On The Glideslope

Back In The Air

Real-world training time has been rare the past two months due to weather, with my only getting in one hop since early December. A few days back I finally got in a flight and my CFI took the opportunity to put me through my paces with about every maneuver and procedure we’ve learned to date. It was a great lesson. One of my favorite moments? When he surprised me by reaching over and pulling the throttle to simulate an engine out. I went through the engine out procedure (roughly, by the way), trimmed the airplane for glide, and was looking for fields in which to land when he said, “How about Heritage?” “Heritage” is an airport we’d just flown over, and in fact talked about, a few minutes before. I looked over my right shoulder and said, “Oh, you mean that big runway right back over there? Yeah, that would be a good idea …”

This is why we train.

Here’s the flight. I was supposed to go up today but we scrubbed because of winds. Next Monday I hope to be back up there.

flight

Basement Fly Guy

3 responses to “Back In The Air”

  1. dean robinson Avatar
    dean robinson

    thanks for keeping us posted. it’s great to read this perspective for us simmers who don’t fly RW, or like me, ‘taster flight’ pilots who’ve had a few flights but not the training.

  2. Dennis Wierzbicki Avatar
    Dennis Wierzbicki

    Nice example for those of us hoping to use our sims to facilitate, expedite, and improve our real world missions. Couple the muscle memory you’re learning with the comms routine learned while using something like PilotEdge, and I’m convinced a sim like yours can save money. Won’t take a lot to make the investment more attractive, at $150+/hour wet plane and instructor fees.

    1. Basement Fly Guy Avatar
      Basement Fly Guy

      I know you’re a PPL Dennis, so thanks for that. The sim certainly did not help me learn the feel of the airplane, but now that my pilotage is decent where I feel the sim really helps is in the ability to practice procedures, plan and fly VFR routes, and radio work. PilotEdge has been a massive multiplier of my learning. I’m ready to talk to Philly approach any time, and the CAT and IFR training programs there have really accelerated my learning of airspace. I was talking to a 16,000 hour pilot about the sim and what I do in it, and he said in those respects I sounded much closer to a 200 hour guy rather than a 25 hour one. I feel that way in some respects. The other place where I think a sim in the house can really help – if you have the discipline to make it so – is in decision making. I have to try hard to only do things in the sim I would do in real world. I think if one has the discipline to do that, it can help with safety as well.

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