I flew 4.3 hours yesterday to finish off the dual required by my insurer, including an hour under the hood at night. I handled the Warrior II OK VFR, but in IFR my scan went all to crap, even though the panel layout is virtually identical, and my holding pattern resembled a spirograph. The distraction of a new plane shows itself in the harder flying.
More importantly, I experienced real IFR illusions for the first time. While I've had a chance to fly a bit in cloud and a lot under the hood in daylight, this was my first time under the hood at night. I've never experienced anything like it. I *knew* that the AI had tumbled, because I *knew* that the wings were level. My instructor wasn't saying a thing, but I forced myself to crosscheck and saw that the TC indicated a turn, the heading was changing, the altitude was dropping, and the speed was increasing. But I *knew* that the wings were level, so the AI and TC had to be wrong -- I just bought the plane, previous owner probably didn't maintain the gyros, the DG was precessing too much after all, etc. etc. I forced myself to follow the AI anyway, but I *knew* that I was putting the plane into a dangerous bank. Even when the heading stopped changing and the speed and altitude were stabilized, I *knew* that I had done the wrong thing and wanted to put it back. Just to give some background, I've always done OK on my IFR work before, both under the hood and on the simulator. On the simulator, I was my instructor's first student ever who didn't lose control of the plane on the first simulated vacuum failure -- I identified every failure within a couple of seconds. My brief IFR work was the best part of my PPL exam, my first ILS approach under the hood was not perfect but pretty good, etc. etc. Even when we did some work in cloud with the hood off, I kept good control of the plane. But last night, with the hood on in the dark, it was different. It was very, very hard to trust the instruments. No amount of practice can prepare you for that -- I have an immense respect for IFR flying now, and much more sympathy for otherwise talented pilots (much better than I) who simply lose control in an emergency. Following the AI was like deliberately jumping in front of a train -- it's not just a simple memory item but a ferocious act of will going against every survival instinct. All the best, David -- David Megginson, [EMAIL PROTECTED], http://www.megginson.com/ _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
