IFR13: GPS and Stage Check
The annual is finally finished. Not that it took very long in the scheme of things; only three days. But when you’re waiting it can seem longer. The last two years I assisted with the annual and wasn’t able to do that this year. But one of the other owners assisted. I was surprised when I read his updates how much I’d missed it.
In the end all the usual things were done: oil changed and sampled, various things lubricated or corrosion-X’ed as appropriate, some fixes and replacements, and an AD (Airworthiness Directive) handled. The plane is back in service and ready to go. And so am I.
So Instructor R and I departed on our stage check to intercept the localizer outbound. Naturally the first thing I did was to make too large an intercept angle to the localizer. So I blew through it and had to intercept from the opposite side. I know better and I’ve done better before. So what happened? I think I was focusing on that later tasks and taking this one for granted. A good lesson: plan ahead, but fly now.
Once stabilized on this route I did better, R gave me vectors and I got at least partly ahead of the plane by setting in the MRB VOR frequency and setting its radial we’d use. Of course I didn’t set up the GPS (for distance) till later.
All of this reminds me going around the landing pattern in private pilot training. At first it seemed like there was barely enough time to remember and do everything I needed to do for each landing. Now, of course, there’s plenty of time on downwind and I wait for the plane to get into position to land. IFR will be like that one day too. I hope.
We did the VOR/DME into OKV and did the missed approach on short final. (Gotta remember to get that carb heat in sooner on the missed!) That worked pretty well, but R and I later talked about power settings for descents and straight and level flight at 90 knots. Those values were a tad hazy from my VFR experience. I’d just set the power at whatever I needed for the climb/descent rate by eye and feel. Life needs to be a bit more precise now.
Now back to the hold, we go around it several times to get the timing and wind correction right. This return to the hold also requires a teardrop entry. Here I can see real improvement. That entry was straightforward now and not that many lessons ago I had a complete brain freeze on a similar entry. My altitude control is pretty good too, most of the time it’s well within the +- 100 feet. I make an excursion later on the GPS approach that’s not good, but the sim work at home is helping. I wander a bit in heading - mostly because I’m not controlling yaw well with the rudders.
We’ve been needing to start using the GPS. We fiddled with it through the hold and on our return home (via partial panel part of the way) and got it to cough up the GPS approach to home. R did most of the figuring out and his experience pays off again. So we then flew it back to landing, my first GPS approach!
I’ve been reading the GPS manual, but now re-reading the manual will make more sense after actually doing it. I tend to learn like that best, a combination of book study and “finger study”. I’ve been watching the John & Martha King Cessna Pilot Course, and I’ve decided I’m not very keen on learning by watching videos.
Upcoming is more GPS, and the full ILS as well. Then soon, a big multi-airport trip to try to do some intensive training.