Tuesday, August 17, 2021

Flying IFR - Lesson 21 - You Guessed It, More Approaches

I now have the route to Flint pretty down pat.

Did the pre-flight, did the run-up on the ramp, and left a half-hour earlier than usual as a checkride was going to use the plane so we needed to have a quicker lesson.  On the upside this lessened the stampede from DCT to the runway as we left before most traffic took off as a result.  I did take off behind a Falcon and a Citation jet which was pretty nice.

Winds were calm but quite a few layers of clouds.  Climbed to 3,000 and picked through them on the way.

Got setup for Flint to first do a ILS 27 approach with full procedure.  Did the procedure turn and hold and came in on the ILS just fine.  Went missed and then went to do the VOR 36 circle to 27.

This got me a bit behind the aircraft in terms of setup as it was busy and things were happening rather fast, but I got it figured out and learned a few tips to make it go smoother.  In short, use the GPS to get to the VOR and then switch the CDI - it works a lot better than playing with all the radials to track to the VOR when you're so close to a VOR after you get missed instructions and have been flying traffic vectors hither and yon.  I then did the full procedure for VOR 36 too, then did a decent but not great circle to 27 and then went missed.

Picked up an IFR clearance back to Pontiac and got to travel in and out of the clouds at 5,000 feet and then the RNAV 27L to 27R and land, which went very well, as RNAVs tend to do for me.  To be fair, they're pretty darn hard to mess up.  Good landing and that was that.

Overall, I'd say it wasn't my best lesson ever, and the last lesson was better, flying but I think I'm getting the concept.

So 1.6, with 1.0 simulated instrument, .3 actual and 1 nice landing.

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