Instrument Flight 5: Communication Breakdown
We were going to work on approaches today, but we had a problem with the radio. It seemed to be fine before we left; we could hear local traffic, and our radio check was answered. A few miles out we tuned in Tampa Approach, but couldn’t get much of a signal. (When that frequency seems quiet, something is wrong.) That ruled out approaches, so we did more maneuvers, including a lot of climbs and descents to get around the clouds. I did a holding pattern around a real fix, an NDB, instead of the practice area, so I had to watch the ADF as well as the timer and the other instruments.
We played with the radio when we got back to the hangar. We thought the problem might be the squelch, but we didn’t have a screwdriver to adjust it. We adjusted the antenna connections on the back of the radio, and were able to pick up the approach frequency clearly, so the problem seemed to be solved.
Instrument ground school started last week.
Today: 1 hour instrument time
Total: 10.3 hours instrument time
