IFR 12: In the Clouds
Instructor M called me yesterday and started talking about the weather. I was at work deep in code on a programming project and hadn’t yet checked the weather for our scheduled lesson today. I shook my mind clear of linked lists. It seems the weather forecast is for a no-fly day for VFR flights, but would be a good day for a beginner IFR student like me. Clouds, but not too much, some ground visibility, but not very much, and freezing conditions not likely.
We talked it over and he gave me some approaches to review for local airports and asked me to work out how we would use the GPS in my plane. We’re stepping outside the lesson in the curricula since this is a “teachable moment”. This was a two-part lesson. The first part was with Instructor R and was a pure ground lesson as the weather wasn’t flyable at all. This is the description of the second part with M though.
So today we filed IFR for the first time and took off into the clouds. It is almost a continuous layer. We could see the ground if we looked straight down, but could only see the ridges ahead sticking through the clouds. Later we had a short clearer section, but mostly it was a cloud layer beneath us. Today would end up with my first hour of actual IFR, albeit soft IFR.
I thought I might be a little edgy in the clouds. But, we were going to two nearby airports and doing approaches to them off a nearby VOR. I was busy enough that I mostly didn’t get a chance to look outside except for traffic. So, that may come later, or may not.
The plan is to depart the localizer backcourse, track that to a fix and intercept a course to the VOR. Then, to the circling approach for the first airport. Do the missed approach from that and realize in that process that a circling approach is, well, interesting. That circling is at low altitude, below pattern altitude, within just over a mile of the airport. This is opposite of what safe flying is: high and with speed.
Then back to the VOR and the non-precision approach to the second airport. Again this isn’t aligned with the runway, but is closer at least. Both times I’m not descending fast enough. I’m used to descents from further out and have to be more aggressive with these.
Once again a missed approach and back to the VOR, then to the localizer for our home airport. I don’t have a DME in my plane, so I’m using the VOR for the localizer and the GPS for a DME (distance measuring). I only have the one VOR. so cross radials are difficult.
This approach worked well enough, the airport came out of the haze about three miles out and we landed normally.
I checked my flight on FlightAware.com and wasn’t pleased to see how wavy my “straight” courses were. I need to work on that more. I know I can track well, I’m just not doing it. At one point instructor M was wondering if the VOR was broken, the needle hadn’t moved. Later, well, there was no question if it was working as the needle was very clearly moving.
I also need to have a clearer idea in my head of the descent needed for each approach and be ahead of my game for weather, briefing the approach and the missed.
We had a radio problem as well. Turns out though that it was a problem internal to the plane - I think the combination of volume settings in the intercom, radios, and headsets create distortion on the transmit sidetone. Thanks to a friend of M’s flying and recording a video (with the audio sound track from the radio) and posting it online, we were able to see that our transmissions were perfectly clear. One more thing to debug.
Next lesson is late in the week, another owner’s flying and I’ve got some business meetings to prepare for.
March 23rd, 2009 at 09:51
> Both times I’m not descending fast enough. I’m used to descents from further out and have to be more aggressive with these.
I have found that there is a difference of philosophy on non-precision approach descents. My instrument instructors all advocated gradual descents, while my primary instructor (who I flew with again after I got was IFR certified) believed that the whole point of the approach is to get under the clouds so you can see the airport, so you ought get down there quickly to give yourself more time. I suspect that the difference is because the one set of instructors were from ERAU (and other schools training pilots for airlines) and the other flew nothing but light planes. It’s a lot easier to reconfigure the smaller planes for level flight than it is for the big guys.
> At one point instructor M was wondering if the VOR was broken, the needle hadn’t moved.
I remember having the opposite problem… the needle would swing back and forth, so I had to mentally take the average. That’s another difference between simulators and the real thing.
March 23rd, 2009 at 11:02
Thanks for the philosophy explanation on descents, that helps. It makes sense that the technique for different aircraft sizes would vary. I guess I should be prepared to adapt when we get a Gulfstream huh?
The VOR needle swinging back and forth is familiar from ham radio. Sounds like an interference pattern caused by reflections from ground clutter. I’ve also seen it when low near KOKV while using the VOR at MRB. When you listen to radio station and hear rapidly pulsing fading it’s the same thing.