horrible little soap dishie things!

[kath]

Yesterday we had a GREAT flight. 2.8 hours of approaches, a mixed bag of VOR's GPS's ILS's and other alphabetical letters. In rough winds, even! The MFD and GPS failed a few times, other stuff failed here and there. It was the kind of flight where it took an hour for me to "come down" after the plane already had. I was starting to get the rhythm. I was pumped and feeling like superpilot.

The thing about "superpilot" days is that they are always followed immediately by "ohmigod I'll never be good at this" days. So today out come the soap dish instrument cover thingys.
AAAAAAAUUUGGG!!
1.7 hours of approaches in the same turbulence and kickin' winds as yesterday, but this time ALL partial-panel. Felt more like 2.5 hours. Sounds kind of like a "wind chill" for Hobbs time... "that was 1.7 hours, but it FELT LIKE..."

ATC must've thought I was a total crazypilot. Course wandering all over the place. Too busy to report in when I was supposed to. "Err... I passed GOZZR a few minutes ago I think..." Good thing I was also too busy to care what they thought of me. (Is it appropriate to tell ATC that you're partial panel if it's just practice approaches in VFR? Would they care?)

*sigh* Tired. Foggles make my temples hurt, and make my neck stiff. Why do they put the RAIM check tucked away on some obscure fourth page of the seventh chapter of the GPS?

Sometimes I wonder if people would fly in airliners if they could hear the stuff that pilots talk about. Like VFR pilots trying to figure out where they are on a map: "I think that's Portland down there." "No it isn't." "Sure it is, are you nuts?" "It's, like, the biggest city in Maine, dude!" Or like me today flirting with full deflection on a localizer: "C'mon, I'm losing it! I'M LOSING IT! Dammit we're hosed!"

Well, time for bed...

--Kath

 

[spiderweb]

Nice post! I feel your pain. I'm feeling less pain these days, though.

 

[ErikU]

Where did you find your little soap dish things? I've been looking for those. As for the GPS RAIM, isn't it supposed to tell you if RAIM wont be available when you load the approach, automatically? It sure would be a pain to dig through menus every time for that.. or am I missing something?

 

[citationxjl]

Very good story. I remember those days..partial panel in AZ in the summer trying to do an NDB approach. My instructor looks over and says "why you sweating so much, its not that hard" I didnt have time to laugh

Where did you find your little soap dish things? I've been looking for those. As for the GPS RAIM, isn't it supposed to tell you if RAIM wont be available when you load the approach, automatically? It sure would be a pain to dig through menus every time for that.. or am I missing something?

I think if you want to check it while enroute you go to that menu. Otherwise, at least on our 430, if it doesn have RAIM, it wont go into approach mode and will give you a message

 

[Toby]

Kath,

You go, superpilot! You are SO making me look forward to doing this myself. I may have to switch gears temporarily in a few months.

I really like your description of wind chill for Hobbs time. The length of the lesson, plus the foggles, plus the rough winds, plus the focus that you need to do these tasks under the best conditions -- you're doing great!

Gee, I don't know about your flight school.....so many instruments failing here and there. They should take better care of their aircraft.

 

[Carol]

Hang in there, girl. Loved reading your post.

My instructor used Post-It notes. I hate those things!

 

[kath]

I think if you want to check it while enroute you go to that menu. Otherwise, at least on our 430, if it doesn have RAIM, it wont go into approach mode and will give you a message

On ours (Bendix/King somethingerother), I something turns green if RAIM is okay and you're good to go. Without RAIM, the pilot has to notice that the thing is not green. But my instructor says I'm required to check it myself by hand on page 4 chapter 7 whatever, that I'll have to do this on the checkride.

--Kath

 

[spiderweb]

Kath, you might try Jeppshades instead of foggles. They're sort of annoying with my glasses, but my temples don't hurt, at least.

 

[ErikU]

Hmm,.. That's news to me, I'd sure like to know if that is really the case, I'd never heard it before, unless it is specific to your model. The GPS is supposed to always be checking for RAIM and alert the pilot if it isn't available. Infact, I have had one or two ocassions where it has alerted me, so it does work.

On ours (Bendix/King somethingerother), I something turns green if RAIM is okay and you're good to go. Without RAIM, the pilot has to notice that the thing is not green. But my instructor says I'm required to check it myself by hand on page 4 chapter 7 whatever, that I'll have to do this on the checkride.

--Kath

 

[gismo]

The thing about "superpilot" days is that they are always followed immediately by "ohmigod I'll never be good at this" days. So today out come the soap dish instrument cover thingys.
AAAAAAAUUUGGG!!
--Kath

Tell me about it. I "flew" the Frasca 141 at a local FBO yesterday and it was a bit humbling. I just cannot get the thing trimmed out fast enough. And coming into the hold on a missed approach, my brain felt like I was swimming in glue trying to build a picture in my head of the entry. It didn't help that I was using the Jepp's provided by the FBO and the hold instructions specified the inbound course instead of the radial. Then on the first circuit, I made the wind correction in the wrong direction and it took almost the entire inbound leg to find the center of the radial. At least the second time around looked more like a racetrack than part of a lissajou pattern.

 

[SCCutler]

...At least the second time around looked more like a racetrack than part of a lissajou pattern.

Lance, I bet not one person in fifty has a clue what a "lissajous pattern" is, and I haven't laid eyes on one in some time myself. In fact, it is the first time I have read or heard those words since I put down my oscilloscope and went off to law school in 1989.

So, in what context do you even *know* the term (and apologies for the thread creep, but it's pretty obscure...)?

 

[wsuffa]

Lance, I bet not one person in fifty has a clue what a "lissajous pattern" is, and I haven't laid eyes on one in some time myself. In fact, it is the first time I have read or heard those words since I put down my oscilloscope and went off to law school in 1989.

So, in what context do you even *know* the term (and apologies for the thread creep, but it's pretty obscure...)?

hehehe, I had a flashback, too....

 

[jdwatson]

I bought "post it" like covers made by ASA and carry them in my kneeboard. Sportys has those heavy-duty-CFII-ready covers.

 

[Arnold]

So you guys got me curious.


http://www.egr.msu.edu/classes/ece482/Teams/99spr/design2/web/resources/lissajous/lissajous.htm

 

[gismo]

Lance, I bet not one person in fifty has a clue what a "lissajous pattern" is, and I haven't laid eyes on one in some time myself. In fact, it is the first time I have read or heard those words since I put down my oscilloscope and went off to law school in 1989.

So, in what context do you even *know* the term (and apologies for the thread creep, but it's pretty obscure...)?

Geez, everyone ought to know about Lissajous patterns. I've known about [size=-1]Monsieur[/size] Lissajous and his harmonic patterns since sometime in elementary school. I think I once had a gadget with two pendulums that were connected to a pen that would draw the patterns on paper. The Minnesota Science Museum has a rather large version for kids to play with.

Of course my interest in electrical and electronic stuff started when I was about three so it's hard to say exactly when I first encountered this. I even designed and built an oscilloscope in 9th grade for a science fair and I know I played around with the beat patterns on that.