07/21/03 - Timed Turns and Compass turns were the lesson for the day. We had a short ground session that covered some basics and then it was time to fire up the sim.

It does not seem right going through a pre-flight on the sim, but it helps to go through the motions so I do not forget anything when I get in the plane. I started out with a simple climb (500 fpm) and got to straight and level flight. After I was level it was time for some basic turns to different headings. I seemed to be doing pretty good and managed to keep the plane going were I was supposed to.

Now it was time to start a timed turn...I was heading 270 and was told turn to and maintain 240. Hmmm.. Now I have to think and get my brain in gear. Let's see - 30 degrees, 3 degrees per second, 10 seconds. Not too bad, but it easier to figure out when I am sitting here tyoing instead of trying to fly the plane or the sim. I turned for a count of 10 and sure enough I got pretty close. I rolled out on 241 so it was not too bad for the fisrt turn. Now it was time for turn back to 290. Heading 241, turn to 290, 50 degrees, 3 seconds per degree, 16+ seconds. I can't believe this is working.

How about a compass turn, let's see how that works. I cannot remember the hdg but Drew asked me to turn to an hdg of 090. That would be East and there is no error for that hdg. Just roll out on East and that is where the heading indicator should be pointing. Man this is getting to turn out o.k. Something must not be right.

Drew could sense that I was getting the hang of it and had seen enough. Just when I thought I was getting o.k. he had me perform another turn. I started the turn and I could hear him type something on the sim. Hmmm...Just then my A.I. tumbled and I started to get lost in the turn. He failed on of my instruments. How am I going to maintain straight and level flight now. Where is my friend the turn coordinator? That is what I needed to do now. We did a few turns, both timed and compass, without the A.I. and after a few seconds I got the plane back to where I needed to be and I was doing o.k.

Drew had a sarcastic train of thought today and after I was feeling good about the sim he failed another instrument. All of a sudden my H.I. stopped moving. Now what am I going to do? I have to get used to some timed and compass turns without the help of my H.I. to back me up. The compass turns went pretty good, but I need to drill into my nugget the turning errors so I can roll out on the correct heading. If I miss my heading, I need to correct as soon as possible with the minor corrections.

Some of the helpful hints for the turns are:
N-orth O-pposite
A-ccelerate N-orth D-ecelrate S-outh
C-ompass O-vershoots S-outh U-ndershoots N-orth

I am sure there is more, and I will update today's notes when it comes to me. Tomorrow we are in the plane and not the sim. It should be a good day I hope. That's all for now.

Big lesson for the day: FLY THE PLANE at all times. Especially if you lose one of your instruments. At first today I started to fixate on the failed instrument and then the instrument that I had to use in it's place. I was concentrating on my backup so much that I started to get behind the plane and lost altitude or heading. Be sure not to forget the other working instruments.