Simulated IFR Time
We had MVFR (marginal VFR) conditions today, which was good enough to fly for our lesson.
We took off and did about 50 minutes of time "under the hood" simulating IFR conditions. Basically, you have to be able to keep the plane straight and level and on a heading without looking outside, using your instruments. We practiced climbs, turns, descents, slow flight, and unusual attitudes.
The most interesting situation is unusual attitudes. Basically, I handed over the controls to my CFI and was told to look away from the instrument panel. He turned the plane around and got us all screwed up. Then said, "Recover." I looked at the panel and saw the air speed indicator dropping, so I put in full power and then looked over at the artificial horizon and got us level. Then we did it again... this time he spent a good minute disorienting me, during which it felt like we were going all over the place. When he said "recover," I look and saw that the air speed indicator was going up fast, so I killed the power and looked at the artificial horrizon, which looked like it was turned on it's side and had very little blue (indicating sky showing). He basically put us into a 90 degree right bank and a steep dive, I rolled the wings level and pulled back on the elevator to get us level again. I commented to him, "I'm glad I didn't see what you were doing out the window, I might have gotten really nervous."
After that we flew north and did some slow flight in which he asked me to stall the plane. I did so and then recovered and then he had me fly the GPS approach to runway 17, when we got to about a half mile from the end of the runway, I took off the foggles (what I wore during the lesson) and landed.
My next lesson is scheduled to be a night time flight.
Next lesson: Thursday, March 6.
