Had a 7:00am flight today in an attempt to get back down on the ground before the winds got insane, which they’ve been doing all week. Flew three approaches — ILS 22 AEG, ILS 8 ABQ, and a VOR 8 circling to land on 3. The VOR 8 was partial panel, with the AI and DG failed. The flight was pretty uneventful — didn’t have any problems with either ILS, and nailed them pretty well.

The VOR 8 approach was a full procedure turn approach, starting from over the city. Headed out to the VOR (west of the city, 10.2NM from the end of runway 8) to start the approach, which starts by heading west for a couple of minutes, then turning around to head back to the airport. The turning around is called a procedure turn, and involves turning right (generally, sometimes left) 45 degrees or so, going that direction for a minute or so, then making a 180 turn to head back to the approach course, then turning onto the approach coarse. It looks something like this.

The wind at 8000′ was already picking up, and was coming basically directly from 300, which is the direction we were heading to start the procedure turn. So when we made the 180, we got pushed across the approach course and ended up way out of the way. We were doing the approach without the GPS moving map or position information (as you would in a plane with a VOR/DME but no GPS), so it took a minute to figure out where we were and how to get back where we needed to be. Eventful, but we managed. The rest of the approach was smooth and made a nice circling to land landing on runway 3.

1.0 hours of simulated instrument flight more completed, 2.9 hours remain. Also need 1.7 hours of cross-country PIC. Instrument knowledge test scheduled on Monday afternoon.