IMC Practise C172SP G1000
It’s been a while since I have had any serious practise flying on instruments in real I.M.C. There have been the odd few minutes here and there, but insufficient to feel “up to speed”. I felt a refresher session was needed and due to the high cost of twin engine flying, decided to do a dual session in the Cessna 172SP. This is a glass cockpit equipped aircraft and is great to practise on, as the G1000 it uses is also fitted to the Twinstar I like to fly. So training on the cheaper aircraft makes sense, to practise the skills and procedures that can be used in the Cessna and Twinstar.
The weather on the day of the planned flight did not look good. Heavy rain and snow showers were forecast and a freezing level prediction of 3000 feet. The strong surface wind of recent days had gone now, although it was still blowing above 30 knots at 3000 feet in the vicinity of Blackpool. The flight I planned was to leave Barton tracking to the North, climbing initially to 1800 feet and intercepting the Pole Hill VOR 240 degree radial, and tracking to the beacon on a track of 060 degrees. With my instructor, Keith, in the right hand seat, we took off and arrived at Pole Hill as planned, level at just under 3000 feet.
I was flying on instruments and occasionally looked up to find us in cloud or between clouds. The outside air temperature was -1C, lower than the forecast predicted. We were picking up a small amount of ice on the wing leading edges as we were in and out of the clouds. Keith kept a wary eye on the build up of the ice as I tracked to the North West using the GPS. The Cessna does not have any anti-ice or de-icing equipment. This was just standard instrument flying and I was getting plenty of practice. My heading and height control were mostly good, although on a couple of occasions I exceeded 100 feet divergence on altitude. I quickly corrected these errors and felt well in control of the flight.
We turned towards Blackpool and put the autopilot on while I briefed Keith on the approach I would use on arrival. I had chosen the most difficult aid to use, the NBD/DME approach to runway 28, following the published procedure with no radar assistance. This involves arriving over the Blackpool NDB at 3000 feet and positioning the aircraft to follow the procedure. As we were approaching from the East, we would be facing the wrong way to follow the approach plate instructions. To position the aircraft we were going to enter the holding pattern, going around it once, before carrying out the approach as published. It was not strictly necessary to go around the hold but was good practise.
To enter the hold I decided to do a parallel entry which involved flying parallel to the inbound track to the beacon though going the “wrong” way. Ninety seconds after passing the beacon, we completed a left turn to return to the NDB now heading in the correct direction. This sounds complicated, but it really isn’t. The hold is right hand and so we turned onto the outbound leg of 274 degrees and flew for a further ninety seconds before turning left to return to the NDB on a track of 094 degrees. From overhead the beacon we had to make good a track of 101 degrees and fly it until the D.M.E. (distance measuring equipment) reached 8 nautical miles, descending from 3000 to 2000 feet. The procedure then called for a left turn to track 056 degrees for one minute before turning to intercept the inbound course to the runway of 281 degrees.
The theory is pretty simple. Doing it is altogether more difficult. Having said that, all was going well until the turn inbound when the indicator in the cockpit started wandering all over the dial. The NDB is notoriously unreliable and prone to many errors and today it became totally unusable. However, Keith quickly gave me a heading to intercept the ILS as we abandoned the NBD approach and used the much more reliable VHF landing aid. This was only possible as Keith was my lookout and could see where we were. If this had been a real IFR approach we would have had to go around and start again.
The localiser came in along with the glide slope and we were now flying the I.L.S. Talk about hectic! This approach then went very well as I tracked all the way down to 200 feet with the indicators dead on where they should be. I was very pleased with that, as my decision height would normally be not below 500 feet. I looked up at 200 feet and there was the runway. No time to relax though, as I applied full power and climbed away on runway heading towards 2000 feet. ATC then cancelled the full missed approach procedure and allowed us to head off towards Barton, VFR.
The flight back was uneventful and we landed on runway 27R twenty minutes later. It was a good session of training and practice and one I hope to do again soon.
The weather on the day of the planned flight did not look good. Heavy rain and snow showers were forecast and a freezing level prediction of 3000 feet. The strong surface wind of recent days had gone now, although it was still blowing above 30 knots at 3000 feet in the vicinity of Blackpool. The flight I planned was to leave Barton tracking to the North, climbing initially to 1800 feet and intercepting the Pole Hill VOR 240 degree radial, and tracking to the beacon on a track of 060 degrees. With my instructor, Keith, in the right hand seat, we took off and arrived at Pole Hill as planned, level at just under 3000 feet.
I was flying on instruments and occasionally looked up to find us in cloud or between clouds. The outside air temperature was -1C, lower than the forecast predicted. We were picking up a small amount of ice on the wing leading edges as we were in and out of the clouds. Keith kept a wary eye on the build up of the ice as I tracked to the North West using the GPS. The Cessna does not have any anti-ice or de-icing equipment. This was just standard instrument flying and I was getting plenty of practice. My heading and height control were mostly good, although on a couple of occasions I exceeded 100 feet divergence on altitude. I quickly corrected these errors and felt well in control of the flight.
We turned towards Blackpool and put the autopilot on while I briefed Keith on the approach I would use on arrival. I had chosen the most difficult aid to use, the NBD/DME approach to runway 28, following the published procedure with no radar assistance. This involves arriving over the Blackpool NDB at 3000 feet and positioning the aircraft to follow the procedure. As we were approaching from the East, we would be facing the wrong way to follow the approach plate instructions. To position the aircraft we were going to enter the holding pattern, going around it once, before carrying out the approach as published. It was not strictly necessary to go around the hold but was good practise.
To enter the hold I decided to do a parallel entry which involved flying parallel to the inbound track to the beacon though going the “wrong” way. Ninety seconds after passing the beacon, we completed a left turn to return to the NDB now heading in the correct direction. This sounds complicated, but it really isn’t. The hold is right hand and so we turned onto the outbound leg of 274 degrees and flew for a further ninety seconds before turning left to return to the NDB on a track of 094 degrees. From overhead the beacon we had to make good a track of 101 degrees and fly it until the D.M.E. (distance measuring equipment) reached 8 nautical miles, descending from 3000 to 2000 feet. The procedure then called for a left turn to track 056 degrees for one minute before turning to intercept the inbound course to the runway of 281 degrees.
The theory is pretty simple. Doing it is altogether more difficult. Having said that, all was going well until the turn inbound when the indicator in the cockpit started wandering all over the dial. The NDB is notoriously unreliable and prone to many errors and today it became totally unusable. However, Keith quickly gave me a heading to intercept the ILS as we abandoned the NBD approach and used the much more reliable VHF landing aid. This was only possible as Keith was my lookout and could see where we were. If this had been a real IFR approach we would have had to go around and start again.
The localiser came in along with the glide slope and we were now flying the I.L.S. Talk about hectic! This approach then went very well as I tracked all the way down to 200 feet with the indicators dead on where they should be. I was very pleased with that, as my decision height would normally be not below 500 feet. I looked up at 200 feet and there was the runway. No time to relax though, as I applied full power and climbed away on runway heading towards 2000 feet. ATC then cancelled the full missed approach procedure and allowed us to head off towards Barton, VFR.
The flight back was uneventful and we landed on runway 27R twenty minutes later. It was a good session of training and practice and one I hope to do again soon.
posted by David M at 10:31 PM
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