Posted by After the previous day’s good progress, I was again at the club before 9am ready to go. Mike had another student and we agreed to take it in turns so that we both got two sessions in during the day with a gap in between.
Partial Panel
This involves simulating the effect of the vacuum pump failing – it drives the Attitude Indicator and Direction Indicator. Rubber covers were placed over both these, and instead you use the turn co-ordinator (to see if the wings are level or not) and the altimeter (to see if you are climbing or descending). We practiced timed turns, where you make a rate 1 turn (as marked on the turn co-ordinator), on the basis of number of degrees to turn divided by 3.
On return, we again tracked down the ILS and made a low level circuit to land on 06.
Theory Exam
I’d been studying the theory book (Trevor Thom) for some weeks in anticipation of the IMC course and finished the practice test papers the previous evening. I sat the exam which included planning a flight using only the “whizz wheel” and completed that in about an hour (2 hours allowed). It would be marked the following day.
ADF and VOR Tracking
Radio navigation aids for the IMC are the ADF, VOR and DME. No GPS here. Tracking north, we locked onto a specific radial of the Brecon VOR and followed that, then used the ADF from Lyneham to return. Unfortunately a PAR (“talkdown”) approach wasn’t available due to limited staff during the holiday period, so instead we then followed the instrument landing procedure for the ILS as before and made another low level circuit.
This completed 4 hours of the training = about 25% through already.
I then learnt that I wouldn’t be able to complete the full course during the week. A lack of instructor availability meant that I would only get another couple of days and would be continuing with a different instructor the next day.