IFR Lesson #26
The ADF in the club’s Cessna 182 is confirmed now as completely non-functional, so today’s cross country flight was done in the IFR-certified Warrior, C-GXHO. As per normal, I preflighted the aircraft on my way from the CFC parking lot, ensuring that all IFR-required instruments functioned along with all lights and the pitot heat. Then I headed inside to give instructor Jason my flight plan so he could file the IFR flight plan. Today’s flight would be CYBW direct QF (Red Deer NDB) direct YYC (Calgary VOR) direct CYBW, with a hold over QF and approaches at Red Deer and Calgary International. But our entire plan depended on us getting into the air as soon as possible as Jason needed to be back in 2.5 hours to teach ground school.
After receiving our clearance and doing the run-up, I experienced multi-pilot cooperation for the first time. Normally, Jason acts as a typical instructor/mentor; I do everything and he watches over everything and makes sure to point out my good/bad points. But today, due to our need to ensure a speedy takeoff, Jason took control after the run up, doing the talking and taxiing to position at runway 16 while I completed the last of of the pre-takeoff checks and worked all the avionics. I am able to do a little of this when flying with Ali, as she is confident enough now to hear something on the radio and change frequencies, transponder codes or altimeter settings. But because I am still the only trained pilot per se, and thus PIC, I always end up double checking all her actions. But in today’s flight, cooperation between Jason and I was fluid and instead of a potential five minute delay we were able to sneak a expedited takeoff before another aircraft turning short final.
Since we didn’t need to cross Calgary Terminal’s airspace to get to our destination (unlike my last flight), getting airborne and getting pointed in the right direction was much faster and easier since we could skirt the western edge of Terminal’s space. Then it was direct to the Red Deer NDB for a ten minute hold, which went okay. Then I shuttled down from 8,000 to start an approach, which was less than stellar but on a good note I learned how truly important it is to be stablized on an NDB approach before reaching the FAF. In my case, due to winds, I was well off the published inbound track such that a 30 degree or so turn was required at the FAF in order to line up with the runway. Add to that the fact that I was still struggling to get down to the proper height, the approach was a great example of how not to execute a proper NDB approach.
After going missed on the approach we tried to get an approach in at Calgary International, but Edmonton Centre informed us that Calgary was too busy to bother with us so we cut the flight short, cancelled IFR and headed direct Springbank. And Jason made it to his class with minutes to spare.
Flight time: 2.1 hrs
Instrument time: 1.8 hrs (1.5 hrs hood; 0.3 hrs actual)
Approaches: 1
