Blog – IFR Introduction & Compass Turns 27/11/2021
A bit of an “everything” day weather wise but I still managed to get a good training session in before the forecasted rain arrived in the afternoon.
Departed NZPP from RWY34@NZPP and climbed to 3000ft above Otaki training area for an intro to Instrument flying & continuation of compass turns. These are done at a “Rate 1 turn” which is a gentle balanced turn of around 10-15deg which takes 2min to do a full 360. The winds aloft were 20-30kts and were buffeting me quite nicely, and with the foggles on it made for quite the challenge.
Foggles are glasses that are partially ground to simulate fog or cloud conditions. All you can see is your instrument panel. After being told to not fixate on your instruments during a VFR flight, your FI is now insisting that you do! My FI took care of safety and the Radio so I could concentrate on the exercise.
My compass turns today were much better though on more than one occasion I was so focussed on the turn using instruments that I sailed way beyond the rollout point. That’s what scanning the instruments is for dummy! I had to calculate my correction back on track so not a total wasted exercise.
After a while we used the “heading bug” on the Direction Indicator to confirm my turns which made things way easier. Still it felt very weird to concentrate on the instruments so much. I travelled back to NZPP circuit with the foggles still on which was challenging but my FI was keeping a good lookout still. Once on downwind I was allowed to remove them and started setting up for the crosswind landing.
I decided that due to the strong winds, a flapless landing was suitable. After reducing speed I turned onto final and trimmed up for 70kts. The engine was at idle due to the wind and it kind of felt like we were hovering at some points. I crabbed down final and over the aim point I kicked the right rudder to straighten the aircraft and applied left aileron to stop any drift. I landed nice and straight on my upwind wheel and on centreline. I kept the nose up and it gently dropped the nose onto the runway. “Not bad” I told myself, “you’re getting better at this”. I taxied along the runway and exited via “Charlie”. Once over the holding point I turned off all the extra lighting and parked up at the Aero club.
I’m enjoying my flights more and more as I get experience and confidence up. Both myself and my instructor are seeing good progress being made.
Happy Days!
Aircraft: ZK-KAZ (Cessna 172SP Skyhawk)
Total Time: 1.1
Landings: 1
Go-arounds: 0
Visual Approaches: 1
Instrument Time: 0.8
Until next time….
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Blog – IFR Introduction & Compass Turns 27/11/2021