Hour 5
Another bostin day for flying and another under the hood.
Mind you, there is a definate purpose to what I am trying to achieve so with that in mind it is much more enjoyable than being on the ground. In any case, today's plan was a radio aid navex routing from coventry via Lichfield NDB, Trent VOR, East to intercept the Gamston VOR to track south towards Leicester NDB and then back to Coventry NDB for tea, stickies and medals. Sounded simple but there were 3 areas of concern before I even got airbourne.
1. With the hood on, cockpit management is a nightmare and even more so as todays flight was to be in a PA28 as my regular mount was booked up.
2. I would be doing 2 crossings of class D airspace, something I hadn't done for a while.
3. Oh did I mention the cockpit management in an unfamiliar aircraft!
In essence, my fears were quickly allayed by a few aids. My usual mount does not have DME but the PA28 does, so at least I will now be able to figure out distances aswell. The second is not obvious from the ground.
Checks, takeoff etc. were uneventful but I did take the chance to set up my nav radios early to ease my workload. I have flown this particular PA28 before and to be honest I really enjoy flying them much more than a 152. But once clear of mother earth, we encountered huge amounts of turbulence and quite a hefty wind from the East. A quick climb ensued and by 700 feet agl I was under the hood. My track of the Lichfield NDB seemed much better today compared to last flight and I tracked all the way to it quite well. We had climbed to 3000 feet and I was doing some but not all of the radio calls. In reality, my brain is just starting to free up some of its capacity from the instruments, but only just. Just prior to LIC I called East Midlands and asked for an area transit. They were spot on, and granted us our route direct from LIC to the Trent VOR. Now my excellent ground based idea of pre-tuning the VOR fell apart when I idented it. The morse ident was DTY.
Ah.. quick check, I had set the DME to Trent (TNT) thinking it was the VOR and ended up forgetting to set the VOR up. Quite an easy mistake to make in an unfamiliar cockpit, but I impressed myself with the fact that I figured it out so efficiently and quickly. Dialled up to TNT, I quickly idented the VOR and tested it as we got to LIC. Reporting on top LIC I got my clearance to enter East Mids area to cross at 3000 with a FIS. My track to TNT and then outbound from it on the 090 radial was quite uneventful and I then continued the route offering my instructor the envied luxury of a great view of Nottingham City.
By using the Nottingham NDB, I could easily figure out when I was going to be near to the 190 Gamston VOR radial, so re-tuning the VOR and identing it to Gamston I patiently waited for the needle to move. And almost on cue it did. It was about now that I figured the improvement in my flying was probably more down to the plane than me. The PA28 is a far more stable instrument platform than a bouncy 152 and bar the odd deviation I was now maintaining +/- 100 feet and +/- 5 degrees of indicated heading. Now these are no great accuracies I know, but hey this is a learnt skill, and after only 4 hours practice under the hood I think I'm getting there.
Having intercepted the gamstom VOR quite well we were tracking south and I made a further call to East Mids to transit the Eastern end of their Area this time. I must have been near to their climb out area as on entering their area I went from being under a FIS to Radar Control. In effect, this was their way of saying yes you can come in, but only if we control your height and heading to prevent confliction with other traffic. I behaved myself and lo and behold, we tracked direct towards the Leicester NDB with no need to change heading or height. Given practice, NDB tracking is not too bad, and after a short while we went through Leicester's overhead and turned for Coventry. We were positioned well for an ILS to runway 23 but with an easterley wind, we had to settle for a visual join on downwind for 05.
My instructor was more than happy with the flight and so we are now going to move onto the 3rd stage of the IMC course. I can (apparently
)fly with sole reference to instruments and can now find my way around. Next is getting back onto to ground................the bit I have been looking forwards to most. With this in mind we are going in at the challenging end and will be looking at NDB approaches, back in the 152 with no DME.
If anyone is considering an IMC rating and can do it in a nicely equipped PA28 then do so, by a long way a far more stable instrument platform than Mr Cessna's twin seat trainer for the masses. Shame I have limited resources or I would do all 15 hours in a PA28.
Cheers
Obs cop