Just when I thought I was getting the hang of it....
After a couple of weeks off, I had another IMC lesson on Saturday. Actually had two lessons booked. Arrived nice and early despite the appaling weather. Agreed with instructor that we'd brief two lessons, and then see if the weather had improved. So we talked about partial panel and unusual attitudes, and then about approaches.
Everything sounded easy and logical. We sat down with the VOR/DME plate for runway 02 at Southampton, and briefed it very thoroughly since it was going to be my first attempt at an approach. We didn't actually go to EGHI - instead, we planned to fly the appraoch at a safe height above Compton VOR/DME.
Briefing over, and the viz was still too bad to consider taking off, even IFR. So we moved to the bar, and chatted over a Diet Coke and some food. Then, early afternoon, my instructor noticed the vis was improving, and said she was happy to go if I was. It wasn't good enough for the partial panel and unusual attitude work, but we could do the approach first.
It was now a couple of hours since the briefing, but everything was still fairly fresh in my head. Pre-flighted and took off, and flew to the VOR. And that's when the good stuff ended.
We did a parallel entry to the hold, which went completely wrong because I completely overshot the assigned radial, and spent the whole of the inbound leg trying to get back onto it again. Flew around the hold a few times, with every time getting slightly better. Eventually, I was flying a reasonable holding pattern, and my instructor used her best ATC voice to clear me for the approach. Got tied up with descending, forgot the approach checks until I got a gentle reminder from my instructor. Just about finished the checks in time and put the flaps down as I was about to turn inbound - totally unprepared to handle the change of attitude as the flaps went down at the same time as turning, and nearly stalled. (Instructor later advised me not to put flaps down so early - sounds like good advice.) Got in a complete mess sorting everything out, seriously overshot my assigned altitude, then got in a mess fixing that and overshot my heading. Finally got everything sorted out, and was so relieved that I just forgot to keep working. Bust my MDH (lucky it wasn't a real approach), and was completely unprepared for the missed procedure. When we got to the missed approach point, although I knew my outbound radial, I didn't have the OBS set up. Neither did I have any idea what radial I'd be heading back to the VOR on. I was vaguely aware that something was supposed to happen at 7 DME, but I didn't know what.
I now realised exactly what is meant when people talk about being "behind the aeroplane". This was the first time since doing circuits for my PPL that I really felt like I couldn't fly.
After the second approach, we headed back home (at least I was familiar with the let-down procedure that we use to get visual before entering the White Waltham ATZ - I flew it better than I'd flown the previous approach, but still needed lots of prompting). And then I flew a visual approach followed by a pretty nice landing. Nice landings are quite rare when I'm tired, so it seems like I'm getting over the "absolutely knackered after every session" stage that ChiSau talks about, so that's something at least.
My plan before my next lesson is two-fold. First of all, fly the approach again on MS Flight Sim. And secondly, look over a load of approach plates, and fly them in my head - paying special attention to setting up nav-aids, OBSs, heading bugs and so on. Might even have a go at flying a few different approaches on Flight Sim if I get a chance.
The flying part is becoming second nature very quickly. The rest of it is going to take a bit of work!
FFF
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