IFR Lesson #2
Today was my second session in the simulator and the focus of the lesson was timed turns and rated climbs and descents. Jason started today’s flight by issuing me an IFR clearance prior to takeoff and mentioned that all sim sessions will start like this. We took off from runway 25 at CYBW and spent the better part of an hour flying around in circles up and down. The best thing about the sim is that training starts immediately; there’s no walk around, no taxing, no need to clear someone’s airspace before doing the practice exercises. Although I really wanted to do almost all my training in an actual aircraft (if you have the time and money why not?), I’m definitely seeing the benefits of sim time already. And although you can track your route using GPS, from a learning perspective I don’t think you can beat the ability to ‘freeze’ the sim and turn around and look at what you just did on the instructor’s station. And all I was looking at was timed turns; I can only presume it will be even better once we start doing radial interceptions, holds and approaches.
On an unrelated note, as I was paying for the session, I noticed a Cirrus SR22 taxiing along Taxiway Alpha, which runs in front of the Calgary Flying Club’s hanger. As it turns out this was my first brush with a US celebrity, though I’m not sure spotting a plane can necessarily be called a ‘brush’ per se. In any case, the registration on SR22 was N805MX, which apparantly belongs to Angelina Jolie, though the entry for N805MX in the FAA registry doesn’t give any indication of that. But I had heard that Angelina had been in the area to hang out with Brad Pitt, who was doing a movie shoot in the Calgary area. And since Angelina was in the Edmonton area, she had been flying her aircraft down to visit Brad.
Sim Time: 0.7 hrs
Update: be sure and read my rant on how Angelina and Brad are not a good example of how anyone can learn to fly.
