More Hard Work

More instrument practice today. We started off flying a little practice pattern that involved a bunch of instrument procedures, like a procedure turn, deardrop entry, and hold pattern, just to get the hang of flying in that manner. For the most part I had it down fairly easily. Its just a matter of flying a series of timed straight legs and turns as precisely as possible, so Frank decided that he would let me try an NDB approach on for size.

We tuned into the Goderich NDB and made our way north, with me flying heads down on instruments the entire way. We were flying through some light rain showers but for the most part it was relatively clear. I wasn't wearing a hood or foggles or anything, but I wasn't aloud to look outside. Typically you're supposed to wear something that obstructs your vision to everything except the instruments to simulate instrument meteorlogical conditions (IMC), but its really not that hard to resist looking outside as long as you concentrate on the panel.

Actually its so easy to focus on the instruments that I can entirely forget about everything else - that is until Frank makes some off-handed comment about the weather outside or some landmark on the ground, which then I reflexively look up. Doh! As long as Frank keeps quiet though I quickly become lost in my instrument scan: Attitude, heading, altitude, ADF. Attitude, heading, altitude, ADF.

This all comes fairly naturally, its just about reading the instruments and making the necessary corections. The NDB approaches we did today were a different story however. I won't go into the gory details of how its supposed to work and proper procedures, but it is DIFFICULT. Its not nearly as straightforward and intuitive as flying an ILS, but requires a certain amount of spatial thinking - picturing where you are based on the position of the ADF needle versus the aircraft's heading. We flew three approaches and each time I becames so entangled in trying to wrap my mind around what was supposed to happen, and what was actually happening, that I completely forgot that I actually had to fly an airplane at the same time. One attempt I neglected my pre-landing checks, and another time I forgot about descending down to the next step down altitude until it was too late. At that point I was trying to rapidly descend and slow down at the same time before I missed the airport altogether. Descents and reductions in airspeed don't go well together at all. While doing that my attention was diverted from the navigational part of the approach, and I forgot about my final turn after I passed the NDB. I was marginally improving though. By the third one I had the concept of the NDB approach down in my head better. I'm sure when we go up again and get a couple more attempts in I'll have it more solidified in my head. Once I understand completely how its supposed to work, I'll have a fighting chance at actually getting the airplane to do it. I managed to prove today however that if you become too focused on getting one thing to happen right and forget about all the other things you have to worry about things can quickly spiral out of hand.

Today's flight again took so much work to learn and perform what I was being taught, but that is so much fun. I haven't had this kind of fun in an airplane in a long time, its so refreshing.

On a side note, on the way back to london we had a substantial tailwind, and the GPS was showing a groundspeed of 185 kts, or 213 mph. "200 mph club" baby.