After a failed attempt on Monday morning to get my instrument rating renewed due to aircraft unserviceability I finally got it done on Wednesday. Yay! It’s been over 5 years since I did the initial issue flight test in the Seneca at NAC. All it took was a couple of sessions in the simulator and then a couple of dual flights to seal the deal.
Monday was looking good weather wise. We got airbourne and headed to NZWU via RUGVI at 5000 feet. After a bit of a mission getting myself sorted in the Wanganui hold we were cleared for the NDB/DME 11 approach.
Wanganui NDB/DME approach for runway 11
Outbound on the approach the ADF needle stops moving…funny…check the ident, nothing! Aaarggh! ADF failure. No worries, stop descent at 2000 feet, we check with Ohakea to see if the NDB was online still. It was so it was our reciever. Bugger. Oh well, onwards clearance to Palmerston at 4000 feet. No worries. On the climb out the NAV 1 goes crazy, 1’s and 0’s on the screen and the CDI bar doing a funky dance, and the NAV 2 CDI fails too. Unheard of!! Cancel IFR and continue VFR. ARSE! What a mission!
We had another go today. I had a Max Rate Turn lesson to teach first in the same aircraft we were going to use for the flight test, the mighty ZK-MBC. The plan was filed PM-OH-WU. We planned for one lap of the Wanganui hold but got two due to another aircraft in the hold below us. After one adequate and one ok hold we were cleared for the approach which went well. There was a 10-15 knot wind from the nor’west but there wasn’t too much drift. Down to 640 feet I commenced the missed approach at 1.5 DME then back to Palmerston at 4000 feet via the Ohakea VORTAC. Almost finished! The clearance for the VOR/DME 07 approach at Palmerston was given to us a few miles out from Ohakea. Ohakea is 13 DME from Palmerston so it was pretty much straight onto the 12 DME arc from overhead. I kept it within limits on the arc and the approach turned out pretty well. The one criticism was that I’d turned inbound a bit too early. But overall a good renewal.
Next on the plan is to build time on an IFR flight plan in order to teach IFR.
...The Future
September 9, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Woohoo! nice work mate… so when are you getting a ‘real’ job?