly as prepared as I thought I was.
M talks me into the hold while I reboot my neurons. Once I’m in the hold I get the picture and I follow the hold. Not smoothly, but I can follow it. We follow it around again, then head to the NDB.
We do a hold at the NDB too, M talks me into this as well. I follow it outbound and do the procedure turn, then back to the NDB.
We head home with a chastened pilot flying. In our debrief we review the VOR entries again. And plan the next lesson on the school’s flight sim. And, I plan my own flight sim at home too.
March 14th, 2009 at 17:48
When I was (recently) working on holds, my CFII suggested this simple java site to practice thinking:
http://www.lunabase.org/~faber/Vault/software/hold_quiz/
And she offered the following mental shortcut - perhaps you’ve heard it. Try it, it is worth a few minutes puzzling it out to avoid brain freeze.
Going to a hold, you’re always inbound to a fix to begin. With the course *outbound* for the hold in mind, (that is, the “hold on the XXX radial” number) you can use a mechanical “trick” to immediately decide what entry to use.
A picture, and a good explanation of the above is here:
http://simfliteminnesota.blogspot.com/2006/10/creating-holding-clearances.html
March 17th, 2009 at 11:02
Hey TZ! Good to hear my brain gets stuck in the same place as yours when it comes to these. Take a look at this perspective.
http://www.campbells.org/Airplanes/VOR/vor.html
I find this method is easier to understand but not easy to explain to the instructor. So I smile and nod when they explain it to me, then go back to this method as it makes sense…. YMMV.
March 19th, 2009 at 08:51
Viennatech, I’ve been using this VOR method for some time now - since my private pilot rating. My instructors don’t like it when I track “to” a VOR that’s on the bottom half of the dial. So to be nice, I try to remember to flip headings to put it on top. Whatever works!