Flight Journal: flight 41

[beaky]

Flight 41

06-11-96

1979 c-172N
TEB-N07-TEB
1.3 dual
5 landings

1500 broken; vis 5 miles in haze; wind 180/4; temp 70F; Alt. 30.01

"Short & soft, attitude instr. flt, norm TP"


At lesson time, it's still too foggy, so we don't get going unitl about noon.
Normal takeoff from 24- I lose the centerline on rotation somehow... very rusty after one week. Also, 23F feels different. Fortunately the V-speeds are the same...

Turning NW it's clear that conditions are marginal at best. C. offers a tempting challenge:
"Keep this heading and fly by instruments alone."
Neither one of us has a vision-limiting device with us, but he is firm:
"Just don't look up."

There's not a heck of a lot to see out there anyway, so I'm not tempted to peek. It's time to dive into instrument flight, and I am eager.
The radio is not transmitting well, so C. takes over comms so I can concentrate.I find that I can now indulge my habit of needle-chasing quite thoroughly... it's odd at first, but within a few minutes I'm quite comfortable, once I get the hang of using the gyro horizon as my primary, merely glancing at the other instruments for trends.
Okay, minor pitch changes for altitude; check the altimeter than the VSI; now check the heading; now the altitude again...
On and on it goes. I'm (surprisingly) nbot nervous, and as C. calls out course changes I feel no disorientation while turning.

It's really very enjoyable, cruising along with just the abstractions of the instruments. My decision to trust C. to vector us safely has been made quickly and absolutely... sometimes this is what crew flying is all about: he does his job, you do yours.

"Look up", C. says suddenly.

Through the broken scud and haze I can see the greenhouses north of Lincoln Park. My lake checkpoint for entry to downwind for 19 is right there, at my 11:00.
Switching to eyes outside, I slow up a hair and bank over the lake and turn to my next point, the athletic field by the school. The pattern goes well, but again (again!) I slop up my turn to final. C. gives me hell for it, and it takes a lot of willpower for me to not become angry and discouraged... gotta land now; centerline... trim for 65... okay...the landing is so-so, but at least I keep it centered in the calm air... but 23F wants to spring up, and she rock from one main to the other as we roll out. Very odd.

After getting chided for braking too heavily, I turn off and taxi back to try again.
Short-field takeoff: pretty good. Centerline no problem. The whole pattern works out well, and my landing is better.
Next is a soft-field takeoff: this is fun. I enjoy seeing how low I can keep the plane as we skim in ground effect. I ease in some back pressure as we reach climbing speed. As I retract the first notch of flaps, the nose comes down a bit faster than it should (or rather I let it do so), and I see now that I'm way low! Yikes! On this humid day, although I had set the altimeter earlier on the ground, it seems I'm lower than indicated. I make a note to check it again when I land, but willforget to do so...

This pattern is very nice, and I've decided to try using the hospital as my landmark to begin my turn to final. Descent angle is shallower, now, too- not bad.
Greasing 23F onto the pavement with thatsnort of power is still tricky; I leave the throttle in for a millisecond too long.But again, I'm down without porpoising or drifting, and I'm satisfied with that.

Another soft takeoff: better this time. It's still strange to me the way the plane gets airborne at so low an airspeed, but it's normal: we reach Vx with room to spare and roar out of N07 well above the treetops.
I'm still climbing on the crosswind when C. says it's time to head back, on the instruments again.

I happily re-enter that world of abstractions, chaqnging course as per his devilishly random commands:
"Keep this heading... no; turn left five degrees... now turn to 260..."
He even tried to give me verigo by asking me if all the required airplane documents are on board- he wants me to try to find them while flying without glancing outside.
But I've got him this time, because I always do a textbook prerflight:
"Yeah, everything except the weight and balance sheet is in the front pocket here", I tell him, without taking my eyes off the panel, "and the weight and balance is in the pocket behind my seat, along with the POH."
He says nothing. I smile and continue my scan of the instruments.

Soon we are under TEB Tower control, and C. asks if I'd like to try a sort of bastardized instrument approach, but without the VOR or ILS. He gives me instructions for heading and altitude to meet Tower's request. It's like an old-school precision radar approach. There's a small change to be made every few seconds, and I do very well, enjoying all of it. I almost peek, by accident, when I glance up at the mag compass on the glareshield, because the DG doesn't seem right. C. adjusts the DG and gives me another correction... and now it's time to descend. Once 23F is configured for the descent, I hear those magic words:

"Look up."
ahead is a beutiful sight: out of nowhere, it seems, there is Runway 19, dead ahead, but just slightly askew. I shift over to the centerline and ease the power back to try to land as short as I can. It doesn't work becasue-dammit- the scale illusion tricks me again, and I "round out" too high.
Oh well, I'll nail it next time...

Mercifully, Tower lets me back-taxi on 19 to taxi back the short way, via 24.
the postflight brief is positive:
"Well, that was... better.Good work on the instruments... you didn't peek, did you?"
I explain about the near-peek, but emphasize that I tried not to steal a look... which is true.
A good lesson overall... C. tells me that next lesson, we'll move on to ground reference maneuvers, weather permitting.
Onward!!

Next- flight 42: ground ref with a passenger, and making progress

[Brett_Henderson]

It's hard to relate the feeling, when you look up to see a runway, even post bastardized instrument approach. The very idea that for all intents and purposes, you just put yourself in position to land an airplane, while not able to see the runway, is heady and empowering

[beaky]

I
I never asked.. did you ever get into genuine instrument training ?

No... I did the required hood time, then never did it again. Kept putting it off, thinking it was not worth picking at the rating. Wish i gad- I'd have it by now.
but the trick is maintaining both legal currency and real proficiency- that piece of paper won't keep you shiny-side up in the soup.
C

I over-lapped it a little, during my primary training. Real IMC, filed and all. I'll never forget taking off, all full of myself, handling the hand-off to approach, and then glancing at the attitude indicator to see that I was well on my way to inverted flight  :o

LOL!! "Pride goeth before a fall..."

I never did get comfortable.. and to this day, will not take off into IMC without a competent co-pilot. I've done it, and it's intimidating to the point of distraction. I marvel with envy, those who do it well. My last instrument instructor was particularly confident, and tried his best to demonstrate. I used to pose that even a simple vacuum failure would send me into a panic. His answer (on our next flight), was to show me how much ado about nothing, it was. We flew a VOR approach and he covered both the DG and AI  :o


He flew the approach, handled the radio.. went so far as to to elaborate each adaptation; using airpseed and altitude and a compass  (explaining timed turns and a tailwaging use of the turn-cordinator (step on the rudder, watch the compass and reference the turn coordiantor to confirm that you aren't about to fall out of the sky on a knife-edge)... and he did all this from the RIGHT seat  :-?

I've replicated this feat in the sim, but I know my limitations. Doing it for real, excedes them  :-[

"Needle, ball and airspeed" IFR... I've heard from quite a few pilots who say they don't find that very intimiidating , and some who insist that it should be stressed as a requirement for proficiency, even if you're flying a new Cirrus with a parachute and a "fix my sloppy flying please" button.

When I was asking around about the wisdom of trying to do my IR in a C140, I heard from a few old-timers who had done plenty of that kind of flying, including stuff like shooting precision radar approaches in to minimums in a Champ (!!)... The military-trained guys in particular seemed to have "needle, ball, airspeed" really hammered into their skulls. But I also gathered that old-school PP- I  training also used to be very heavy on partial-panel IFR. Pilots who did a lot of partial-panel work in their training, with the idea that that is IFR flying, and the other stuff is just window dressing, seem to have no problem with it.

While it might seem risky to rely on good partial-panel skills and be willing to fly IFR without lots of redundancy and an autopilot, on the other hand, if all those goodies let you down in the clag you'd better be able to get home the old-fashioned way.

I am a big supporter of this philosophy, but of course I've never flown partial-panel, even under the hood... flying in 5-mile VMC with no attitude gyro is one thing; flying in solid IMC without one is another...  :o

[Brett_Henderson]

Next time you're killing some time in the sim..  set the weather for overcast and 1 mile visibility.. then set a vacuum failure and try a VOR approach  :)

It's surprisingly easy, when your life isn't on the line..  lol

But you'll get an idea of how intimidating it would be, in a real cockpit..

[pepper_airborne]

Very informative and interesting read!