Now With Knowledge

I re-read the IFR Diary this evening. I hadn’t read it since well before starting my own IFR training (back in October 2005), and it was neat to read it again, only this time understanding most of what was written. When I first read it, I used it to try and figure out what to expect for my own training, but didn’t know what the 5 T’s were, what the protected side of a hold was or what the heck a DME arc was. But now, with many hours of sim time and even more hours of homework and studying, IFR Diary is an even more enjoyable read, given that I know or have experienced most of what the author is writing about.

The other great thing about the re-read was my ability to check out the various airports mentioned using either Runway Finder or directly via Google Maps. I found that especially helpful in day 8 of the article when the author requests a ’low approach on 27 to land on 33 at Oakland. Unless you you’ve been there before (for real or in a sim) or have seen the bird’s eye view, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to imagine how this might work. At least I couldn’t.
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IFR Lesson #14

Jason called me this morning and asked if I could come in early for my sim booking. The ceilings at Calgary/Springbank were fluxuating between 300 and 1000 feet, so pretty much all his bookings (in fact all the club’s bookings) were cancelled. I agreed, and after gobbling down some breakfast and swinging by Zymeta to restart our Telus ADSL modem after a power outage, drove like a maniac out to the club.

When I arrived at the airport and turned onto MacLaurin Drive I was suprised to see a retractable on what looked to be a fast approach… with gear up. Ever the optimist I figured the pilot must be doing it on purpose, though in the back of my mind I wondered if I might see my first accident. Of course, with ceilings so low that no one was in the circuit, I’m sure the tower controller was watching the aircraft and had it not been some sort of authorized maneuver, would have told the pilot that his gear was up. In any case, by the time I had parked the car, the aircraft had pulled up and seemed to disappear into the cloud.

Today was another day of NDB holds, again with wind. My grasp on holds is much better now. I have no issues with the type of entry to use and I am almost to the point where everything just flows. But that only happens when I am able to keep ahead of everything, which I sometimes find a little hard to do with the elevator so touchy on simulator. I can see hand flying holds and approaches to be a lot fun for real but there is something to be said for an autopilot that will do most of that for you while you write down a clearance or set up for an approach.

For example, today I accepted a hold clearance from Jason (aka ATC) and as I was figuring out everything I blew by the beacon. In this case, Jason let me fumble around for 15 seconds until I simply asked if he could put me back again so I could get organized and try again. While I realize that simply isn’t possible in real life, today is training and a man can only fall behind and fumble around for so long before frustration sets in. The second time around was much better.

I am, however, still trying to account for wind from hold to hold, when it’s more than likely that this will never be the case. So I have vowed to never again try to account for the wind on the first ‘lap’ unless I’m 110% sure of where the wind is coming from. The Garmin GPS in GXHO has a cool feature where you tell it your magnetic heading and airspeed and it tells you the wind speed and direction, which would be awfully handy for times like this. The other lesson I learned today is that no matter how good you are, you are rarely going to execute a hold that is perfect, mostly due to fluxuating wind direction and speed. Up until this point, the possibility of that had never entered my mind but I guess the Wlite software we are using is smart enough to vary the wind.

Overall, today was a good sim day and I’m glad to be leaving holds behind now (for the time being) and moving onto approaches.

Sim Time: 1.1 hrs
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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.
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IFR Lesson #1

My instructor for the IFR training at the Calgary Flying Club is Jason. He’s done all my checkouts here at the club (on the Warrior and the 182) and will now be responsible for guiding me through the months ahead. Lesson #1 is actually supposed to be all classroom talking about the way the course is set up, expectations, required resources and books, etc. But since talking to the CFI a couple months ago I’ve already done that so we jumped right into the training.

Today’s lesson was an introduction to CFC’s simulator. CFC has a brand new PFC-MFD 2-person crew setup that can run either Elite or X-Plane. With the Elite software the LCD panels on the simulator display about an inch of “windscreen” and the remainder contains all the instruments. With X-Plane, the LCD panels display instruments only and the outside environment is displayed on a screen in front of the simulator flight deck via a projector. Both programs are very slick, especially combined with the accessibility of all instrument controls via the MFD’s setup.

Since X-Plane has yet to be certified, we will be using Elite. We took off from CYBW and did some basic maneuvers: straight and level flight, climbs, descents, turns to various headings, etc. It was all rather simple but the idea was to simply get comfortable with the simulator, where all the controls are located and how everything works.

Overall, I found the simulator quite good. The entire flight deck is enclosed like you were sitting in a spacious Piper (or other similar low wing) which helps with the realism. The only problem I would note is that I find the simulator very touchy when it comes to altitude. If you’ve ever flown a Cessna 182P, you’ll know that once the aircraft is trimmed out, all the plane wants to do is fly level. And trimming the real C-182 takes perhaps 10 seconds at most. Not so in the simulator; instead you seem to porpoise along in a sort of sine wave over the assigned altitude.

Sim Time: 1.0 hrs
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IFR Preparation

This week I begin my IFR training at the Calgary Flying Club. I actually started my IFR training a couple of months ago when I met with CFC’s Chief Flight Instructor, picked up the sylabus and all the recommended books and other materials (CAPs, LO/HI maps, etc). In Canada the ‘C’ in CFI refers to Chief not Certified, so from here on in CFI refers to the Chief Flight Instructor not Certified Flight Instructor. Up here in the north you’re either a flight instructor or you’re not. Then it’s simply a matter of what level instructor you are. Anyway, so I met with the CFI and he discussed briefly how things work and recommended that I try to train a minimum of two days per week and preferably three days per week. While three days might be a possibility if you are a full-time flight student, it’s practically impossible if you work a day job and don’t live (or perhaps work) near to an airport. For me, Springbank (CYBW) is a 20 minute drive at the best of times, so a settled on trying for two days a week; one weekday and one day on the weekend.

Like a little kid, I excitedly went through all my new ‘stuff’. I started reading through the recommended weather text (Air Command’s Weather Manual), which is a long slog, especially when done at night before going to bed. Next I went through the Instrument Procedures Manual (IPM) and followed that up by reading the IFR section of the AIP. Finally, I went through all the other stuff (as per above) and familiarized myself with everything. I also have the AeroCourse Instrument Rating Workbook which I started going through and answering questions in preparation for the written test.

Starting with the Weather Manual, I read everything at a rather rapid pace so as to give me a basic knowledge of as much as possible, but not so much that I formulated any ideas that were wrong. That is, I didn’t want to over think things that I hadn’t learned from the instructor in case I learned it wrong and had to unlearn the wrong way and re-learn things the right way. The idea will be to review the information again before and after each lesson. We’ll see how that goes.
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Starting IFR

Yesterday, I talked to the CFI (that’s Chief Flight Instructor for those of you from the US) at the Calgary Flying Club about a plan for getting my IFR rating. I’d already picked up the required books a few weeks ago so I could get a head start on the reading and was excited to solidify a plan. The CFI went over my expectations, the sylabus, the rate at which I should fly (he suggests three times a week if I can) and the best time to start.

So, that said, as of September I will be officially working towards my instrument rating. I love learning new things so I’m rather excited about it. And the thought of having more flexibility to fly despite inclement weather is a rather good bonus. As I progress, I will be sure to post about my experiences; I was able to find the IFR Diary, which is an account of IFR training in the US back in 1993, but haven’t been able to find anything as thorough that’s more current and/or about training in Canada. So, hopefully after I’m done, we’ll have such a resource.
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