June 04, 2004

Reflying the Approach

So I fire up the ASA On Top sim on my own PC for the first time in a month and refly the WVI VOR/DME A approach. The results are miserable -- not only do I turn the wrong way several times on the DME arc, I keep busting altitudes and have trouble maintaining a heading throughout the approach. This is partly because my On Top is so different in roll and pitch sensitvity than either John's Elite or a real 172 that I struggle to keep the sim under control, but it's still depressing. I just haven't internalised the whole DME arc thing well enough yet to just know which way to turn.

Just as I start the arc I realise with a certain sense of horror that On Top's DME doesn't show groundspeed (only distance). Argh! I have to follow the arc using distance alone, which isn't quite what I had in mind when I started the approach. I should have noticed this before I started the approach, but it's no big deal in real life, I guess.

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