Flying IFR - Lesson 25 - Approach And A First Bravo Entry

Lesson 25 started had a bit of a false start.

On the way to pre-flight N5337F the owner of the flight school asked me if we could monitor the engine analyzer and ammeter and see if the battery was charging.

In short, after a pre-flight and trying to start the engine, it was very apparent the battery was, in fact, not charging.  It would not start the engine.

So we switched to N2885B, a Piper Warrior and headed out to do some more approach work to Ann Arbor, Troy and Pontiac.

I was with Alec on this one. 

The airspace was busy and heading to Ann Arbor we got vectored off the course to get to the start of the VOR 24 approach and had to  sequence in.  Lots of planes and helicopters practicing around Ann Arbor today including two University of  Michigan medical flight copters.

Did the approach, do need to work on my wind correction and getting down faster, overall did ok but can do better.

Did the published miss and hold and then started heading for Troy.

On the way to Troy I got my first clearance into Bravo airspace.

Due to traffic Detroit Approach had me climb up into the Bravo, and Detroit Approach stated I was clear to enter the airspace. Kinda neat.

At Troy I did the RNAV 9 and circled to 27 to land.  Was a little tight to the runway on the circle and could have gone wider on the downwind, and a little high on final as a result but landed, even though it was a long landing.

Then topok off and headed to Pontiac for the RNAV 27 with a miss.  Then after being cleared for the Localizer Back course 27L, Alec failed both my heading indicator and Attitude Indicator so I was partial panel.

Figured something like that might happen so I already had the backup VOR tuned to the localizer.

I used the backup VOR and compass as a result of the failure and did a very good approach, but again was a fair bit too high, but did a good landing.

I do need more partial panel work and I expect I'm going to get a lot of it.

I do need to watch my altitude as I was certainly off it today and not quick enough on step down descents.  While too high beats too low, just right is much better.  More stuff to improve upon.

That's 2.0, 2 landings, 4 approaches and a hold and 1.4 simulated instrument time.