I was looking forward to today's lesson because my CFII said that we'd be flying to Spirit Airport, then to Creve Coeur and finishing back at home. I always seem to enjoy the flights that take me outside of my practice area. After a successful preflight inspection, we were ready to let the fun begin.
We takeoff from runway 27 and fly west, taking it up to 2,500ft. Once clear of the area, Mark tells me to turn left to a eastern heading. We tune into Spirits weather and airport information frequency to hear that they are favoring their 26R and 26L runways. We wanted to practice tracking the Localizer, which meant we would need to ask for runway 26L. You can read the differences between a VOR, ILS and a Localizer on my Learning Zone page (info coming soon). Now that I have all the information, I can make my initial call to St. Louis Approach. I tell him my intentions and he instructs me to climb to 3,500 ft. He also told me that he would vector us around so that we could intercept the Localizer Approach for runway 26L.
The controller cleared us to enter Lambert's Class B airspace so that we could fly directly overhead of the airport. Entering Class B airspace is serious business, specially to a student like me. Only the nation's largest airports are Class B. The controller gives me a set of headings to fly that take us to Lambert Airport. We were told that once we made visual contact with the main terminal, we could turn to a heading of 220 (southwest).
Since I was wearing the foggles, Mark did all the looking. Once he made visual contact with the main terminal, he notified the controller and we turned to the 220 heading. It felt so awkward to fly over Lambert, but I couldn't help but be excited. Soon we would intercept the radial that we needed for the Localizer approach into Spirit Airport. After several minutes of flying, we intercept the radial and get on course for the straight in landing. Shortly thereafter, the controller clears us for the approach and requests that we contact Spirit Tower. I start my descent and continue tracking the Localizer. If the needle on my instrument is to the left of the center dot, I need to turn right and vise versa. I contact the tower and let them know that we're inbound for the approach to 26L. Once at the Final Approach Fix (the last checkpoint of the approach), I slow down, continue to descend and drop a notch of flaps. Mark tells me to look up and sure enough, it took me right where I needed to be. We didn't need to land, so I told the Tower that we were going missed.
The controller tells us to just fly straight and to contact St. Louis Approach again. We tell approach that we now want to practice the VOR-A approach into Creve Coeur Airport. I did this once before so I knew more of what to expect. In addition, a VOR approach is twice as easy as a Localizer or ILS approach. We get the clearance to carry out the approach and it takes us right to the airport.
Now it's time to head back home. The controller tells us to stay clear of Class B airspace and that we could now change radio frequencies to our choice. We tuned in to our home airport's weather, then the traffic frequency. I take my foggles off, enter downwind for runway 18 and set up to land. Now turning left onto base, drop more flaps and keep descending. Turn left onto the final leg. I'm way too high so I cut the power to idle and drop all remaining flaps. Once over the runway, I flare and gently touch down.
No comments:
Post a Comment