clumpinglitter (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} clumpinglitter) wrote,@ 2006-08-19 17:38:00 |
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sim: SID, failures
I've never flown an instrument departure before, so Linda pulls out the ZMBRO1 SID out of MSP Intl for a first try. We spend several minutes going over it. There's a required climb gradient if tower vectors you on certain headings after takeoff, and depending on whether you have DME or not, you have to be at a certain altitude before crossing certain fixes. She says if we were doing this for real, the thing to do would be figure out the day before what SIDs will be in use tomorrow, and then figure out if you'll have any problems with it. I'm going to be a Bonanza again today, so the climb rate shouldn't be a problem unless I have a ridiculous tailwind or something. When climbing, notify ATC if you're not making the required climb gradient.
For this new stuff, I get two VORs today, DME, and a GPS. Plus, the SID itself sort of requires this equipment -- you have to fly outbound on a radial off MSP, and it's much easier to identify the crossing restrictions with another VOR and DME. We've loaded the SID into the GPS. Clearance delivery tells me to fly the SID, but tower gives me a heading to fly after takeoff and then tells me to go fly the SID own nav. This just involves intercepting the outbound radial off MSP and flying to the next fix. This task is easier when you pick the waypoint you eventually want to fly to and then do the trick where you hit direct-to twice -- then, the GPS makes the leg the active waypoint and puts you on a nice intercept.
We're going to RST, which is fortunate, because all that en route flying will give me plenty of time to get set up. ATC tells me to fly to some fix, and I have to say "standby" while I search for it. It isn't on the SID -- it's on the approach into RST. I've been told to expect ILS 13, and the fix is an IAF that isn't quite on the plate -- you can see the transition from it, though. So to go there, you can just load the approach and do a direct-to in the GPS flight plan. Super easy. Without GPS, I suppose you would just have to fly airways to get to the IAF or get a vector.
I get my approach clearance, and it's a little awkward transitioning from the GPS to the localizer. You can pick it up far enough out, but it's a better idea to use the GPS until you get past the intermediate fix. The problem is the alternate missed -- it sounded complicated, but I haven't been able to think ahead enough to prepare for it. I see the runway, but Linda says to go missed instead. I should have predicted that.
The missed turns out to be not so bad, even in the fast Bonanza. The hold is at the marker -- it's actually the procedure turn published as a holding pattern. I get another clearance for the ILS when I'm outbound in the hold. I'm supposed to begin the approach after turning inbound. Handy, since I should be nicely on the localizer then. It all looks normal until my glideslope dots go away, so I switch to the localizer-only approach. It has different minimums and a different MAP. The marker is the FAF, so that helps. I've flown outbound farther than I should have while double checking the nav radio and re-identifying the ILS, so inbound, there's enough time to figure this stuff out.
I'm not doing as good of a job of managing this airplane as I should be. I can't wait until I'm two miles or so from the FAF to begin slowing down, like in the Warrior. Instead, what I should be doing is gradually start slowing down when I get to an IAF. Same for when I know I'm going to hold. I'm still chopping the throttle when the runway is in sight, but I'm not sure how to get around that when it's not possible to descend earlier and not safe to slow down because you don't know if you'll be able to land.
The next approach is the GPS 20. GPS approaches are stupid easy, so this will be a nice break. I'm using BOCAG as the IAF, which means I need to do a procedure turn. I start slowing the airplane down way too early, so there's a happy medium in there somewhere to be found. There's a hold published at BOCAG, so I'll use that to turn around. The GPS flight plan has BOCAG as an IAF, and then "hold" after that. So, I'll have to put the GPS in OBS mode over BOCAG and release it when I'm back inbound. Whew. This done, the AI begins to roll over sometime before the FAF. Good thing this is a GPS approach, because you can turn to the nav 1 page that shows the difference between your bearing to the waypoint as well as the desired track. Or at least, you'll flip around the GPS pages until you frantically ask your instructor where that goddamn page is, after which time you get to it and calmly fly inbound.
But something else is fux0red after the FAF, because although the GPS map shows me on course and the nav 1 page also shows me on course, the DG shows me about 30 degrees off. In real life, this being RST, we could throw up our hands and ask tower for an ASR approach. This being the sim, I'm going to just ignore the vacuum gyro instruments altogether and fly the GPS. The mag compass is useless, because the airplane is in a descent. It turns out that Linda had the sim fail two instruments randomly, so she didn't know what was going to fail, either. She also told it to fail a random system, but we weren't able to figure out which one failed, if one failed at all. Jeez.
I've never flown an instrument departure before, so Linda pulls out the ZMBRO1 SID out of MSP Intl for a first try. We spend several minutes going over it. There's a required climb gradient if tower vectors you on certain headings after takeoff, and depending on whether you have DME or not, you have to be at a certain altitude before crossing certain fixes. She says if we were doing this for real, the thing to do would be figure out the day before what SIDs will be in use tomorrow, and then figure out if you'll have any problems with it. I'm going to be a Bonanza again today, so the climb rate shouldn't be a problem unless I have a ridiculous tailwind or something. When climbing, notify ATC if you're not making the required climb gradient.
For this new stuff, I get two VORs today, DME, and a GPS. Plus, the SID itself sort of requires this equipment -- you have to fly outbound on a radial off MSP, and it's much easier to identify the crossing restrictions with another VOR and DME. We've loaded the SID into the GPS. Clearance delivery tells me to fly the SID, but tower gives me a heading to fly after takeoff and then tells me to go fly the SID own nav. This just involves intercepting the outbound radial off MSP and flying to the next fix. This task is easier when you pick the waypoint you eventually want to fly to and then do the trick where you hit direct-to twice -- then, the GPS makes the leg the active waypoint and puts you on a nice intercept.
We're going to RST, which is fortunate, because all that en route flying will give me plenty of time to get set up. ATC tells me to fly to some fix, and I have to say "standby" while I search for it. It isn't on the SID -- it's on the approach into RST. I've been told to expect ILS 13, and the fix is an IAF that isn't quite on the plate -- you can see the transition from it, though. So to go there, you can just load the approach and do a direct-to in the GPS flight plan. Super easy. Without GPS, I suppose you would just have to fly airways to get to the IAF or get a vector.
I get my approach clearance, and it's a little awkward transitioning from the GPS to the localizer. You can pick it up far enough out, but it's a better idea to use the GPS until you get past the intermediate fix. The problem is the alternate missed -- it sounded complicated, but I haven't been able to think ahead enough to prepare for it. I see the runway, but Linda says to go missed instead. I should have predicted that.
The missed turns out to be not so bad, even in the fast Bonanza. The hold is at the marker -- it's actually the procedure turn published as a holding pattern. I get another clearance for the ILS when I'm outbound in the hold. I'm supposed to begin the approach after turning inbound. Handy, since I should be nicely on the localizer then. It all looks normal until my glideslope dots go away, so I switch to the localizer-only approach. It has different minimums and a different MAP. The marker is the FAF, so that helps. I've flown outbound farther than I should have while double checking the nav radio and re-identifying the ILS, so inbound, there's enough time to figure this stuff out.
I'm not doing as good of a job of managing this airplane as I should be. I can't wait until I'm two miles or so from the FAF to begin slowing down, like in the Warrior. Instead, what I should be doing is gradually start slowing down when I get to an IAF. Same for when I know I'm going to hold. I'm still chopping the throttle when the runway is in sight, but I'm not sure how to get around that when it's not possible to descend earlier and not safe to slow down because you don't know if you'll be able to land.
The next approach is the GPS 20. GPS approaches are stupid easy, so this will be a nice break. I'm using BOCAG as the IAF, which means I need to do a procedure turn. I start slowing the airplane down way too early, so there's a happy medium in there somewhere to be found. There's a hold published at BOCAG, so I'll use that to turn around. The GPS flight plan has BOCAG as an IAF, and then "hold" after that. So, I'll have to put the GPS in OBS mode over BOCAG and release it when I'm back inbound. Whew. This done, the AI begins to roll over sometime before the FAF. Good thing this is a GPS approach, because you can turn to the nav 1 page that shows the difference between your bearing to the waypoint as well as the desired track. Or at least, you'll flip around the GPS pages until you frantically ask your instructor where that goddamn page is, after which time you get to it and calmly fly inbound.
But something else is fux0red after the FAF, because although the GPS map shows me on course and the nav 1 page also shows me on course, the DG shows me about 30 degrees off. In real life, this being RST, we could throw up our hands and ask tower for an ASR approach. This being the sim, I'm going to just ignore the vacuum gyro instruments altogether and fly the GPS. The mag compass is useless, because the airplane is in a descent. It turns out that Linda had the sim fail two instruments randomly, so she didn't know what was going to fail, either. She also told it to fail a random system, but we weren't able to figure out which one failed, if one failed at all. Jeez.
