IFR: Checkride Practice
All the flights now are checkride practice. I know this stuff, it’s just getting it to click and come together and meet the practical test standards (PTS). Instructor R and I flew to another local airport today. A place I’d been to, but not for regular IFR practice. I was under the hood again. The usual menu of approaches today was ILS, VOR, and GPS back home.
The ILS didn’t go well. It was safe enough, but I was behind the plane much of it. R, acting as Potomac Approach, changed my routing pretty close to the airport and I didn’t recover well. I need to keep the contingencies available instead of getting fat and happy with my routing. I worked it out, but ended up using my one VOR for the ILS and for cross radials instead of setting up the GPS. As I kept retuning changing the heading on that one VOR it was a ripe situation for missing something critical. Doable, but definitely more work that it should be! Still the approach was on track and worked.
The VOR approach went better. I gave myself more time for the procedure turn, which helped nicely. But I didn’t start down soon enough. I can start down when the CDI needle starts to move off the peg R tells me. Instead I waited till it was centered. This put me late descending and immediately over the airport when I leveled off at minimums. It’s harder to recognize the airport when I have to look right below me than ahead of me - where I expected it!
I circled to land and did a beautiful continuous descending turn from downwind to final and landed nicely. I’ve seen people do that continous turn instead of turn first to base, then final. I’ve always thought it was a wonderfully smooth and graceful way to do it. So it was nice to pull that off myself. R pointed out later that it worked well but my power was a bit too high. R’s of the opinion that we can always improve. I like that state of mind.
The GPS back into home worked better too, I’m slowing earlier and setting some flaps. That puts me in more control and I don’t have to descend so fast. It worked better than on the long cross country flight.
Still, I wasn’t solid on my altitude on the enroute portions. My approaches could have been more solid and stable too. R pointed out that where there’s step downs and a glideslope I can just ride the glideslope down instead of doing all the stepdowns. It’s less work and a more stable configuration.
So, I’m not done yet. But close.