First "real" hold (long)

Yesterday, for the first time since I got the instrument rating 5 years
ago, I had to hold for real.

It was a reposition flight from Mobile Downtown to Pensacola to pick up
an Angel Flight. When I checked the weather at home at 6am, fog was
reported everywhere on the central Gulf Coast - the nearest legal
alternate I found was Birmingham. Mobile was below minimums, but PNS
was just at minimums and forecast to improve slightly. When I took off,
BFM was still below minimums for the ILS, and when I checked the PNS
ATIS it was 1/4, indefinite ceiling 100.

The PNS approach controller reported the RVR as 100 with that "are you
sure you want to do this?" tone (don't you just hate to hear that tone
from a controller?), so I told him I'd try one ILS, then go hold a while
if I missed. Sure enough, at DH there was no sign of any lights, so off
to the Saufley VOR I went to wait.

Holding is boring. After a couple of turns to get it nailed, ones
attention tends to wander. It becomes a real effort to remember to
restart the clock outbound each time. I must admit I missed the
outbound flag drop a couple of times in the first 30 minutes and had to
check the GPS to know when to turn back inbound.

It was about this time that a series of technical problems started.
First, the HI bug started sticking, then the portable GPS started losing
satellite link every time I keyed the radio (fixed that by moving the
antenna to a different spot on the glareshield). There were more
problems later.

30 minutes' wait only got the RVR up to 200, so I told Approach I wanted
30 more. I could see the fog becoming patchy south and west of the
airport, but I still had to start considering my fuel state: I might
actually have to fly 250 miles to find somewhere to land with reserves.
Unlikely, but ya gotta go with it. The thought of being above a
thousand square miles of 100' ceilings with low fuel is enough to make
me very conservative.

In the event, after about 20 minutes a C-208 came in and completed the
approach and the rvr was up to 400, so I asked for vectors for another
try. The next technical glitch appeared at the outer marker when the
flaps refused to work until I toggled the handle a few times (at least
it wasn't the landing gear!). That problem dealt with, I headed down
the glide slope with more than usual concentration on keeping the
needles centered; I wanted to make this one. This time I saw enough
lights at DH to give me 100 more feet, and that was it: made it.

By the time the Angel Flight pax were loaded (something of an ordeal)
the field had gone from socked-in to VFR. Very typical Gulf Coast
autumn morning.

Post script: more tech problems.
The pax Lightspeed 25XL headset wouldn't power up - no big deal, I'm
used to things like that with that headset. The next thing was more
serious. My WxWorx setup, which has been solid for a year, crapped out
on me. Actually, it was the Sony notebook it's hosted on. The USB com
port the WxWorx receiver is plugged into went away. I like to do a lot
of things in airplanes, but troubleshooting pc com port problems while
IFR with a couple of nervous pax aboard isn't one of them. I wrapped
the cables up and stowed the pc. This might have been a flight killer
if there had been a lot of convective stuff around. Still, it made me
realize how much I like having other features of the system available,
particularly METARs and TAFs.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

Dan Luke ) wrote:

Yesterday, for the first time since I got the instrument rating 5 years
ago, I had to hold for real.
snip

Enjoyed your story. Thanks for posting it, Dan.
--
Peter

So what is the cause of the electrical problems?

"john smith" wrote:
So what is the cause of the electrical problems?


The GPS outages are due to a faulty Cessna radio transmitter; I've had
it happen before. Swapping out the ARC 385 NAV-COM unit will fix that.

The flap thing is probably the control going bad. I'll have it in the
shop this week if I can't fix it myself.

The brand new battery box/controller on the Lightspeed headset has
apparently died. It was installed as part of a $75 upgrade offer from
Lightspeed to add a cell phone jack to the unit. This is typical of
Lightspeed "quality" in my experience.

Still can't figure out what's wrong with the pc com port.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

Dan Luke wrote:
Yesterday, for the first time since I got the instrument rating 5 years
ago, I had to hold for real.

It was a reposition flight from Mobile Downtown to Pensacola to pick up
an Angel Flight. When I checked the weather at home at 6am, fog was
reported everywhere on the central Gulf Coast - the nearest legal
alternate I found was Birmingham. Mobile was below minimums, but PNS
was just at minimums and forecast to improve slightly. When I took off,
BFM was still below minimums for the ILS, and when I checked the PNS
ATIS it was 1/4, indefinite ceiling 100.

The PNS approach controller reported the RVR as 100 with that "are you
sure you want to do this?" tone (don't you just hate to hear that tone
from a controller?), so I told him I'd try one ILS, then go hold a while
if I missed. Sure enough, at DH there was no sign of any lights, so off
to the Saufley VOR I went to wait.

Holding is boring. After a couple of turns to get it nailed, ones
attention tends to wander. It becomes a real effort to remember to
restart the clock outbound each time. I must admit I missed the
outbound flag drop a couple of times in the first 30 minutes and had to
check the GPS to know when to turn back inbound.
/snip/

Dan,

Congrats on a successful "hard" IFR flight!
Here's a tip from the real world of holding: Don't busy yourself with
the student excercise of timing every turn. You yourself noticed that
the GPS provided accurate turn indications, and this is how it's done,
after the first few tracks are timed to establish the local conditions.
Or, even better, just ask the controller for legs of a certain
distance (5 miles, or 10), and use the DME or GPS to fly the legs. Much
less busy work!

P.S. Did you really mean RVR's of 100 & 400??? Or maybe 1000 & 4000...

Happy Flying!
Scott Skylane

"Scott Skylane" wrote:
Here's a tip from the real world of holding: Don't busy yourself with
the student excercise of timing every turn. You yourself noticed that
the GPS provided accurate turn indications, and this is how it's done,
after the first few tracks are timed to establish the local
conditions.

I suppose so. I always have this feeling my old CFII is sitting in the
right seat, shaking his head when I don't do something "by the book."

Or, even better, just ask the controller for legs of a certain
distance (5 miles, or 10), and use the DME or GPS to fly the legs.
Much less busy work!

P.S. Did you really mean RVR's of 100 & 400???

That's what the man said.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

"Dan Luke" wrote:
I suppose so. I always have this feeling my old CFII is sitting in the
right seat, shaking his head when I don't do something "by the book."

Single-pilot IFR is all about task prioritization. Take care of the
important stuff, and don't waste time on the **** that doesn't matter.
As long as you stay in the protected airspace, nobody cares what your
holds look like, or how perfectly timed the legs are.

Save the mental effort for important things like making sure your fuel
planning is right, getting a good picture of the weather from flight
watch so you know when to divert (and where), and briefing the approach
you're about to fly.

"Roy Smith" wrote in message
...
"Dan Luke" wrote:
I suppose so. I always have this feeling my old CFII is sitting in the
right seat, shaking his head when I don't do something "by the book."

Single-pilot IFR is all about task prioritization. Take care of the
important stuff, and don't waste time on the **** that doesn't matter.
As long as you stay in the protected airspace, nobody cares what your
holds look like, or how perfectly timed the legs are.

From an ATC stand-point, most controllers certainly could care less what a
hold looks like when flown. Personally, I just want you to maintain
assigned altitude and meander in orbit somewhere over the fix in the general
direction assigned. We controllers get really conservative around holding
patterns, and a tightly-flown pattern really doesn't matter. Likely, no one
in ATC-land will even notice if you nail the turns and the times, because
they are looking at a lot of other stuff on the scope. The prudent
controller will be using vertical separation below and above your protected
airspace, and he/she will be adding a lot of extra lateral protection around
your bubble too, just in case.

Chip, ZTL

"Chip Jones" wrote:
From an ATC stand-point, most controllers certainly could care less what a
hold looks like when flown. Personally, I just want you to maintain
assigned altitude and meander in orbit somewhere over the fix in the general
direction assigned.

One thing I have noticed is that while ATC doesn't seem to care much
about where you go on the holding side of the fix, if you meander just a
little bit PAST the holding fix, you're likely to get a call politely
enquiring if you have any idea where the hell you are.

Chip Jones wrote:


From an ATC stand-point, most controllers certainly could care less what a
hold looks like when flown. Personally, I just want you to maintain
assigned altitude and meander in orbit somewhere over the fix in the general
direction assigned. We controllers get really conservative around holding
patterns, and a tightly-flown pattern really doesn't matter. Likely, no one
in ATC-land will even notice if you nail the turns and the times, because
they are looking at a lot of other stuff on the scope. The prudent
controller will be using vertical separation below and above your protected
airspace, and he/she will be adding a lot of extra lateral protection around
your bubble too, just in case.

And unless you are in a charted holding pattern the idea of a protected
side and unprotected side is pretty funny too.