Use the tools you have available

On an instrument flight lesson yesterday, while shooting a non-precision approach under the hood (at least as I remember it): 

Instructor: "Look at your GPS here, see where you are? Wait, are you ever looking at your GPS?"
Me: "No, I thought I wasn't allowed to."
Instructor: "Oh gosh no, look at it. I mean, you can't use it as primary means of navigation but yeesh it makes your life easier so use it."

Hah. Good point. There I was flying the approach, looking only at the VOR indicators, and he pointed out that there's more info on the panel that I might find useful. In my mind, using the information on the portable aviation GPS (A Garmin 396), which is not legal to use for IFR flight primary navigation, would be cheating. The proper instruments to use, again in my mind, were the IFR-certified ones: The VOR indicators. But in reality, using the information from the GPS (which, ironically, provides more accurate information than the VOR radios and indicators) enhances situational awareness substantially.

For that matter, if my autopilot worked properly (it just came back from the repair shop and is going to be re-installed I think later today), I could also use that to help fly headings and keep the plane going in the right direction, not to mention wings-level.

Conversely, I suppose there's something to be said for using just the basic tools and becoming proficient with those, rather than relying on the extras early in the training. I looked at the GPS a couple times after that, but honestly it still felt like cheating. So, I think I might ask if we can just turn it off sometimes. Call me a rebel... :)

Experiencing the first few instrument flight lessons

I've spent about five-ish hours "under the hood" now flying with my instructors (they're a pair) for my instrument rating training. For those who want the super-short summary version of what it's like, I'll just say this:

"My brain hurts."

Seriously. Similar to the learning "hump" pretty much every private pilot student runs up against at some point in flight training - often just before solo time - my experience in instrument training thus far has been one of true brain drain. The main differences in this phase of training are that instrument flying is much more precise and the hump you have to work over and through comes much, much sooner. As in almost immediately.

I'll have to shoot some video of a flight lesson or two and post it here to try to show how complicated the process of flying the plane with a hood blocking your vision can be. Everything's blocked from sight except the instruments on the panel (dashboard) directly in front of you. There's no option to look outside through any windows. And you're situated like that for quite a long time, too: I've spent a full hour that way a number of times now. Your instructor sits in the seat next to you and looks outside for other aircraft and obstacles, while you fly the plane around in the sky, essentially blind to anything in the outside world.

To add to the complexity, while you're under the hood making turns and climbs and descents, your body completely lies to you as far as what you feel like the airplane is doing vs. what it's actually doing. Think of it as being a lot like when you were a kid, spinning around in circles really fast, getting all dizzy and then trying to walk normally. Add blinders so you can only see the world right in front of you. It doesn't work to fly by feel. And doing so without the ability to see outside and view the ground/horizon can kill you. So instrument flying proficiency is important.

When flying with the hood on, you body (specifically the fluid activity in your inner ear) gets thrown off with the turns, climbs and dives, and your brain doesn't have the benefit of any visual cues to counteract the physical signals going to your brain. So you get "the leans," meaning your body tell you you're in a turn or a climb or a dive (or some combination thereof) while the instruments clearly show otherwise. So, the tendency for new instrument flight students is to "feel" their way around and fly all over the place. One of the primary purposes of early instrument flying with the hood is to train the pilot to overcome the tendency to rely on feeling and sight, ignore the signals that will incorrectly guide you in flying the airplane, and to rely solely on the instruments on the panel, which tell you how fast you're going, ascent and descent speed, turning bank, direction, altitude and other key information.

It doesn't come naturally. And it's a *lot* of information to process while your head and body are sending you false and conflicting information. Hence the brain pain.

But, it's a lot of fun. For me, there's nothing cooler than the technical challenges associated with flying and doing it well. So instrument training, while somewhat intimidating and definitely difficult, represents some serious fun in my book.

And it's a great skill to develop and rating to achieve as a pilot. Not only does the instrument rating allow a pilot to fly though and in clouds (which can open up the ability to make trips otherwise impossible), it also makes people overall better pilots. And that's a good thing.

I'll post some specific flight lesson experiences in the near future, to try to share with others what this second major phase of flight training (after the private pilot phase) is like. Instrument training is pretty much universally described as the most difficult flight training pilots do. So I think sharing some information and details can be helpful. Plus it will help me to reinforce what I am learning and experiencing in my own training process.

After I completed my private pilot certification and got my airplane, I stopped posting here. But now that I'm starting training for my instrument rating, I realize I should have been writing here all along. At any rate, I hope to document some of the instrument flight training as well as more information about my airplane, N639MR.

I've completed two flight lessons to start my instrument training, and am looking forward to more. It's a true brain drain to fly for an hour or an hour and a half at a time "under the hood" - but it's also a lot of fun. "The hood" is a sort of visor worn by the instrument student that blocks your peripheral vision and allows you to see only the instruments on the dash/panel inside the airplane. The idea is that you should not be seeing anything outside the plane, which simulates flying in a white-out condition such as inside the clouds. It can be interesting, and many times already I have experienced "the leans" and other disorientation where what my brain and body are telling me are in no way accurate in terms of airplane attitude (pitch and roll).

Also, I recently wrote a couple posts about installing micro vortex generators on the Warrior, which you can read all about:

• Installing Micro Vortex Generators on Piper Cherokee Warrior – Part One
• Micro vortex generators on my Piper Cherokee Warrior -- The results are in!

I'll try to post some other catch-up information here, as well.

Some solo pattern practice and check-ride prep

After my solo cross-country flight on Wednesday, I arrived at Twin Oaks Airpark Thursday afternoon to get in an hour or two of solo practice in the pattern and at a tower-controlled airport. I wanted to spend some time getting takeoff and landing routines a little more refined, and it had been a while since I'd flown the pattern at tower-controlled Portland-Hillsboro airport. The weather was amazing, so I wanted to take advantage of it.

I got back in the same airplane I'd used for my cross country flight the previous day. It had been checked out to confirm the little issue I had the evening before was in fact carb ice and that there we no other issues. I put the video camera in the luggage area and pointed it forward just like I had on the cross country, then turned it on and forgot about it. I wanted to be able to go back and look at my landings and takeoffs and review the little detail aspects of what I was doing. I find it's a tool that gives me better perspective on what I can do better. It also makes interesting video for posting here. I'll likely add it to this post after I get it processed on the computer. I also plan to add a little video from my cross-country flight the other day. I just don't have time right now to get that done.

Once I set up the camera and turn it on, I just let it run. It's completely out of my way and stationed solidly behind the seats. It either quits on its own (by running out of battery or hard drive space) or I turn it off when I finish flying. I don't worry or think about it when I'm in the air, except to talk through everything on the intercom, which record my voice in the camera's audio track. Come to think of it, I talk to myself on the intercom whether the camera is there or not. It helps me stay focused and organized.

I was happy with my take-offs and landings that day. I was pretty much on the money and things were smooth and properly executed. It was fun to fly to Hillsboro and fly the pattern with other airplanes and talk to the tower. That controller stays plenty busy, I can tell you. Someone told me it's the busiest airport in Oregon, even more so than Portland International in terms of the number of airplanes operating daily. That's crazy. They have a big flight school there, which makes up a lot of the traffic.

On Friday I joined my instructor Kelly again and we did what he termed a "check-ride prep" flight. We flew from Twin Oaks out to the east to a safe practice area and I did all sorts of maneuvers and configurations: Slow flight, power-on and power-off stalls and recoveries, steep turns, flying under the hood and doing turns and level flight, and a couple simulated engine failure drills, one of which I flew until I was 500 feet over an abandoned airport before applying power to go-around. We then returned to Twin Oaks and crossed over the airport at 3,000 feet, where he again "killed" the engine (meaning he put it at idle) and I had to perform a spiraling descent over the end of Runway 2 to an altitude and position that would allow me to enter a downwind leg for landing, and then I landed the plane with no power, right on the money.

Next we did a short field takeoff and landing, followed by a soft-field takeoff and landing before calling it quits for the day. Overall I felt good about my progress and performance, and can see I'm getting closer to being ready to fly with an examiner. There are a number of things I want to practice more to be more proficient, but all in all it's going well.

On Saturday I plan to do about 90 minutes of solo flying time to practice the same things Kelly and I did on our "checkride prep" flight, and then after a brief break he and I are scheduled Saturday evening to complete the night cross-country flight that we need to get out of the way. Unfortunately we won't be able to fly to Boeing Field in Seattle as we have wanted to do, since the weather up there is still not cooperating and shows no real signs of improving. We're planning to fly to Astoria and back, which more than satisfies the training requirements. I'm hoping to get to fly with Kelly to Boeing Field so I can get the Class B airspace experience before I finish training, maybe as part of prep for my checkride since that would provide plenty of time and opportunity to review and test my skills, as well.

Unusual Attitudes and flying under the hood

I wish I'd shot some video of this lesson, now that I think about it. Maybe next time. On Tuesday my instructor Kelly and I went for a flight to do some under-the-hood instrument flying in the plane. It was the real-world version of what I'd "flown" on the simulator the other day. We also planned to do some other maneuvers like stalls and steep turns as a review.

This was my first time "under the hood" in the airplane. For those who are not familiar, the "hood" is basically a set of human blinders, designed to restrict your vision to just the portion of the instrument panel right in front of you, which is where the critical flight instruments are located. It prevents you from looking out the windows, and requires you to fly the plane by instruments only. The whole idea, in private pilot training, is to give you enough experience so you can get out of the clouds if for some reason things should get royally screwed up and you fly into one. Private pilots don't fly into clouds or low visibility without an instrument rating, which involves a lot of training and requires special avionics and navigation equipment in the aircraft.

We flew out to a good practice area and made sure the area was clear. With the hood on he had me fly straight and level, then do a controlled climb, and then a descent. Then he had me do some standard-rate (one minute) turns, which are designed to let you enter a specific bank angle on he turn coordinator and count 60 seconds on the clock (in this plane, anyhow). When the time is up, if you made the turn at the proper bank angle, you'll be flying in the opposite direction. If you turned for two minutes, you'd have done a 360-degree turn and be back were you started. So, if you were flying due south and do it correctly for one minute, you'll end up flying due north when you're done with the turn. The obvious reason for being able to do this as a private pilot is that if you're either unfortunate or stupid enough (or both) to fly into the clouds, going back the way you came is a good idea, and with nothing but cloud outside the plane you have to be able to do it by the gauges. We did a few turns to the left and a couple to the right. I was able to maintain altitude and attitude pretty well, but it was a lot of work.

Your head really messes with you when you start doing turns and other maneuvers without being able to see the outside world and it's natural horizon. I found out quickly that there is no way I can trust what my body is telling me it feels in an instrument flying situation. If I relied on whether I feel like I'm in a turn, or a dive, or flying straight and level, I'll be dead. The human body doesn't accurately inform the brain once you've made a couple turns or other moves. Many pilots have been killed because they trusted what their body was saying. Death trap.

Next we did some turning climbs and descents - So Kelly was mixing things up a bit, having me control every dimension of basic IFR flying with just the instruments. It went pretty well.

Then Kelly showed me some "unusual attitude" recovery maneuvers, first without the hood on. He wanted me to see what they look like in the air before I went into the "dark." By "unusual attitudes" we mean a variety screwed up dangerous attitudes for the aircraft to be in, such as a diving turn or a steep climbing and rolling turn. You have to be able to recognize from looking at the airplane's attitude indicator when you're in a dangerous attitude and how to act immediately to correct it and get back to straight and level flight. We did several of these, including a bunch where he had me wearing the hood and closing my eyes while putting my head down. Kelly would fly the airplane in all sorts of different directions: Turns back and forth, diving, climbing, and any combination of those over and over. They he'd say "Okay, your airplane" and I would look up, determine what the situation called for, and take immediate action. It went well, and I felt like I understood what needed to be done and showed I can do it.

Luckily I didn't get sick (sometimes people do, but I'm not prone to motion sickness). But by the time we were done with the hood work my brain was stretched pretty far. But we had more to do, and I was okay. So, Kelly asked me to set the plane up for slow flight, which took me a little time to get set in my head after the hood maneuvers. I managed to get there, and Kelly told be to do a power-off stall. I got it about half right and almost spun the plane, and realized I was a little overwhelmed with new and old information. Kelly walked me though the steps a little (but not too much), and I was able to do a couple stalls, power-on and power-off, and recover properly. We then moved on to steep turns, which I had not done for a while (in fact I have hardly flown in the past month), and after a couple not-steep-enough tries I got in the groove and did some decent turns.

We then headed back and I set up for a landing on Runway 2. You'd think that by now I'd predict and expect engine failure drills in the pattern when flying with Kelly, but again this time he surprised me as I pulled the barb heat and he pulled the engine to idle and told me my engine had just died. I flew the plane at idle to the runway and put it down just fine.

As you'll find out in my next post (how's that for a clever little hook to keep you reading, eh?) there are some very real-world examples of why practicing for failures and emergencies is so critical. Let's just say I'm glad I know the drill. But hey, that's for next time.