When I decided to leave Los Alamos, I stopped working on my instrument training to save some money. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be staying in Albuquerque, and I was at a good stopping point in terms of the training syllabus.

Since it’s clear I’m staying in Albuquerque and have a steady income lined up, I decided to start up again. My instructor at Bode had left for the airlines, so I needed a new instructor. I’ve grown attached to the situational awareness offered by a IFR-certified GPS, so I didn’t want to lose that. I had done all my IFR training in airplanes with glass panels, but that wasn’t a requirement. Shopping around a little bit, there were three options in Albuquerque — Bode at Double Eagle, del sol Aviation at the Sunport, and the Kirtland AeroClub at the Sunport. Bode was expensive and at Double Eagle, which means crossing the bridges to get there. del sol is a small operation, has a Liberty, which is small, but has dual GNS 430 GPSs, and is the middle of the price range. The AeroClub only has one plane with an IFR GPS and it’s in a 182 that requires more hours than I currently have for solo flight.

So I decided to try del sol. The instrument instructor I’ll be flying with is cool with flying early in the morning, so I’d be able to fly at least one morning a week before work, likely still beating most everyone into work. My first flight was this morning. We decided to do some intro to the airplane, then a bit of simulated instrument work, mainly the flight back to the airport from the practice area and then an IFR approach to runway 3. I liked the airplane — a Liberty XL2. Nothing fancy, but a good trainer and the dual GNS 430 units means nice situational awareness. Oh, and no flying with the Double Eagle crazies. The one odd thing about the plane is that it has finger brakes instead of pedal brakes — the steering on the ground is controlled by two levers on the center column. Not too bad, but I don’t think I’ll be doing a zero/zero takeoff (one under the hood) in the near future.

The flight was mostly uneventful. It’s the first time in a long time I’ve taken off on 8 at ABQ in something other than the RV, so the ground roll went on *forever*, but really not too bad. The plane handled really well, and has a stick which is nice. The air was smooth this morning, but holding headings & altitude under instruments was no problem. I came into the approach a little hot because tower asked me to keep the speed up, so I had trouble keeping the descent on the glidescope. I kept on the localizer until about a mile out, where I started over-correcting. Instructor decided to have me “break out” at about 500′ AGL, a bit higher than minimums, but plenty of time for me to get setup for a nice landing. Unlike previous ILS approaches, I was on top of things enough that I already had flaps down, was at approach speed, and didn’t have too much work to do to get it down.

Next flight is tomorrow morning — will probably be maneuvers under the hood to get me used to the plane under the hood, then a couple of approaches.

Today was review of the previous flight material, before we move on to approaches. Started with some autopilot work (yay autopilots) — the KAP-140 in the C-172 is pretty trivial to use, and provides 2-axis (heading and altitude) control. We worked on entering holds, steep turns (finally didn’t blow it), stall recovery, unusual attitude recovery, and just flying around. On descents to an assigned altitude, I’m not fast enough getting the nose up and the power in, so I end up 50′ too low. Since the practical test standards for assigned altitudes are generally +100/-0′, I have to stop going too low (but staying a bit high would be ok). For most of the flight, I had a pretty good scan going and was staying mostly ahead of the plane.

Then came the landing part. We did a full own navigation ILS 22 approach (with procedure turn) into AEG again. Due to another aircraft doing the missed approach procedure into the hold at DUDLE, we were initially assigned an altitude restriction of 8500′. This isn’t a big deal for the outbound leg and procedure turn, which normally has a minimum altitude of 8000′. But by the time approach removed the restriction, I was pretty close to again DUDLE, at which point I really should have already established on the glide scope and been at 7630′ and descending. Obviously, 8500′ is greater than 7630′, so I had a problem and it became a localizer only approach. I still can not for the life of me track the localizer well inside about 2 miles, which is annoying. After the stage check, we’ll be flying approaches all day, so hopefully I’ll improve with a bit of work.

Today started with yet another DME hold, this time on the ABQ 310 radial at 12 DME. My entry was pretty good, but I took far too many laps to get on the radial. Good news is that i stayed in the protected airspace the entire time, so at least it wouldn’t have been a total bust. For the holds and then most of the maneuvering today, I had much better control over the plane (maintaining altitude and heading) than I have in the past couple of weeks. My scan is also drastically improving, giving me time to look at other things (like the checklists and the MFD with the moving map / traffic). I’m starting to get comfortable with that part of flying, which is reassuring.

We then did partial panel unusual attitude recovery, where the instructor puts the plane in a non-straight-and-level attitude that’s moving towards something really bad happening (diving or stalling usually) and student then gets to recover into straight and level. These are a total pain in the butt with steam gauges, because the partial panel is usually an attitude indicator loss. The G1000, however, is the primary AI, backed up by a vacuum AI, so you always have an AI that works (or are about to die, but that’s another story). Nose high recovery was fine, but on nose low (a dive), I always wanted to pull up on the nose before leveling the wings, as one doesn’t like diving towards the ground. But this is not good, because it adds stress to the wings and if you are diving, you want to keep as much stress off the wings as possible.

Stalls weren’t too bad, but it’s hard to get used to the thought of using rudder to level the AI, because that’s just not how you usually do it. Yet somehow, this doesn’t bother me when I’m doing VFR stalls. I suppose it’s just like VFR stalls — you get used to it and everything is second nature.

We then repeated the entire thing, this time using the G1000 instead of the backup indicators. The stalls were a little easier than on the partial panel because it includes an inclinometer (aka, the ball) which tells you whether you are in coordinated flight or not. For some reason beyond comprehension, while most backup attitude indicators include an inclinometer, the one on the G1000 does not. So you just kind of guess to keep coordinated flight, which is a little difficult for unusual attitudes.

Practiced some more steep turns — still having trouble with those, need another flight to get where I need to be with those.

Due to time, we then ended with a standard VFR approach. The pattern was a bit busy and we were short on time. Made a better than usual approach, but still a little high on final. Had a much better sight lines through the flare and had a better feeling for my height. Still bounced it a bit because I came across the threshold too fast, but I’m slowly converging on something that doesn’t suck.

Next week is cleaning up all my maneuvers for a stage check with another flight instructor. So more of everything from lessons 1 – 6. Yippie.

After Saturday’s shortened lesson, I was able to get a last minute flight scheduled for today to finish up flight 5. Today, we’d start with a practice clearance copy, then another DME hold, then steep turns, then finish with an ILS approach. It was a nice day, and I was scheduled an hour later than usual (9 instead of 8). Double Eagle was insanely busy, and we were #5 for departure at one point. The way traffic got run together, we didn’t have time to do a practice clearance, so we just practiced vectors out of the airport. Which we would have had to do anyway, because the airspace around the airport was also insane.

We did a practice hold, and it took me a couple of times around the track to get the wind correction exactly right. Once I did, the wind changed on me and I ended up a little squashed on the last trip around the holding pattern. Oh well. I’m getting better, but need to look at the wind indicator on the G1000 (computers are great!) — it should really help in making sure I run nice holds. I was having some trouble keeping straight and level when we got close to some of the “hills” on the west side of the city, as the air was clearly already starting to cook. Not big problems, but just enough to be frustrating.

Steep turns were interesting. I haven’t done steep turns in a Cessna in over a year (last time would have been at my checkride). I’ve done them in the RV, but the control inputs necessary on that plane are so much less than in the Cessna that it really doesn’t count. The first turn was to my left, which has always been weaker than my right-handed steep turns. I lost a bunch of altitude and it took a while to get it back together. The right hand turn was pretty much spot on. The second left was better than the first, but not as good as the right. But I think i’ve got the control pressure feel back so hopefully next week will go better.

We were pretty busy dodging planes all morning, and it didn’t help that for most of it we didn’t have flight following because the controller was kinda busy already and was dealing with an airliner with a gear problem (they got the gear down and locked and as far as I know landed without incident, but that kind of thing makes everyone nervous). We probably could have gotten traffic advisories if we asked, but sometimes it’s just a good idea to give a stressed controller a break :).

After steep turns, we did a full ILS22 approach. Normally at a place like Double Eagle or the Sunport, where there is good radar coverage, you get vectored into the localizer and glidescope. Meaning that the controller turns you and gives you altitude assignments such that you are right at the initial approach fix lined up with the runway (5 miles away) and can start following the radio navigation down to 200′ above the ground. In areas where there is bad radar coverage or the radar is out, they can’t give you vectors and you have to do your own navigation. This isn’t too bad when you have an IFR-approved GPS (or two), but we practice the old radio only way. That means flying at a high altitude to the initial approach fix, which is a radio transmitter called DUDLE for the AEG ILS 22 approach, flying away from the airport, turning around while descending to a given altitude, then flying back towards the airport on the localizer. Right before DUDLE is crossed again, you should intercept the glidescope and start descending. The turning around is called a procedure turn and is used to make sure everyone stays within airspace that will keep them from hitting anything (like mountains, towers, or big buildings).

The G1000 makes flying the procedure turn trivial, as it displays it on the moving map for you. I flew that no problem, but could not stay stabilized on the glidescope. It was all in all a truly crappy approach. I ended up going missed well before the decision height because it was so bad. I need to spend some time reviewing suggested power / pitch settings so that I’m not searching for the first half of the approach, and I think that will help immensely. After going around (visually, no more hood) I made a halfway decent approach to land. I was pointed at the very start of the runway, which is earlier than I like, but it would work. Then, about 5-10′ off the runway, I caught an downdraft or a wind gust off the tail or something and started sinking rapidly. I probably could have saved it, but was frustrated from the previous approach, so just firewalled it and went around. Third attempt (sigh) at landing, I was a bit high, but made a beautiful engine-out approach. This time, I was pointed at the numbers, just in case that air pocket from the last approach was still down there. I flared pretty well, held it off beautifully, and greased it on to end the saga of no landings.

My scan still needs work — I’m having trouble with it when I have to do other things in the cockpit. Today, however, was the first day that I felt comfortable adding the MFD (the second screen) into my scan. It definitely helped with situational awareness — knowing exactly where I was, seeing the TIS traffic display, and was really helpful when trying to do the full procedure ILS — it showed the entire coarse to be flown and loaded it all into the HSI display, which beats reading numbers off of the paper chart any day.

Next week’s lesson is partial panel work (which we’ve started doing a bit of already) and then unusual attitude recovery and stalls. The unusual attitude recovery is part of the private pilot requirements, so I think I can handle that pretty well. The stalls shouldn’t be too bad, just a matter of remembering to use the rudder to keep the AI level when we break. I’m going to make an effort to spend an hour or two flying with X-Plane this week to try to work on the scan and working through maneuvers, and definitely shoot a bunch of approaches until I get this power thing under control. X-Plane has a 172SP with steam gauges instead of the G1000, but it should work well enough for my needs. Possibly better for practicing holds. Memorizing the pitch / power settings needed through the approach is also a biggie — that screwed me today.

Saturday morning, we went up for my 5th lesson, steep turns (and scan review). We planned to start with a practice DME hold. As I was intercepting the radial for the hold, Bode’s base ops asked us to go to an air-to-air frequency. It turns out Tim had another student doing his long solo cross country that morning, and the check instructor found a problem with his logbook. So either the student had to sit there waiting for us to get back, or we had to head back early. I’d hate to ruin someone’s long cross-country and there were afternoon t-storms forecast, so if we didn’t get back until 10:00, he could be cutting it close (for a student pilot, anyway. Much different than the storm dodging Galen and I do now that we have 300 hours between us). Anyway, I figured I’d be the nice guy and offered to head in. We were northwest, so we could shoot the ILS22 approach and it wouldn’t slow us down more than a minute or two.

I had been doing pretty well with the intercept course, keeping the plane level at the assigned altitude. I flew the vectors approach gave us and intercepted the localizer and then glidescope without problem. Then I went braindead and flipped the meaning of the glidescope indicator. So I thought I was low when I was actually high. It took me too long to figure out what I had done, and i messed up the approach. Got it back under control right around decision height (the minimum altitude you can descend on the approach without seeing the runway), and made the landing. But I was fast and only had 10 degrees of flaps in and 200′ above the ground is no time to be adding more flaps, so I was stuck with that configuration. Landed a bit hot, but no harm. And it was definitely a learning experience — if the instruments aren’t doing what you expect, stop and think before you dig a whole.

No steep turns, so didn’t finish lesson 5. But that’s for tomorrow.

Last night we had a fairly large storm after dark. Lots and lots of rain, and some thunder and lightning even. The rain cooled things down, and a high overcast sky meant that it was going to stay cool for a little while. The rain should have calmed the air down, so we should have a full morning of cool, smooth air. Perfect for flying! Thankfully, I had scheduled a training flight for the morning. Unfortunately, while preflighting the plane, I noticed a problem. Two of the fasteners along the front of the cowl were loose and one was missing. Looking at it closer, the two that were loose were the wrong size. It’s sunday, so the mechanics weren’t around. The plane therefore wasn’t airworthy and we had to scrub the flight. I’m bummed, but there’s always next week.

Today was instrument flight #4. According to the syllabus, the flight is mostly a review flight, working basic maneuvering. The new topic is copying simple clearances. Since actually filing an IFR flight plan on a CAVU (ceiling and visibility unlimited) day is a sure way to piss off the controllers, we just practiced back and forth in the plane. I got behind copying down and couldn’t catch up, so I blew it. I should have dropped the missed parts and gotten the rest. That way, the amount of information the controller must repeat is less. Oh well, I’ll get better. It’s actually slightly more difficult in the practice mode because you don’t know what’s coming. I can be pretty sure when filing IFR from ABQ to Phoenix, for example, that I’m going to depart, turn towards the ABQ VOR on the west side of town, then pick up an airway that heads west.

We then went up and worked on maneuvers, starting with VOR/DME holds. We were holding on the 320 radial of the Albuquerque VOR at 15 DME, heading Northwest. The airport is southeast of this position, and we were holding as if we would be continuing to the northwest. This means entering using a parallel entry (see here for holding pattern entries. It took two loops through the hold to get a wind correction angle, mostly because I was just fighting to fly the plane. I’m still way behind the G1000 panel, even compared to the glass cockpit in N813T. It takes me too long to find things like the clock or the wind direction/strength. But I’m getting there.

Did some more partial panel work, which on the G1000 means flying with the backup instruments that are way out of the way (like this). The compass was being a little funky, but I think I did pretty well.

I only had one time where I let the plane start to get away from me. Tim (my instructor) told me to proceed directly to KAEG (Double Eagle II, the home airport for the flight school). While I was loading a direct route to KAEG into the GPS and then changing the HSI from VOR to GPS mode (the CDI is the dial that tells you which way you need to be pointing. VOR is the radio receiver and GPS is, well, the course the GPS is trying to get me to.). I let the plane start to descend quickly. Thankfully, managed to recover in plenty of time and Tim never had to take the controls, so at least there’s that. But learned an important lesson — don’t stop the scan while you’re dialing in radio frequencies or programming the GPS. In real IFR flight in a modern airplane, you’d have the autopilot doing the flying while you’re doing the programming. But the autopilot fails, so we do all the training without it.

Sunday is lesson number 5. We’ll be doing steep turns under the hood and then more review.

This morning was the third instrument rating lesson. Originally, we were going to take Kyle out to dinner last night, so instead of scheduling for 7:00am like normal, I scheduled it for 11:00am. The plane was late getting back from a lesson, then needed some oil, so it was 11:40 before we could get the fan spinning. We did a 0/0 takeoff (meaning I was wearing the hood during the takeoff roll, able only to see the instrument panel. I had done two (maybe three) of these in the 152 back in B’ton and had no problem. I was really nervous this time, I think because I’m still getting used to the G1000 panel. I didn’t get well aligned with the runway and didn’t set the heading bug quite right, so it wasn’t my best work. I don’t particularly like sitting on the runway at a non-towered airport, but next time I’ll take my time getting lined up and should do considerably better.

Since it was mid-day by the time we started rolling, it was already pretty hot out there, and the heat of the day was causing some good thermals. It made it a little difficult to work on keeping level flight, especially in turns. We worked on constant rate descents and climbs, which went mildly ok — would have been considerably better if not for the thermals tossing us around. The bulk of the work was doing partial panel. First, we simulated a failure of the PFD (the screen in front of me), so I had to use the MFD (the screen on the right). No biggie — a bit of situational awareness lost because there’s no way to have the “6 pack” displayed with a moving map on the MFD (there is on the PFD, plus when the PFD has the 6 pack, the MFD is basically one huge moving map). Then we simulated losing the MFD as well, leaving me with compass, airspeed, backup attitude, and altimeter. None of which are in a reasonable locations for use in flight. We then did some turns based on the magnetic compass, both timed and compass reading. In the C-172, a 15 degree bank results in a 360 degree turn taking about 2 minutes. So a 90 degree heading turn with a 15 degree bank takes about 30 seconds. Only problem with that is that 1) the airplane timer is in the “failed” G1000 and 2) my watch has a polarized lens and my glasses are polarized and the position of my watch when holding the yoke makes it mostly unreadable.

The magnetic compass is a slightly entertaining because it isn’t smooth in its travel. When turning towards the South, it will precede the real heading. So if you want to roll out on a heading of 180, you have to wait until the compass reads 210 (for the continental US, anyway). The opposite is true for North — you have to roll out 30 degrees early. In both cases, once you roll wings level, the compass will swing to the proper heading and the world rights itself. Rolling out east or west is done without any extra math. All good entertaining fun that makes me happy that I almost always have a directional gyro that doesn’t have these problems.