Ones and Zeros

Once the guy already on the runway was clear of the pattern we also departed. But we departed for the opposite direction on that same runway. At my airport there’s a preferred runway listed in the A/FD, the direction I was using. Today’s winds weren’t calm, but they were directly perpendicular to the runway.

Instructor R and I departed without crisis and headed to Fredrick (FDK) for the ILS 23. I’ve flown an ILS several times in my home sim, but this is my first in the plane, in real life, with no pause button. R played the part of ATC and vectored me to intercept the ILS. He was busy with traffic watch - FDK can be pretty busy. I let him do that and focused on the plane. After all he could see traffic, I just saw the instrument panel.

The first ILS was shaky. I don’t think I was scanning the instruments fast enough. I would catch myself being off the localizer or glide slope and correct back. Next time I noticed them, I’d be off the other side. This repeated so I snaked down the localizer and porpoised down the glide path to minimums. I wasn’t to the extremes of the needles, but at least half way there.

At minimums our plan was to go around and do it again. The second time we would land. I pushed in the throttle and pitched the nose up.

R said, “Full power.” I pushed the throttle again. “Full power” I heard again. Then he said, “Check your carb heat”. Damn. I pushed that it too and felt the engine get actual full power.

“The first word in all the missed approach instructions is ‘climb’.”, he said. If you’re out in the mountains you want to follow the safe path and get above them. You need full power.”

We continued to follow the missed approach, circled back to RICKE intersection, where I forgot to start my timer, then tracked the localizer outbound. The “five T’s” are supposed to help me remember the timer and other necessary things to do: “Time turn twist throttle talk”. It’s a nice mnemonic, I wish I could remember to use it.

We did the procedure turn - I remembered the timer this time. Then back in to intercept the localizer again. I decided to stay at 2800 this time to intercept the glide slope higher and maybe get more stable on the way down.

R, doing his ATC bit, changed me to 2300 for traffic avoidance. I was glad to comply. R talked a bit about tracking, “..watch the trend. Make a quick correction, roll in, roll out, then check the trend of the needles.” I also tried to scan my instruments a bit faster too.

This time, it certainly wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t snake or porpoise dance either. I was happier with this. When I “broke out” (took off the foggles), the runway was dead ahead about 1/4 mile and slightly to the right. And I was going way too fast to land on my approach speed. So, pull back the throttle and add flaps and the speed came down.

A nice landing, got the first turnoff past the intersecting runway and taxied back for takeoff.

We departed straight out to head home. During the climb out (full power!) the engine, um, burped. It lost power briefly. Definitely not what you want to hear or feel. I scanning the engine gauges - all three of them: Tach, oil pressure and oil temperature. All look normal, for what little they can tell me. R and I discuss it briefly. He says to put on carb heat. The engine burps again, then smooths out with a tad more power on the tach.

So, my first carb ice today too. The outside air temperature is in the range for if, and the full power climb straight out is also more likely to cause it too. R says to slowly push carb heat it now, and monitor the tach.

The rest of the trip home is uneventful. The localizer approach went well, even more smoothly than the second ILS. Except, that I got to the MAP (missed approach point) too high. I didn’t do a good job of descending on the approach.

Fortunately, we have a long runway, I never use most of it so I was able to land on the second half. As one friend said later, “It’s very nice of you not to wear out the ends of the runway!”

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 11th, 2009 at 17:17 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.