"Beacon Bashing"

Just over a month through the IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) training I've now completed the first batch of sims and the first 5 flights in the Cessna.  All five flights were done overhead Hamilton using the VOR beacon here - hence the term "beacon bashing" as it's a little repetitive, but really useful practice at this stage.  I'll try to keep some of the jargon to a minimum from here on in, but I'll do my best to explain what it is we are doing currently!

We learn to fly IFR because that's what we'll be using daily as part of commercial flying - the whole point is to fly along published routes or procedures to keep us away from any terrain and set us up on a suitable profile for landing when visibility is poor or flying in cloud.  It is also easy to get disorientated when flying in cloud, so it's important for us to get to grips with trusting and flying off the instruments.

I Can't See!

The first experience of flying in cloud is a little surreal, and goes against what was ingrained in us during the VFR stage (staying visual!) in keeping clearance from cloud. All the training in the sim did prepare us well though, and once you get used to flying off instruments it all seems a bit more manageable.  I must admit that it was an awesome feeling to fly through and then above clouds for the first time - hopefully we'll have plenty more opportunity to do that over the next few weeks.

Watching a coursemate fly a fine holding pattern in the sim.

The Sims

The Simulators we have here are DA42s (The Twinstar) but we don't actually fly the Twinstar for the first 8 flights - instead we're in the single engine Cessna 172.  However, at the moment the focus is learning the IFR procedures and how to use the Garmin Glass Cockpit (the two large screens shown in the picture above) which the Cessna is equipped with so although it might seem strange to swap aircraft from the sim to the first batch of flights, it's not been that bad.  Plus it's been good fun flying a different aircraft!  The other bonus of the Cessna and the Twinstar is that they come with 2 extra seats in the back for passengers (but alas, no on-board service) so I've managed to backseat a few flights that my coursemates fly and vice versa - meaning plenty more pictures to follow!

Our aircraft to start IFR flying  - the mighty Cessna 172

Back in the skies

As good as the sims were, it was great to be back in the air again and it allowed us to actually fly what had been practised in the sim. These past few lessons have tended to be very busy, using either the Hamilton VOR (to put it crudely, think of it as a homing beacon which we can navigate to) or GPS coordinates.

For either of these approaches we have a specific point to a hold above before commencing the approach.  Holding is just that - waiting around flying in a racetrack shape until we are cleared to proceed further - something I imagine we'll get used to while flying commercially, so I guess it's a good thing we are getting plenty of practice now!  I've put a picture of the approach plate we use for one of the runways here, and you can see the hold is the racetrack shape above the beacon (with the 3000' in the middle).  I'll give a skeleton overview of how we would fly this approach.

A guide for flying IFR - one of the Hamilton Approach Plates

If you can imagine this is directly above the airport - so we are often circling 1000s of feet above in the hold, waiting for our clearance to descend for the approach.  Once cleared, we track 'outbound' on the approach, for our aircraft, is the line with 344^o heading up the page away from the aiport and descending as we go.  We then effectively do a "U-turn" back towards the airport on the 'inbound' on the 176^o line to the runway to land.  In this example we have a minimum decision altitude (MDA) which means if we are not visual with the runway at this point, we can't land.  As the weather has been fairly good recently, we are often simulated in cloud and it's not until we look up at 50 feet before the MDA that we are suddenly visual again and can proceed to land.

That's a VOR approach in a very basic nutshell which hopefully gives an appreciation of what goes on without all the detail involved!  Each runway here has VOR and GPS approaches, so depending on what we are doing in the flight we will use a different plate to fly the certain approach.  In addition to this we are managing radio calls, going through checklists and making sure we are flying accurately - it can be a very busy time.  I do notice my capacity to process all this information is getting better with each lesson, however it does take a lot of concentration and after each flight there are plenty of little areas to work on to improve for the next flight.

Beacon Bashing in action - two hours tracking overhead hamilton practising entries to the hold and various approaches

Flying above CTC - lots of aircraft not in the air on that day!

Watching on in the hold above Hamilton airport.  Clearways is on the far right, the runway is over to the left.  The white-ish circle in the middle of the field in the centre of the photo is the Hamilton VOR.

Next up for the flying side of things are IFR routes, where we plan to go to various aerodromes around the North Island practising flying along the set airways and doing different approaches - this should allow us to get away from the familiarity of the Hamilton procedures to try something new and consolidate what's been learnt thus far.  There are now only 3 flights left on the Cessna before I move onto the Twinstar....  I've also clocked over 100 hours flight time with CTC now - how has that come around so quickly?!

Flying through the clouds!

Flying between the clouds

Ahoy there!

As usual we've managed to keep ourselves busy inbetween flights, spending a few days in Raglan, a day at Waihi beach on the east coast, and a comedy night and the usual weekly quiz here in Hamilton.  A few of us have also invested in a small catermaran - now you may think that's a rash purchase given we've only got 2 and a bit months left, but it seemed like a good idea at the time!  We are yet to launch her on a maiden voyage having towed her back from Rotorua, fingers crossed on her seaworthiness and our sailing abilities.

Our new acquisition

Katana on approach to Hamilton, New Zealand never fails to impress!

It's also great news to hear the BA FPP is currently open for 2015 - best of luck to those applying!

Until next time...