azure
Final Approach
I've been training like crazy for the IR and making a lot of progress, and it's been great fun, 11 hours of hood time so far. We've done basic attitude instrument flying, holds, VOR and RNAV approaches, and now we're starting on LOC approaches. Last night we did the ILS or LOC 13 into OZW, flying it as a localizer only approach. I didn't do too badly on that one, but did notice a tendency to drift off to the right as we came close to the MAP. We went missed just before the runway threshold and then started toward PTK to shoot the LOC 9R. That's when I started to lose focus and get majorly behind the airplane. Lansing approach switched us over to Detroit, who immediately gave us a heading to intercept the localizer. By the time I had finished dialing in PTK tower, loaded the approach into the GPS for situational awareness, and tuned in and identified the localizer, we had already blown through the localizer and were well north of it. Not a biggie since we were still several miles outside the OM at WAKEL, and I intercepted the localizer course without too much difficulty. It was only after crossing the OM that I really started to fall apart. The boundary layer was a bit turbulent and I had trouble holding heading. PTK tower was hinting that they might have to switch me to the parallel runway for traffic. Plus once the power was reduced, I noticed that I was drifting to the right again. I applied left pressure on the yoke to level the wings, then see how far off course I had drifted, but the DG was still showing a rightward movement. More left pressure. Still nothing. Then I remembered: left rudder! By then though, it was too late: I was at least 15º off my desired heading and the needle was nearly full scale deflection. We were still at least a mile from the threshold when my CFII said, that's it, go missed.
The next and last approach for the night was to be the RNAV 9 into home base which is VLL. Detroit Approach had us proceed straight to the IF/IAF OHEVU. Again I was slow loading the approach and overshot OHEVU but soon captured the FAC and flew well up to the FAF (LOFWY). Then again I fell apart. As soon as the power was reduced I could not hold heading but started drifting off to the right. Again I forgot about the rudder until it was too late. Plus, a comfortable 500 fpm descent turns out to be not fast enough on this approach and we were a mile final and still up at pattern altitude. I made a major mistake and started to reach for the flaps handle before slowing us down into the flaps range. CFII took the airplane and straightened us out while I flipped up the hood, pulled the power to idle and threw in 20º of flaps. We were at least 700 feet right of course. My only redemption was that I managed to salvage the landing and actually did a firm but gentle touchdown on the centerline.
This was by far the worst job I've done flying instruments since I started 3 weeks ago. I can't seem to stop drifting to the right in the descent, especially in close to the MAP though I think it is always happening, it may just be close in where it gets critical. I think my problem is forgetting to keep left rudder pressure but my CFII thinks I'm losing the DG and bank indicator and relying too much on the TRK on the default NAV page of the GPS. We're having a somewhat heated disagreement over that. He says he HATES that page and wants me to use the map page only. He's obviously right, especially on non-GPS approaches, that I have to learn to adjust my course based on the CDI and not rely on the GPS, which is for situational awareness only. I still don't understand how to figure out the heading I need to fly as the wind direction changes in the descent without a direct knowledge of my ground track. But really, that's all beside the point since I'm finding that I level the wings, relax pressure, check the other instruments, and the next time I glance at the TC I'm back again to almost a 1/4 standard rate turn to the right. So I have two points of frustration: I don't understand how to figure out how to make the course corrections needed to keep the CDI centered as th wind direction changes in the descent, and constantly fighting my right-banking tendency is stealing precious CPU cycles from the job of figuring out what heading I need to fly.
Sorry for the length of this post, I'm mostly thinking aloud and am not sure how much of this makes sense...
The next and last approach for the night was to be the RNAV 9 into home base which is VLL. Detroit Approach had us proceed straight to the IF/IAF OHEVU. Again I was slow loading the approach and overshot OHEVU but soon captured the FAC and flew well up to the FAF (LOFWY). Then again I fell apart. As soon as the power was reduced I could not hold heading but started drifting off to the right. Again I forgot about the rudder until it was too late. Plus, a comfortable 500 fpm descent turns out to be not fast enough on this approach and we were a mile final and still up at pattern altitude. I made a major mistake and started to reach for the flaps handle before slowing us down into the flaps range. CFII took the airplane and straightened us out while I flipped up the hood, pulled the power to idle and threw in 20º of flaps. We were at least 700 feet right of course. My only redemption was that I managed to salvage the landing and actually did a firm but gentle touchdown on the centerline.
This was by far the worst job I've done flying instruments since I started 3 weeks ago. I can't seem to stop drifting to the right in the descent, especially in close to the MAP though I think it is always happening, it may just be close in where it gets critical. I think my problem is forgetting to keep left rudder pressure but my CFII thinks I'm losing the DG and bank indicator and relying too much on the TRK on the default NAV page of the GPS. We're having a somewhat heated disagreement over that. He says he HATES that page and wants me to use the map page only. He's obviously right, especially on non-GPS approaches, that I have to learn to adjust my course based on the CDI and not rely on the GPS, which is for situational awareness only. I still don't understand how to figure out the heading I need to fly as the wind direction changes in the descent without a direct knowledge of my ground track. But really, that's all beside the point since I'm finding that I level the wings, relax pressure, check the other instruments, and the next time I glance at the TC I'm back again to almost a 1/4 standard rate turn to the right. So I have two points of frustration: I don't understand how to figure out how to make the course corrections needed to keep the CDI centered as th wind direction changes in the descent, and constantly fighting my right-banking tendency is stealing precious CPU cycles from the job of figuring out what heading I need to fly.
Sorry for the length of this post, I'm mostly thinking aloud and am not sure how much of this makes sense...