Flying IFR - Lesson 13 - Partial Panel Approaches And Circle To Land A Lot

Lesson 13 started with a good pre-flight of N5337F.

We were going to get some approaches in today.

First a full procedure RNAV 9 at Troy  with the full procedure with the turn, with a circle to land on 27.

That went rather well if a tad speedy on final.  Circle to land apparently is an issue the checkride examiner has identified in that students need to stay closer to the airport during the circle and get used to it being at a lower altitude than normal pattern with accompanying different sight picture during the maneuver, so the school is heavily emphasizing getting every student comfortable and proficient with it.

Then off to Flint for the VOR 36 approach with the complete procedure including the procedure turn.

Then things started getting turned off. It was partial panel time.

I was then down to using VOR 2 with no heading indicator and no attitude Indicator which is quite frankly a pain.  Using the altimeter for pitch; turn and slip indicator for roll; and the compass for heading is just not a lot of fun. The compass, she lies unless you're in straight and level unaccelerated flight. Doing a full procedure turn by compass was interesting as was adjusting ground track just by the VOR receiver and turn indicator.

Still, I got it all lined up and then we did a circle to land on Runway 27 at Flint, getting in ahead of an Allegiant jet preparing to take off.  We then took off after the jet, avoiding wake turbulence, and headed back to Pontiac where I did the RNAV 27L circle to 27R with only the G5 attitude indicator uncovered, which certainly helped with the instrument scan.  I then followed the LPV glide slope down, did the side-step/circle to 27R and landed.

I think I getting a bit better at it and am getting less behind the aircraft but there's still a lot of work to go for sure, especially as I was over-controlling quite bit and chasing my heading as a result, even while trying to keep changes to small amounts at a time, but I'm working on it. 

My radio communications are now a lot better.  I did goof up initially at Pontiac by requesting flight following with the K in the airport identifiers ie KVLL instead of VLL rather than without.  The controller nicely said that wasn;t necessary and holds up things.  I agreed I would say no to Kilo from then on, and they got a chuckle out of that.

Other than that, radio communications were solid this flight, got the right things stated at the right times to the right people.

Overall it was another good flight. 

That's 2.1 with 1.5 simulated instrument, 3 approaches and three landings.