So Much Work For Those Two Words - Instrument Airplane

David B. Cole wrote:

Matt and Guy,

Thanks for the advice. I read Weather Flying by Buck and Instrument
Flying by Taylor before starting the rating, I think it's time to take
another look at them now that I have my IFR license to learn.

I also own and read both years ago, but probably a re-read is in order.
It has been 10 years since I read them. I also liked Peter Dogan's
instrument flying book. I found it one of the most understandable early
in my training and just read it again as a refresher. I need to get a
new version as I have the original and it is pretty dated with regards
to airspace and other such things and it was pre-GPS.

I made my first flight in actual yesterday from ELM to BFD and back.
Shot the GPS to BFD and weather was below minimums so I got to shoot a
real missed approach in actual, something I'd never done before. We
didn't plan to land at BFD anyway, but it was fun to fly along at the
MDA and seeing next to nothing. My instructor did catch a glimpse of
the runway as I was climbing out, but we'd have never gotten down to it.

I did learn one lesson. If center doesn't clear you to change to
advisory frequency, suspect something. I assumed it was because the
weather was below VFR at BFD and plus my flight plan had a remark that
we were only shooting the approach and missed at BFD and then returning
direct to ELM. I was cleared for the approach and then heard nothing
else. My instructor commented that it was odd we didn't get "handed
off" to CTAF frequency, but he also rationalized it as due to the really
low weather and no plans for us to land there. Well, I called missed
approach and still no response from center. I was just about to call
again when Cleveland called and asked what I thought I was doing. I
told him I was flying the missed. He then, in a very sarcastic tone,
asked how I knew what altitude I was climbing to. I replied that it was
charted on the missed.

He was very busy and I think he just forgot about us. I reminded him
that my flight plan said I planned to shoot the approach, fly the missed
and then direct to ELM. He then said "climb to 7000", but gave no
aircraft ID. I waited to see if another airplane replied as I assumed
it was for someone else and the ID had been stepped on. After maybe 20
seconds, I called again as asked if the 7000 was for me. He said
something like "I assigned it to you some time ago." The next
transmission came from a different voice, and a much less grouchy one I
might add, and cleared me direct ELM. Still not sure what happened, but
I think he was overloaded, forgot about us and didn't hear the missed
call. Next time I'll call if I don't get the "frequency change
approved" call within 10 miles or so of the field. Every flight is a
lesson...


Matt

Matt Whiting wrote:
I made my first flight in actual yesterday from ELM to BFD and back.
Shot the GPS to BFD and weather was below minimums so I got to shoot a
real missed approach in actual, something I'd never done before. We
didn't plan to land at BFD anyway, but it was fun to fly along at the
MDA and seeing next to nothing. My instructor did catch a glimpse of
the runway as I was climbing out, but we'd have never gotten down to it.

I may be reading more into that last statement than you intended (and if
I am, please correct me), but I'm wondering what you would have done if
you thought you could have gotten down to it?

Once you decide to go missed, all efforts to find the runway should stop
and your full attention paid to flying the airplane, getting it climbing
again and navigating the missed procedure. You never want to get into a
situation where you start the missed, catch a glimpse of the runway,
change your mind about the missed, and make an attempt to land.

With two pilots, the other pilot (in this case, your instructor) should
have been exercising a little CRM by monitoring your instruments to make
sure you've got positive rate of climb established, followed checklist
items like gear and flaps up, and are following the right track.
There's no value to his looking out the window to see if he can catch a
glimpse of the runway.

The next transmission came from a different voice, and a much less
grouchy one I might add, and cleared me direct ELM. Still not sure
what happened, but I think he was overloaded, forgot about us and
didn't hear the missed call.

Yeah, sounds like it. The only thing to do in this situation is
remember the "aviate, navigate, communicate" mantra. Sort out the
confusion with ATC, but make sure it doesn't distract you from your
primary task of flying the airplane.

Roy Smith wrote:

Matt Whiting wrote:

I made my first flight in actual yesterday from ELM to BFD and back.
Shot the GPS to BFD and weather was below minimums so I got to shoot a
real missed approach in actual, something I'd never done before. We
didn't plan to land at BFD anyway, but it was fun to fly along at the
MDA and seeing next to nothing. My instructor did catch a glimpse of
the runway as I was climbing out, but we'd have never gotten down to it.


I may be reading more into that last statement than you intended (and if
I am, please correct me), but I'm wondering what you would have done if
you thought you could have gotten down to it?

Nothing as we didn't plan to land, it was simply a round robin training
flight. My instructor was simply pointing out that even though we saw
the runway at that point, it wouldn't have been sufficient to execute a
landing.


Once you decide to go missed, all efforts to find the runway should stop
and your full attention paid to flying the airplane, getting it climbing
again and navigating the missed procedure. You never want to get into a
situation where you start the missed, catch a glimpse of the runway,
change your mind about the missed, and make an attempt to land.

I agree. I was flying the missed ... it was the instructor who was
looking down for the runway.


With two pilots, the other pilot (in this case, your instructor) should
have been exercising a little CRM by monitoring your instruments to make
sure you've got positive rate of climb established, followed checklist
items like gear and flaps up, and are following the right track.
There's no value to his looking out the window to see if he can catch a
glimpse of the runway.

I think it was more curiosity on his part as to how well I'd flow the
approach. I was less than one bar off at the MAP and I believe the 89B
is something like .3 NM full scale after the FAF. So, I should have
been only about 0.06 NM off the runway.


The next transmission came from a different voice, and a much less
grouchy one I might add, and cleared me direct ELM. Still not sure
what happened, but I think he was overloaded, forgot about us and
didn't hear the missed call.


Yeah, sounds like it. The only thing to do in this situation is
remember the "aviate, navigate, communicate" mantra. Sort out the
confusion with ATC, but make sure it doesn't distract you from your
primary task of flying the airplane.

Trust me, I did. I was flying the missed procedure whether the
controller liked it or not. We were in actual, with ceilings less than
500' over mountainous terrain. No controller was going to distract me.
However, the missed at Bradford for this GPS approach was pretty much
a straight ahead climb to a hold, so it didn't take a lot of effort to
fly it.

I'm still not a fan of the King 89B. I flew with a Garmin when I had my
Skylane and, at least for me, the Garmin was much easier to learn and
fly. The King with its cumbersome knobs for page and option selection
simply isn't intuitive. I much prefer arrows for menu selection as it
more closely mimics a keyboard. Whoever dreamed up using a rotary knob
for cursor movement should be banished from avionics design!

I'm sure I'll like the 89B more as I gain familiarity, but the interface
just doesn't seem natural as compared to the Garmin which operates much
more like a PC or PDA. Even my instructor, who has flown this airplane
for many years with the 89B, still doesn't have it all figured out and
occasionally turns the know the wrong way or can't find the page he
wants at first. I can see why Garmin became so popular, so fast.


Matt

Matt Whiting wrote:

I'm still not a fan of the King 89B. I flew with a Garmin when I had my
Skylane and, at least for me, the Garmin was much easier to learn and
fly. The King with its cumbersome knobs for page and option selection
simply isn't intuitive. I much prefer arrows for menu selection as it
more closely mimics a keyboard. Whoever dreamed up using a rotary knob
for cursor movement should be banished from avionics design!

I'm sure I'll like the 89B more as I gain familiarity, but the interface
just doesn't seem natural as compared to the Garmin which operates much
more like a PC or PDA. Even my instructor, who has flown this airplane
for many years with the 89B, still doesn't have it all figured out and
occasionally turns the know the wrong way or can't find the page he
wants at first. I can see why Garmin became so popular, so fast.

FWIW, I first learned on the 89B (and later the 94, I think). I now fly
club airplanes that are all 430ed. I find the BK more intuitive. I
suspect that "intuitive" in this case really means "most like that on which
I learned".

After all, it's not as if we've evolved for GPS use grin.

On the BK, for example, I never turn the knob the wrong way. I often do
with the Garmin; it just seems backwards to me for some reason.

However, I do need to add a caveat: I've been using computers and graphical
interfaces since well before MSFT entered the market. To me, "PC
interfaces" (ie. the MSFT window manager) seem terribly counterintuitive.
The modal Apple interface is, to me, no better. But the same reasoning
("not what I first learned") applies here.

One win the Garmin has for me over the BK (there are a few, but this is the
largest) is that the Garmin is more easily read. If I were starting from
scratch, that could very possibly put me in the Garmin buyer's camp.

- Andrew