Instrument Day 9

October 30, 2011

We lucked out. The winds weren't too horrible yet for Bob and I to fly. It was our first lesson together.

When we taxiied out to the runway, the winds were gusting to 18knots from the south. I've gone with an instructor with 30 knot gusts, but I wouldn't do more than 20 knots if I were flying solo. I was slightly concerned about the wind, but only because I would be flying with the foggles. I didn't want to get sick from the turbulence, which only bothers me to a small degree when I can't see outside the airplane.

Take take off from runway 18 then turn north. I put the foggles on and climb to 4000ft. We were definitely getting knocked around, especially at lower altitudes. We'll see how this goes. Bob has never worked on instrument stuff with me outside of my private pilot checkride, so to begin the lesson we just do some back turns, climbs and descents. Then he takes the controls and has me close my eyes. We do some unusual attitudes. There were no issues so we move on to VOR navigation. Bob tunes the radio in to the St. Louis VOR and WE work on intercepting the radial that will get us to our pretend destination.

I look up briefly and peak outside. The clouds were just overhead and we were actually in some light rain. Cool! We continued using the VOR, then decided it was time to follow it back home. The winds were coming from the south, but we had to fly south (into the wind) to get to the airport. At one point, we looked over and the airspeed indicator said we were traveling at 100 knots. The GPS however, showed us flying with a ground speed (the speed we'd be driving if we were in a car) of 54 knots! The wind was so strong at altitude that we were just crawling along.

We did a straight in landing for runway 18, taxied back and parked the plane. Our next lesson will be more VOR intercepting and tracking. Bob will also introduce NDB orientation and homing, NDB bearing interception and tracking and NDB time, speed and distance. "A non-directional (radio) beacon (NDB) is a radio transmitter at a known location, used as an aviation or marine navigational aid." -Wikipedia. It is similar to a VOR but has clear differences. We will also try to fit in intercepting and tracking DME (Distance measuring equipment) arcs. I basically know nothing about this yet. It should be a full lesson, and as always, I look forward to it.

Oh and... HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!