Lesson 23: My first IFR

July 3, 2009

Under the Hood

Rather than jumping back into another cross country, Chris wanted to do some more training. So today we practiced simulated flying by instruments, aka flying "under the hood." The "hood" is a visor that limits the pilot's visibility exclusively to the instruments in the cockpit. The pilot cannot look outside, thus simulating zero visibility flight conditions.

I'm the computer/technical type, so I have a natural attraction to the instruments anyway. Early in my training, Chris had to actively remind me to look outside and not fixate on the instruments. So, I was right at home. This time I got to stare at instruments with his blessing. I even took off with the blinders on. Apparently I was right of center line, but held that heading during take off.

VOR : Magic Stones and Boxes

We used the VOR equipment to navigate to McCollum field, which was unusually busy. VOR technology was the primary navigation method for aviators starting from the 1960 until GPS was born and began to overtake it. Today, VOR is being phased out by GPS. Regardless, VOR stations are still in use and most avionics packages include a VOR receiver. Numerous explanations abound on the inter-webs on how VOR systems work and they are all wrong.

The truth is .. long ago, wizards created a bunch of magical stones called VOR stones and gave each airport around the world their own stone. The airports loved their stones and even gave them their own names. These stones look in all directions at once. To reveal the stone's wisdom, wizards also created magic boxes bound to the stone's life-force. Using these boxes, you can talk to the stones. The spell to hear the stone's arcane knowledge is as follows:

Whisper into the magic box the name of the stone you want to talk to and a compass direction. For example, "Stone Of Lawrenceville, tell me of your Eastern eye".

A voice will say something like, "I am the Stone of Lawrenceville. Move to your left 100 paces and my Eastern eye will see you."

You move what you think is about 100 paces to your left and again ask the stone, "tell me of your Eastern eye."

The stone replies, "Move to your right 2 paces and my Eastern eye will see you." So you move to the right 2 paces and ask a third time.

This time the stone responds, "I see you with my Eastern eye." That means you are traveling on the stone's West/East line.

If you're uncomfortable with the reality of wizards and magic, here is an alternative crackpot theory on VOR. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZljYaHXvxY

Unusual Attitudes

On the way back, Chris decided to have some fun with me. I would close my eyes and he would put the plane in a steep banking dive or climb. Then he would say "recover", at which point I would open my eyes and get us straight and level. Of course, this excercise had a practical purpose. It served as practice for becoming disoriented and getting reoriented.

I shut my eyes and tried to guess by feeling which way the plane was moving. It was like my senses could detect changes, but could not keep track of their net effect. With my eyes closed, I could feel the first change, i.e. a dive, bank, etc. But then another change would "overwrite" the previous one.

For example, Chris would dive, then bank left, then bank right. With my eyes closed, at the end of the sequence the only thing I felt was that we were in a right bank. When I opened my eyes, I immediately saw that we were in a level/unbanked dive. The right bank just straightened out the previous left bank. Conflicting sensory signals made for a little queasiness, but it was still fun.

So, 0.6 hrs simulated IFR. A little taste of what's to come in the Instrument Rating after the PPL.