Instrument Flight 40: All 4 Approaches
Tonight the traffic was so light that we had the airport all to ourselves. We did all four approaches available at Lakeland, the first time I’ve been able to do that. Some nasty weather rolled through earlier in the day, and it didn’t start clearing up until after 6 pm. We got a little bit of IMC tonight, but it was mostly clear and really windy at altitude.
I did the ILS approach first, starting off on a bad note by not having the localizer tuned in until I was cleared for the approach. It was the standby frequency; I still had the VOR as the active one until then. I got a little below the glideslope, but otherwise the approach was OK.
Next I did the NDB, which went fine, and finally both VOR approaches (27 and 9), partial panel. VOR 27 is the one we do 90% of the time. Again I got off on a bad start by not tracking to the VOR properly.
I started out northeast of the VOR, with a southwest wind. Instead of crossing the VOR, I stayed on the east side of it and went right past it, so the indicator never switched to FROM, and I didn’t realize what had happened until it was pointed out to me. The rest of that approach was fine.
I need to improve my partial-panel turns. I’m having trouble rolling out on the assigned heading. I’ve tried timing them and doing them with the compass and seem to get them wrong either way.
The other VOR approach went OK, but I misunderstood that I was supposed to ask to be told when I was at a certain point of the approach. It’s a DME fix where the descent is supposed to start, but without DME you have to be told when you’re there. The controller told us anyway. We finished the flight with the published missed approach and a few laps around the holding pattern.
Today: 1.5 hours instrument time
Total: 4.8 hours IMC time
Total: 66.8 hours instrument time
