IFR Pre-Flight Test
Life is hard. Unless you have no friends or family, are single, can run efficiently on four hours or less of sleep and have enough money that you don’t have to work, it seems that everything gets in the way of what you really want to be doing – flying. And that’s how it’s been for me. Don’t get me wrong though; I love my life. It’s just that for the past two months (yes, I said two months) it has been impossible to get my IFR pre-flight test done. First there was a trip to Prince George for my brother’s wedding. Then it was off to Kelowna for my sister-in-law’s wedding. Then there was job turmoil, followed by a new job. The Nav Canada decided that between staffing shortages and various construction (or whatever other lame excuses they published in the NOTAMs), that IFR training flights around the Calgary airport were out. Joy.
I actually almost got the pre-flight test done two weeks ago, but then Calgary Terminal decided on a bizarre blackout period and doing the flight would have required flying at hours that normal people should be sleeping during. So that was out. But today, a miracle happened and the flight was a go.
My instructor for the entire training up until this point has been Jason, but today I flew with the club’s chief flight instructor. Not because of scheduling or because Jason was fed up, but because Jason has taken a job with Borek Air. Jason’s going away party was last night, but because of today’s flight I kept the rowdiness to an unusual minimum.
During a late breakfast at Melrose on 17th, I called Calgary Terminal and booked a training slot. Because the entire flight takes place within Terminal’s airspace and because it’s a training flight, it’s not enough to simply file an IFR flight plan. That way, Terminal can decide that they’re too busy and simply deny your request. But today, as I said, I lucked out and was given the 1900-2000Z slot. I then filed an IFR flight plan for Calgary/Springbank to Turner Valley NDB (TV) to THIRD (a non-compulsory reporting point) to Calgary VOR (YYC) and back to Springbank, with a hold at THIRD and two approaches at Calgary.
The flight went pretty much as expected, with being vectored around for the first bit before being cleared to proceed to TV and on to THIRD. Once I got past TV and was established on the way to THIRD I received my hold clearance which had me holding north of THIRD on V301. The hold on the north side threw me for a bit of a loop as I was expecting to hold south – lesson learned; don’t anticipate anything more than you’re given. If you’re told to expect a hold at point X, you can try and figure out what the orientation of the hold might be but don’t let that mess things up when you actually receive the clearance.
Then it was on to Calgary International for two approaches, an ILS on Runway 28 and an NDB on Runway 16. The ILS approach was fine, though I initially tuned the wrong frequency for the approach. Other than that, I kept the localizer pretty much centered and the glideslope pretty close to center for most of the approach. At the decision height the runway was right there in front of me – very satisfying. But a little disappointing at the same time; runway 28 is a great runway to spot planes as it overflies one of Calgary’s bike/blade/walking paths. As this was likely on of the few times I would actually fly this approach I was hoping to sneak a peek out and see if I was overflying any people on the path. Instead, I was forced to wear the hood [of shame] for the entire approach, only peeking at the decision height to see where I was. After that, I was vectored around the NE part of Terminal’s airspace to get setup for the ILS for runway 16, which we actually did the the NDB approach for. The approach was likely my best NDB approach ever, given the favourable light winds. At the MDA the runway was right out in front of me. As we went missed we crossed over the path of an incoming Dash-8 on short final for Runway 10; very exciting (and draining) to be doing training at CYYC during the close-to-peak times. Then it was back to Springbank for a regular landing without the hood [of shane].
After landing I had a quick debrief on the flight. Essentially the flight was good, I just need to ensure I double check my frequencies and stay on top of resetting the heading indicator (which, in my defense I got out of the habit of doing due to all my time in the club’s 182 which has a slaved HSI). And, the best part of the day is that I have the club’s sign off on doing the actual Transport Canada IFR flight test.
Flight time: 2.1 hrs
Instrument time: 1.6 hrs (hood)
Approaches: 2
