Instrument Student's Log
Part Ten

Flights 15-17

Flight 15: Sat, Dec 14. (1 / 21.1)

There was a breakthrough today. I finally did an approach mostly right without a lot of prompting, a full VOR approach to Lakeland. I did about half the radio work, more than before. Next we did a localizer approach, which went mostly alright except that I forgot to start the timer until we were way past the proper point.

This was the best I've done so far with instrument approaches. What made the difference was writing down the steps for the approach before leaving the hangar instead of trying to interpret the plate in the air.

Sat, Dec 21.

Ground school ended this week, and I took the written exam today. Our local testing center is only open weekdays, so I flew to Venice (VNC) for the test. I got a 98; the only question I missed was one on estimating time for a cross country flight, which I couldn't solve and just guessed. I thought I was ready for the test, but I didn't expect to do this well.

Flight 16: Sat, Dec 28. (1 / 22.1)

I hadn't done any instrument work in two weeks, so I wondered whether the progress I made last time would continue. Since then I got the new version of Microsoft Flight Simulator and found some Tampa-area scenery on the Web that includes the airports where we do our practice approaches. Using the real plates, I tried a few of the same approaches I've done in training.

I found the simulator to be a big help. I can record a flight, play it back, pause in flight to read the plate, adjust the weather, etc. It's harder to fly than the real thing, but it's great for practicing procedures, and it's inexpensive. (Less than the cost of an hour's flying.) More details are in the Flight Simulator Reviews section.

Today we did some VOR holding, two VOR approaches, one localizer and one ILS approach. My flight instructor demonstrated an ILS approach, and it was disgusting to watch how perfectly aligned with the runway we were the whole time, considering that he was under the hood. The needles stayed centered as if the indicators were turned off.

My own approaches look like the giant amusement park slides people ride sitting on burlap sacks. My VOR problem makes it tricky, because I have to follow the glideslope of VOR 1 and the localizer of VOR 2. VOR 1's localizer is off about 15 degrees, so it still moves, and it's hard to ignore that needle while chasing the other two.

Overall the approaches went well today; they still need work, but they're getting better, and I'm doing most of the radio work now.

Flight 17: Sun, Dec 29. (1.2 / 23.3)

This flight was not much different from yesterday's. I got confused a couple of times over ATC instructions. Once I thought I was supposed to turn and climb right away, but what I was given was the missed approach procedure to fly at the end. It was different from the published missed procedure, so I thought it was a change of plan to avoid traffic or the like.