It's rained 24 days so far this month (March), an all-time record for this area, and more's on the way. That's not as irritating as the more than forty days in a row that it rained on me once when I lived in London, but the constant drizzle and (sometimes) heavy rain's played havoc with my flying schedules, and I've had to cancel several planned IFR flights in the past two weeks. The latest cancellation being Sunday's long-planned trip in one of the club's G1000 172's down to San Luis Obispo (KSBP) and back for lunch and IFR practice under the hood with Boyan B., my usual flight-share partner, as safety pilot (and flying his leg VFR).
It's not that we probably couldn't get there and back fairly safely VFR, it's that we couldn't do it IFR: the icing levels are well below the MEA, and although the ceilings are fairly high, there's cloud everywhere now and forecast for tomorrow at and below the relatively high MEAs needed to get to San Luis. And I'm not pleased with the idea of always looking over our shoulders worrying about the latest approaching cold front. Yes, I'd normally be fine with leaving the damn plane at Salinas or King City or somewhere like that and renting a car or taking a train to get back (and picking it up the next day), but that quite likely scenario (given this week's unstable weather) just doesn't appeal to me at the moment. All I really want to do is file and fly, dammit.
March 30, 2006
March 12, 2006
Plan B
Plan A: a leisurely flight late this morning down to Monterey (KMRY) in N1004E wth Boyan B. (my usual flight-share partner) as PIC, then lunch, then I'd fly back under the Cone Of Stupidity to see how well I coped with the G1000 without John in the right seat. Boyan has the G1000 VFR signoff, and Monterey's a nice little airport we've both visited many times before. Plus he owes me lunch, and Monterey's got a restaurant in the terminal building (nothing special, but it's definitely food). But by last night it's obvious that plan A's going to fall victim to the same weather that's causing all sorts of disruption around here (with freezing levels down to sea-level, rain, and forecast ceilings of 3,000' or less), and I start thinking about Plan B.
Plan B? Well, I dunno — there really isn't a plan B. After breakfast this morning at Javarama I use DUATS to get more forecasts, and while it doesn't look so good right now, the forecast has things clearing over the next few hours. It's definitely flyable VFR as long as you dodge the rainshowers and keep below the ceiling. And surface temperatures seem higher than I'd expected — often nearly 10C. So Boyan and I meet up at Cal Airways, prepared to cancel the flight, or just spend some time flying locally. Maybe a short trip to Livermore or San Jose (Reid-Hillview). And the sun's actually shining on Hayward (on and off, at least).
So we discuss the plan. We'll fly to Livermore (KLVK), just over the hills, and if it still looks good after landing there, we'll go on into the Central Valley to Stockton (KSCK), where we'll get some lunch if possible. Then we'll return the same way, cautiously. Some rules we agree to: no pressure to get back (it's OK to leave the damn plane at Livermore or Stockton and catch a train or BART back); no flying without at least a clear way to a visible airport (there are plenty in the Valley at least); we'll go to the nearest airport on any sign of ice at all; absolutely no IMC; no flying through rain; we turn back if the celings get below 2,500' AGL. That about covers it, and we get another DUATS briefing and look at Nexrad. Again, nothing too bad, and we pre-flight and head for Livermore. Livermore's looking good, and we taxi back and depart for Stockton. We have to dodge a rain shower, but otherwise things are still pretty good. The outside air temperature (OAT) doesn't go below 5C (which surprises me), and the G1000 Nexrad display correlates well with what we can see around us. Plus the celings are higher than reported, in some cases by several thousand feet.
We land at Stockton — the place is dead. The terminal's closed, so no lunch here. There's no one around on the ramp. There's one plane in the pattern doing touch-and-goes. We swap places, get ATIS again, look at the G1000 Nexrad display again, then decide to depart towards Tracy then Livermore, giving us an out if the rain gets started again. I take off and as planned head towards Tracy. Things look pretty good again, but Nexrad confirms that the ugly-looking rainstorm around Byron is much thicker than it looks, and there's unseen heavy rain up north of Concord. But otherwise, it looks OK, and we head towards Livermore. The OAT is still about 5C (it was 10C on the ground in Stockton), and things feel good. Then we see the rainstorm appearing on Nexrad out over the Peninsula and the San Francisco coast getting more intense. We can't see it from where we are approaching Livermore, but we're both conservative enough to trust Nexrad in this case, and decide to head straight for Hayward to get home before it makes things difficult. It's clear behind and around us, so we can escape back to Livermore if it looks like the rain will hit before we get home. As we approach the Oakland Hills we can see a huge dramatic dark curtain of cloud and rain coming across the Bay, and it starts lightly raining on us as we join the pattern at Hayward. I land a little fast with a gusty quartering headwind, and taxi back to CalAir as quickly as I can. As we start tying 04E down, the deluge breaks, and for the next few hours it's raining cats and dogs. Cool. If we'd departed Stockton any later, we'd have been sitting at Livermore or Tracy for the afternoon.
Overall, an interesting flight, and a good opportunity to see Nexrad do its work in real time in the cockpit. It did a good job of showing us trouble well ahead of when we could see it — we would not have seen the unforecast and basically invisible-from-Livermore rain front until much closer up, and it made it clear that going up towards Concord was not a smart idea either, regardless of what Concord's ATIS was reporting at the time. No, on-board Nexrad didn't enter into the decision to fly today (I would have flown one of the other non-G1000 SP's just as readily (or not)), but I can't help feeling it made me more conservative in my in-air decision making. Basically, it provided that extra information that helped me not do things I might otherwise have done (like head up towards Concord). It's probably not so useful 'round here for IFR/IMC flying in my situation, though — most "bad" weather around here is either too bad to fly a light plane IFR in, or it's relatively benign. But the extra information Nexrad gives you can't be a bad thing, can it? Unless you use it to justify bursting the envelope…
Plan B? Well, I dunno — there really isn't a plan B. After breakfast this morning at Javarama I use DUATS to get more forecasts, and while it doesn't look so good right now, the forecast has things clearing over the next few hours. It's definitely flyable VFR as long as you dodge the rainshowers and keep below the ceiling. And surface temperatures seem higher than I'd expected — often nearly 10C. So Boyan and I meet up at Cal Airways, prepared to cancel the flight, or just spend some time flying locally. Maybe a short trip to Livermore or San Jose (Reid-Hillview). And the sun's actually shining on Hayward (on and off, at least).
So we discuss the plan. We'll fly to Livermore (KLVK), just over the hills, and if it still looks good after landing there, we'll go on into the Central Valley to Stockton (KSCK), where we'll get some lunch if possible. Then we'll return the same way, cautiously. Some rules we agree to: no pressure to get back (it's OK to leave the damn plane at Livermore or Stockton and catch a train or BART back); no flying without at least a clear way to a visible airport (there are plenty in the Valley at least); we'll go to the nearest airport on any sign of ice at all; absolutely no IMC; no flying through rain; we turn back if the celings get below 2,500' AGL. That about covers it, and we get another DUATS briefing and look at Nexrad. Again, nothing too bad, and we pre-flight and head for Livermore. Livermore's looking good, and we taxi back and depart for Stockton. We have to dodge a rain shower, but otherwise things are still pretty good. The outside air temperature (OAT) doesn't go below 5C (which surprises me), and the G1000 Nexrad display correlates well with what we can see around us. Plus the celings are higher than reported, in some cases by several thousand feet.
We land at Stockton — the place is dead. The terminal's closed, so no lunch here. There's no one around on the ramp. There's one plane in the pattern doing touch-and-goes. We swap places, get ATIS again, look at the G1000 Nexrad display again, then decide to depart towards Tracy then Livermore, giving us an out if the rain gets started again. I take off and as planned head towards Tracy. Things look pretty good again, but Nexrad confirms that the ugly-looking rainstorm around Byron is much thicker than it looks, and there's unseen heavy rain up north of Concord. But otherwise, it looks OK, and we head towards Livermore. The OAT is still about 5C (it was 10C on the ground in Stockton), and things feel good. Then we see the rainstorm appearing on Nexrad out over the Peninsula and the San Francisco coast getting more intense. We can't see it from where we are approaching Livermore, but we're both conservative enough to trust Nexrad in this case, and decide to head straight for Hayward to get home before it makes things difficult. It's clear behind and around us, so we can escape back to Livermore if it looks like the rain will hit before we get home. As we approach the Oakland Hills we can see a huge dramatic dark curtain of cloud and rain coming across the Bay, and it starts lightly raining on us as we join the pattern at Hayward. I land a little fast with a gusty quartering headwind, and taxi back to CalAir as quickly as I can. As we start tying 04E down, the deluge breaks, and for the next few hours it's raining cats and dogs. Cool. If we'd departed Stockton any later, we'd have been sitting at Livermore or Tracy for the afternoon.
Overall, an interesting flight, and a good opportunity to see Nexrad do its work in real time in the cockpit. It did a good job of showing us trouble well ahead of when we could see it — we would not have seen the unforecast and basically invisible-from-Livermore rain front until much closer up, and it made it clear that going up towards Concord was not a smart idea either, regardless of what Concord's ATIS was reporting at the time. No, on-board Nexrad didn't enter into the decision to fly today (I would have flown one of the other non-G1000 SP's just as readily (or not)), but I can't help feeling it made me more conservative in my in-air decision making. Basically, it provided that extra information that helped me not do things I might otherwise have done (like head up towards Concord). It's probably not so useful 'round here for IFR/IMC flying in my situation, though — most "bad" weather around here is either too bad to fly a light plane IFR in, or it's relatively benign. But the extra information Nexrad gives you can't be a bad thing, can it? Unless you use it to justify bursting the envelope…
February 25, 2006
Flying Glass (Part 3)
Finally, a day with decent weather and a few hours to spare, and — finally — I get the G1000 IFR signoff (with a full instrument proficiency check into the bargain) out of the way with John. It's taken since mid-November — much longer than I expected, mostly due to bad weather and the pressures of taking on a new job — but I suspect it's been worth it. It's certainly been an interesting and enjoyable look into another way of flying, and when you're sitting there looking at the beautiful displays and letting George do his thing, it's hard to want to go back to something like 4AC with its steam gauges and its lack of GPS and autopilot for serious IFR flying. I still wouldn't hesitate to use 4AC (or at least a similar plane) to just punch through the summer coastal stratus here once in a while, and I actually suspect that my main IMC flying will more likely be done in the plain old SP's with GPS and mechanical gauges, but so much about the G1000 feels right to this old engineer.
Today's flight is a mostly-unexceptional finishing up of the G1000 IPC needed for the club's insurance coverage: the GPS RWY 25 approach with circling into Rio Vista (O88) done partial panel, a bunch of times around the missed-approach hold at OAKEY, then back to Hayward for the GPS RWY 28L approach, with a bunch of unusual attitude recovery exercises along the way. I end up enjoying the flight much more than I'd expected, and much of the flight went smoothly, and even the landings were good.
Flying the G1000 partial panel turns out to be an irritating but not particularly difficult experience, with the PFD displayed on the MFD with the engine controls. It's irritating to have to look right all the time to concentrate on the reverted PFD, but it's not that hard; it's surely better than having no backup display at all. I also try simply looking at the backup mechanical guages under the space between the displays early on the approach — no nav instruments just an AI, the altimeter, and the airspeed indicator — this also turns out to be not excruciatingly difficult to use to keep the plane under control, but what you'd use for an approach in IMC isn't exactly clear. The location of the mechanical backups makes it difficult to follow any yoke-mounted hand-held GPS, and you don't have anything but a whisk(e)y compass for vectors. Again, though, it's a lot better than the backups available in something 4AC when the primary instrument systems fail….
The approach into Rio Vista involves using CTAF in the later stages to listen for other traffic and announce our intentions — no big deal under normal circumstances, you'd think, but it's a beautiful Saturday morning, and the CTAF frequency (yes, I know there's a redundancy there) is jammed with continuous transmissions from all over Northern California. From 4,000' over the Central Valley any CTAF frequency is going to have an endless stream of transmissions from the dozen or more airports within 150 nm that share that frequency, and today's a classic example of that. The actual traffic at Rio Vista itself is unexceptional (a couple of other planes in the pattern), but the effect's so bad I get John to handle the radio work (there was also a radio level problem I was having that we didn't solve until we'd departed Rio Vista, which certainly didn't help).
The circling part of the approach is the usual mild fear-and-loathing caused by suddenly joining a pattern with other aircraft in it and trying to balance the altitude / distance requirements for circling with the need to keep from hitting those other aircraft and the need to actually land properly. It all works out fine in the end, but a night IMC circling approach near minimums has to be one of those experiences I don't want to have to do for real any time soon. The first time I did the GPS 25 with circling at Rio Vista I bungled the circling bad enough to cause several forced go-arounds; this time, at least, I land normally. We depart for the hold, and later for Hayward, and the only interesting thing about the rest of the flight was the GPS 28L approach into Hayward, an approach I haven't done before. The GPS approach has an MDA of 440', only 40' above the localizer version into Hayward, and it shares the same drop-like-a-rock gradient of that approach around the FAF, usually exacerbated by NorCal Approach's tendency to vector you way above the segment altitude for whatever segment they're making you join (often at least a thousand feet above that altitude, usually just before the next leg…). This time we get vectored at a reasonable altitude, but at 100KIAS, even dialing in 900 fpm on the autopilot barely gets us down in time. In the 172 in IMC any time after the FAF, 900 fpm takes quite a bit of faith. Not quite the Santa Monica Slam, but enough to make you bloody watchful.
The other aspect of the enroute bits of the flight that I find helpful is having John show me a lot of the more useful display and instrument options hidden away behind the MFD menus. Little things like track vectors, range circles, etc., make a nice addition to the basic display, and help you visualise trends and needed heading or airspeed adjustments, etc., a lot more intuitively (at least for me). Again, not something you want to start relying on, but in the hold with a decent crosswind it's interesting to be able to pretty accurately see the heading and airspeed corrections needed to track around the hold nicely. Still, as John comments in the hold, I seem to find it easier to fly holds by hand rather than command George, and it's true — I used to really dislike holds, but increasingly they've become light relief from the other bits of flying IMC or under the Cone Of Stupidity. Which is what a missed approach hold should be, really — a time to gather your wits and start again.
One really irritating thing with the G1000 (and the similar system in the Cirrus) is the inability to turn off traffic warnings on the TIS service. Typically what happens is that a very loud voice starts announcing "Traffic! Traffic!" at just the time ATC is giving you a traffic report or vectoring you, and you miss the ATC transmission. This happens several times today, given the usual Saturday morning zoo over the Bay Area (we had traffic crossing us constantly all the way back from Rio Vista). I can't believe this is a safety improvement, especially since TIS misses a fair bit of the real traffic anyway, and a healthy paranoia about traffic is the default attitude here.
* * *
Back at Hayward, I'm surprised by a very familiar face and voice greeting me exuberantly as we're tying 04E down — it's Praniti L., a colleague of mine from my old job down in Silicon Valley. She's a student pilot not far from finally getting her private license (it's a long story…), and she's looking over California Airways to see if she could restart her license here. I'm really pleased to see her again (and to gossip about the old company, but that's not for public consumption :-)), and I'm even more pleased that she's restarting the whole flying thing. I used to kid her sometimes about the few hours she needed to finish off, and kept gently cajoling her to keep going; now maybe it'll happen (she's a natural pilot, I think, and she comes from a flying family).
* * *
Those of you who follow John's blog know that lately he's been whining publicly about his camera, a little digital point-and-shoot. I've called his bluff by lending him one of my older digital SLRs (with a decent lens), the Nikon D100 I use as a backup on real photo shoots. Now there's no excuse, John :-).
Today's flight is a mostly-unexceptional finishing up of the G1000 IPC needed for the club's insurance coverage: the GPS RWY 25 approach with circling into Rio Vista (O88) done partial panel, a bunch of times around the missed-approach hold at OAKEY, then back to Hayward for the GPS RWY 28L approach, with a bunch of unusual attitude recovery exercises along the way. I end up enjoying the flight much more than I'd expected, and much of the flight went smoothly, and even the landings were good.
Flying the G1000 partial panel turns out to be an irritating but not particularly difficult experience, with the PFD displayed on the MFD with the engine controls. It's irritating to have to look right all the time to concentrate on the reverted PFD, but it's not that hard; it's surely better than having no backup display at all. I also try simply looking at the backup mechanical guages under the space between the displays early on the approach — no nav instruments just an AI, the altimeter, and the airspeed indicator — this also turns out to be not excruciatingly difficult to use to keep the plane under control, but what you'd use for an approach in IMC isn't exactly clear. The location of the mechanical backups makes it difficult to follow any yoke-mounted hand-held GPS, and you don't have anything but a whisk(e)y compass for vectors. Again, though, it's a lot better than the backups available in something 4AC when the primary instrument systems fail….
The approach into Rio Vista involves using CTAF in the later stages to listen for other traffic and announce our intentions — no big deal under normal circumstances, you'd think, but it's a beautiful Saturday morning, and the CTAF frequency (yes, I know there's a redundancy there) is jammed with continuous transmissions from all over Northern California. From 4,000' over the Central Valley any CTAF frequency is going to have an endless stream of transmissions from the dozen or more airports within 150 nm that share that frequency, and today's a classic example of that. The actual traffic at Rio Vista itself is unexceptional (a couple of other planes in the pattern), but the effect's so bad I get John to handle the radio work (there was also a radio level problem I was having that we didn't solve until we'd departed Rio Vista, which certainly didn't help).
The circling part of the approach is the usual mild fear-and-loathing caused by suddenly joining a pattern with other aircraft in it and trying to balance the altitude / distance requirements for circling with the need to keep from hitting those other aircraft and the need to actually land properly. It all works out fine in the end, but a night IMC circling approach near minimums has to be one of those experiences I don't want to have to do for real any time soon. The first time I did the GPS 25 with circling at Rio Vista I bungled the circling bad enough to cause several forced go-arounds; this time, at least, I land normally. We depart for the hold, and later for Hayward, and the only interesting thing about the rest of the flight was the GPS 28L approach into Hayward, an approach I haven't done before. The GPS approach has an MDA of 440', only 40' above the localizer version into Hayward, and it shares the same drop-like-a-rock gradient of that approach around the FAF, usually exacerbated by NorCal Approach's tendency to vector you way above the segment altitude for whatever segment they're making you join (often at least a thousand feet above that altitude, usually just before the next leg…). This time we get vectored at a reasonable altitude, but at 100KIAS, even dialing in 900 fpm on the autopilot barely gets us down in time. In the 172 in IMC any time after the FAF, 900 fpm takes quite a bit of faith. Not quite the Santa Monica Slam, but enough to make you bloody watchful.
The other aspect of the enroute bits of the flight that I find helpful is having John show me a lot of the more useful display and instrument options hidden away behind the MFD menus. Little things like track vectors, range circles, etc., make a nice addition to the basic display, and help you visualise trends and needed heading or airspeed adjustments, etc., a lot more intuitively (at least for me). Again, not something you want to start relying on, but in the hold with a decent crosswind it's interesting to be able to pretty accurately see the heading and airspeed corrections needed to track around the hold nicely. Still, as John comments in the hold, I seem to find it easier to fly holds by hand rather than command George, and it's true — I used to really dislike holds, but increasingly they've become light relief from the other bits of flying IMC or under the Cone Of Stupidity. Which is what a missed approach hold should be, really — a time to gather your wits and start again.
One really irritating thing with the G1000 (and the similar system in the Cirrus) is the inability to turn off traffic warnings on the TIS service. Typically what happens is that a very loud voice starts announcing "Traffic! Traffic!" at just the time ATC is giving you a traffic report or vectoring you, and you miss the ATC transmission. This happens several times today, given the usual Saturday morning zoo over the Bay Area (we had traffic crossing us constantly all the way back from Rio Vista). I can't believe this is a safety improvement, especially since TIS misses a fair bit of the real traffic anyway, and a healthy paranoia about traffic is the default attitude here.
* * *
Back at Hayward, I'm surprised by a very familiar face and voice greeting me exuberantly as we're tying 04E down — it's Praniti L., a colleague of mine from my old job down in Silicon Valley. She's a student pilot not far from finally getting her private license (it's a long story…), and she's looking over California Airways to see if she could restart her license here. I'm really pleased to see her again (and to gossip about the old company, but that's not for public consumption :-)), and I'm even more pleased that she's restarting the whole flying thing. I used to kid her sometimes about the few hours she needed to finish off, and kept gently cajoling her to keep going; now maybe it'll happen (she's a natural pilot, I think, and she comes from a flying family).
* * *
Those of you who follow John's blog know that lately he's been whining publicly about his camera, a little digital point-and-shoot. I've called his bluff by lending him one of my older digital SLRs (with a decent lens), the Nikon D100 I use as a backup on real photo shoots. Now there's no excuse, John :-).
February 12, 2006
Heavy Weather
I look outside my studio window at about 7.30 am: a nice sunny morning, a typical Oakland winter's day -- temperature about 12C, no wind, a light scattering of high clouds. Perfect for finishing off the G1000 checkout. Cool! But by the time I've driven the 10 miles or so down to Hayward (KHWD) 90 minutes later, Hayward airport's covered in a thin layer of heavy fog. Visibility 1/2 mile; ceiling 100', tops probably 500', certainly less than 1000'. The locals are saying it wasn't there thirty minutes ago. Hmmm. Oakland (KOAK) -- 5 miles to the north west -- is still effectively reporting CAVU. It'll blow over -- it always does.
John arrives and we discuss this morning's agenda -- a GPS approach somewhere (we decide on Rio Vista, O88), a circle-to-land (Rio Vista again, if possible), and some partial panel and unusual attitude work along the way. Sounds good to me, and I preflight the plane. John has what he calls a mild cold and sore throat, but he sounds like he's about to die, while repeatedly insisting he's OK. I joke about dead bodies in the right seat, etc., but John's got a heavy schedule for the rest of the day, and I really don't want to screw that up for him if I can help it.
Thirty minutes later the fog still hasn't cleared. We sit there in the club listening to Hayward ATIS -- the visibility is up to a mile or so, and the ceiling is now 300' (still below the best Hayward approach minimums, so I can't depart), and Oakland's now reporting 200' / 1 mile (or similar, i.e. right on OAK 27R's Cat I ILS minimums), and it's obvious that we can't depart Hayward at all, despite it being sunny maybe 500' above us and pretty much all the way to Colorado to the east. We're still hopeful it'll clear, but by 9.45 am (for a 9am flight) it's obvious it's going to hang around for a while longer, and we cancel the flight. In the end it doesn't actually clear fully for another hour or more after that.
What now? John suggests we finally go through the paperwork -- the two long written tests I have to complete in addition to the practical checkride to be allowed to fly the C172 G1000 version. But I've left my mostly-completed paperwork at home (D'Oh!) and I did the original several weeks ago, so we have to start again, and I can't remember a lot of the answers.
What follows is excruciating -- two hours of searching the various Garmin manuals in vain for things you should be able to find instantly. An example: the test asks how you check system and / or GPS status on the MFD -- the sort of thing you'd probably want to do at least once each flight, maybe more. Ditto for RAIM status. Is there an index entry for any of these things in the Garmin manual? Not bloody likely. Is there even a paragraph or two in the entire manual about these status pages? Not bloody likely. An entry in an unrelated section of the official checklist implies that you can do this sort of thing with the MFD AUX pages, but that's it. OK, I'm sure that if I were sitting in front of the unit I'd suss it out pretty quickly, but sitting at a table in the club lounge it's less obvious. And so it goes -- Garmin does a great job in general with their products and things like simulators, but the written manuals are truly dreadful. It's hard to conceive of a manual that's intended to be kept at your side in the plane that doesn't even mention RAIM status, let alone tell you how to check it explictly.
Ditto -- in slightly less annoying ways -- for the Cessna 172 POH. I know Cessna has to use the approved FAA POH format, but it's astonishing how difficult it is to find the answers to things like questions about emergency S bus performance or battery current draws under alternator failure (etc.) in the POH. Urgh.
So, two hours later, with John's help, I get the paperwork out of the way and signed off. Shame about the flying...
John arrives and we discuss this morning's agenda -- a GPS approach somewhere (we decide on Rio Vista, O88), a circle-to-land (Rio Vista again, if possible), and some partial panel and unusual attitude work along the way. Sounds good to me, and I preflight the plane. John has what he calls a mild cold and sore throat, but he sounds like he's about to die, while repeatedly insisting he's OK. I joke about dead bodies in the right seat, etc., but John's got a heavy schedule for the rest of the day, and I really don't want to screw that up for him if I can help it.
Thirty minutes later the fog still hasn't cleared. We sit there in the club listening to Hayward ATIS -- the visibility is up to a mile or so, and the ceiling is now 300' (still below the best Hayward approach minimums, so I can't depart), and Oakland's now reporting 200' / 1 mile (or similar, i.e. right on OAK 27R's Cat I ILS minimums), and it's obvious that we can't depart Hayward at all, despite it being sunny maybe 500' above us and pretty much all the way to Colorado to the east. We're still hopeful it'll clear, but by 9.45 am (for a 9am flight) it's obvious it's going to hang around for a while longer, and we cancel the flight. In the end it doesn't actually clear fully for another hour or more after that.
What now? John suggests we finally go through the paperwork -- the two long written tests I have to complete in addition to the practical checkride to be allowed to fly the C172 G1000 version. But I've left my mostly-completed paperwork at home (D'Oh!) and I did the original several weeks ago, so we have to start again, and I can't remember a lot of the answers.
What follows is excruciating -- two hours of searching the various Garmin manuals in vain for things you should be able to find instantly. An example: the test asks how you check system and / or GPS status on the MFD -- the sort of thing you'd probably want to do at least once each flight, maybe more. Ditto for RAIM status. Is there an index entry for any of these things in the Garmin manual? Not bloody likely. Is there even a paragraph or two in the entire manual about these status pages? Not bloody likely. An entry in an unrelated section of the official checklist implies that you can do this sort of thing with the MFD AUX pages, but that's it. OK, I'm sure that if I were sitting in front of the unit I'd suss it out pretty quickly, but sitting at a table in the club lounge it's less obvious. And so it goes -- Garmin does a great job in general with their products and things like simulators, but the written manuals are truly dreadful. It's hard to conceive of a manual that's intended to be kept at your side in the plane that doesn't even mention RAIM status, let alone tell you how to check it explictly.
Ditto -- in slightly less annoying ways -- for the Cessna 172 POH. I know Cessna has to use the approved FAA POH format, but it's astonishing how difficult it is to find the answers to things like questions about emergency S bus performance or battery current draws under alternator failure (etc.) in the POH. Urgh.
So, two hours later, with John's help, I get the paperwork out of the way and signed off. Shame about the flying...
January 30, 2006
From Our Wellington Correspondent...
Sent to me by YAFB's Wellington (NZ) correspondent, a nice little story about a Cessna and alleged insurance fraud. Not quite typical YAFB fodder, but I can't help wondering what help the guy had with getting the wings off so it'd fit in the container... (not to mention all the other help needed to keep the whole scheme afloat, as it were... assuming it's all true, of course, of which I have my doubts).
January 21, 2006
Flying Glass (Part 2)
A grey morning, layered overcasts from about 1,000 feet up through maybe 5,000 or 6,000 feet, clear above 6,000, and a forecast for slow clearing across the region. Icing levels about 6,000', but escape routes above and below. Not a bad day to continue my education with the G1000 in N14008, one of the California Airways glass cockpit 172SP's. John arranged it with me yesterday, and although I vowed to get it together this morning, due to other commitments I'm already late and feeling under-prepared by the time I reach Hayward airport (KHWD, my main home base). And, once I get there, instead of filing, pre-flighting, studying the charts and POH, etc., I end up discussing the club with Keith (the owner) and the G1000 with Mal R. (one of Cal Air's instructors), and not noticing the time going by. Oh well.
John calls and asks if it's OK to bring another of his students, Andy K. (whom I've met before a couple of times at the Other Club) as a back-seat observer. Fine by me, and John and Andy turn up as I'm finally getting ready to pre-flight. Andy's wearing shorts, which initially horrifies me — it's California-cold and grey outside — but then I think "Well, he's from Russia..." and it all makes more sense. It is, after all, somewhere above 12C outside already, despite the winter grey.
And so for the first complication: when you fly a 172 with just two people, as long as neither of them are especially overweight and you don't have a lot of luggage, you pretty much can't bust gross weight or centre-of-gravity limits even with full fuel loads, and you basically don't spend too much time obsessing over weight and balance issues. But there are three of us this time, and although none of us is particularly large — I'm 180 cm tall and under the average weight for the FAA standard person (who apparently weighs 170lbs in Nineteenth Century measurements), and John and Andy are both taller than me and similarly proportioned — we have to do a weight and balance check. After going through the agony of trying to remember how to do one without a spreadsheet, it confirms what I suspect: we'd be 100lbs over gross and close to the aft CG limit with Andy along and with full fuel. We could dump fuel, but it seems easier to dump Andy instead :-). So we're left pondering the poor lifting capacity of the 172SP with full 56 gallon tanks — back at the Other Club we kept 2SP (the 172SP there) fueled up to the collars instead of fully-fueled for exactly this reason, as that at least allowed three full-size adults and baggage to depart legally. It seems pathetic that you can't get such a relatively-powerful plane off the ground (legally, at any rate) in such circumstance, but there it is. Something else to ponder if I want to drag this plane back to Santa Monica or up to Portland some day — get the previous pilot to refuel only up to the tabs. I'm not sure what the hell I'd do if I turned up one morning with passengers and discovered I had to drain 20 gallons of fuel to make gross….
After all this we're already late and I'm feeling even more under-prepared, and since it's likely to be IMC for a large part of our flight to and from Stockton (at least I've had the wit to get a decent DUATS briefing for the flight), I tell John we shouldn't bust a gut trying to do the G1000 IFR signoff today — I'd be happy with a quick IFR / IMC flight out to Stockton (KSCK, one of my favourite Central Valley IFR practice destinations) and a couple of approaches — whatever we do will be a good lesson, and I'm resigned to completing the G1000 IFR sign-off sometime later. After all, I already have the VFR version. This sounds like a plan, and we wander out to the apron. John does some of the pre-flight while I file for Stockton (OAK V244 ECA direct, the same whether you depart Oakland or Hayward, a very familiar route).
Once on board we follow the startup checklist and get things started — and, once again, this is a lot more work than with a conventional set of instruments. I know this is probably obvious to most people, but the G1000 is a complex system, not just a disparate collection of mechanical instruments, and unless you start thinking of it as an integrated system, and interacting with it accordingly, it'll never make sense. This time round the workload's somewhat easier, and if you concentrate on the PFD (primary flight display) and the engine gauges on the MFD (multi-function display), ignoring all the extras on the MFD (the maps, the terrain options, the XM radio, the checklists, etc.), it's all fairly comprehensible, if a little complex the first few times. When we're ready to taxi, I call Hayward Deliverance, who gives me a distracted sort of "that's nice, dear" response and tells me to contact Ground without giving me a clearance. We taxi off to the runup area, finally getting the clearance (the usual "runway heading; passing through 400' left turn heading 160; radar vectors for OAK VOR; V244 ECA direct", of which only "left turn 160" and "ECA direct" are likely to be given by NorCal once you're in the air… ) as we get to the runup. Programming a clearance into the G1000 is pretty much identical to the GPS 530 procedure, and nothing about it is surprising or difficult (just tricky at times). We spend a few minutes in the runup area going over the various ways to superimpose the three different NAV sources on the HSI, which for someone raised on separate OBS's (etc), is just magic (this magic turns out to be a significant part of the flight a little later).
I call tower from the runup area, expecting to be told we'll be waiting fifteen minutes for release, but we're told to position and hold on 28L, then almost immediately cleared for takeoff. The departure is pretty standard and I hand-fly until we get into the clouds and NorCal starts giving me the usual vectors and altitude assignments on the Hayward Runaround. Time to let George do the the work. George stays engaged pretty much the rest of the flight until the last few hundred feet at Stockton (with exceptions noted below), which suits me just fine: I like being able to use it as a command instrument, dialing in a new altitude or heading. The only criticism I'd have of the G1000 / KAP 140 combination in this setup is the total lack of altitude coupling between the two (except for the ILS glideslope coupling), which seems a real missed opportunity — it'd be nice to just dial in a new altitude and vertical speed on the G1000 when coupled and have the KAP 140 respond accordingly. Not a big deal, just one of those minor irritations (as someone who spent most of his instrument training in aircraft without GPS, let alone a glass cockpit or an autopilot, I guess I still feel astonished that I have access to any of this technology at all, let alone the ability to complain about some its imperfections…).
We enter IMC about 1000 feet and spend most of the rest of the flight out to Stockton in and out of IMC. The flight out is routine except for two things: at some point after a bunch of vectors we're given a clearance direct to Manteca VOR (ECA) and we set the GPS and autopilot accordingly, but after a few minutes it's obvious the autopilot's developing a mind of its own, and we're increasingly off course. In a classic case of getting distracted by the unimportant, I start trying to debug what the hell went wrong, rather than just turning George off and starting again with a suitable (manual) heading, and using the autopilot in heading mode doing the various corrections with the heading bug until we're back on course and I can set it up properly again. D'Oh! It's the whole (Dis)Grace Under Pressure thing all over again, but with more sophisticated equipment this time. A very useful lesson, needed several more times today as George doesn't always do what I think it will (usually because I don't get the right key sequence). The good news is that (so far) I'm always noticing the problems; the bad news is I try to debug them in real time instead of reverting to something more basic then setting things up again at my leisure.
The only other bit of real interest on the way out was the DME arc John made me do to the final course for the VOR 29R approach into Stockton (in and out of IMC). He'd explained what he'd be asking me to do when we were still in the runup area, so it wasn't a surprise, and NorCal was OK with the request. The surprise was just how much easier it turns out to be to do a DME arc with the RMI-like superimposed display using the HSI with the NAV1 pointer pointing to ECA VOR over the left wing. Sweet! And really a lot more intuitive and easy to visualise than the old OBS-twisting / DME-watching method. I don't think I was more than .2 NM off on the whole arc, a much better result than the last time I did one for real. The following VOR approach is pretty standard, breaking out at about 800 feet (I think), with a quick touch and go and return to NorCal approach on the missed.
We're getting late, so I ask NorCal for a pop-up clearance back to Hayward, which comes a minute or so later, and we head back to Hayward, this time mostly above the clouds for the enroute segments. I get to spend some time playing with the MFD and learning a bit more about how to use it effectively beyond the usual engine instruments and moving map pages (the default versions of which are useful enough in themselves anyway). The LOC/DME 28L approach back into Hayward is routine, breaking out fairly high, and in fact by the time we land the sun's shining over most of the Bay north of about Hayward. We land roughly, really quite badly — last week's landing practice doesn't seem to have had as good an effect as I'd hoped…. Hmmm.
* * *
Once again, a really enjoyable and worthwhile lesson, despite and because of my screwups. No, I still don't have the G1000 IFR signoff, but it's all coming together well, and the next time I fly with John we basically don't have to run through much more than a decent circling approach and a few holds. Cool! And, once again, I find myself actually enjoying even the bits I flew terribly — always a good sign that you're learning. And I learned a lot today, especially about keeping cool under pressure and learning to fall back to something simpler without letting things get out of hand. Yes, I already knew a lot of this, but it's something that needs to be hammered home in a realistic environment (e.g. IMC in a new plane and using new instruments) to be really effective.
John calls and asks if it's OK to bring another of his students, Andy K. (whom I've met before a couple of times at the Other Club) as a back-seat observer. Fine by me, and John and Andy turn up as I'm finally getting ready to pre-flight. Andy's wearing shorts, which initially horrifies me — it's California-cold and grey outside — but then I think "Well, he's from Russia..." and it all makes more sense. It is, after all, somewhere above 12C outside already, despite the winter grey.
And so for the first complication: when you fly a 172 with just two people, as long as neither of them are especially overweight and you don't have a lot of luggage, you pretty much can't bust gross weight or centre-of-gravity limits even with full fuel loads, and you basically don't spend too much time obsessing over weight and balance issues. But there are three of us this time, and although none of us is particularly large — I'm 180 cm tall and under the average weight for the FAA standard person (who apparently weighs 170lbs in Nineteenth Century measurements), and John and Andy are both taller than me and similarly proportioned — we have to do a weight and balance check. After going through the agony of trying to remember how to do one without a spreadsheet, it confirms what I suspect: we'd be 100lbs over gross and close to the aft CG limit with Andy along and with full fuel. We could dump fuel, but it seems easier to dump Andy instead :-). So we're left pondering the poor lifting capacity of the 172SP with full 56 gallon tanks — back at the Other Club we kept 2SP (the 172SP there) fueled up to the collars instead of fully-fueled for exactly this reason, as that at least allowed three full-size adults and baggage to depart legally. It seems pathetic that you can't get such a relatively-powerful plane off the ground (legally, at any rate) in such circumstance, but there it is. Something else to ponder if I want to drag this plane back to Santa Monica or up to Portland some day — get the previous pilot to refuel only up to the tabs. I'm not sure what the hell I'd do if I turned up one morning with passengers and discovered I had to drain 20 gallons of fuel to make gross….
After all this we're already late and I'm feeling even more under-prepared, and since it's likely to be IMC for a large part of our flight to and from Stockton (at least I've had the wit to get a decent DUATS briefing for the flight), I tell John we shouldn't bust a gut trying to do the G1000 IFR signoff today — I'd be happy with a quick IFR / IMC flight out to Stockton (KSCK, one of my favourite Central Valley IFR practice destinations) and a couple of approaches — whatever we do will be a good lesson, and I'm resigned to completing the G1000 IFR sign-off sometime later. After all, I already have the VFR version. This sounds like a plan, and we wander out to the apron. John does some of the pre-flight while I file for Stockton (OAK V244 ECA direct, the same whether you depart Oakland or Hayward, a very familiar route).
Once on board we follow the startup checklist and get things started — and, once again, this is a lot more work than with a conventional set of instruments. I know this is probably obvious to most people, but the G1000 is a complex system, not just a disparate collection of mechanical instruments, and unless you start thinking of it as an integrated system, and interacting with it accordingly, it'll never make sense. This time round the workload's somewhat easier, and if you concentrate on the PFD (primary flight display) and the engine gauges on the MFD (multi-function display), ignoring all the extras on the MFD (the maps, the terrain options, the XM radio, the checklists, etc.), it's all fairly comprehensible, if a little complex the first few times. When we're ready to taxi, I call Hayward Deliverance, who gives me a distracted sort of "that's nice, dear" response and tells me to contact Ground without giving me a clearance. We taxi off to the runup area, finally getting the clearance (the usual "runway heading; passing through 400' left turn heading 160; radar vectors for OAK VOR; V244 ECA direct", of which only "left turn 160" and "ECA direct" are likely to be given by NorCal once you're in the air… ) as we get to the runup. Programming a clearance into the G1000 is pretty much identical to the GPS 530 procedure, and nothing about it is surprising or difficult (just tricky at times). We spend a few minutes in the runup area going over the various ways to superimpose the three different NAV sources on the HSI, which for someone raised on separate OBS's (etc), is just magic (this magic turns out to be a significant part of the flight a little later).
I call tower from the runup area, expecting to be told we'll be waiting fifteen minutes for release, but we're told to position and hold on 28L, then almost immediately cleared for takeoff. The departure is pretty standard and I hand-fly until we get into the clouds and NorCal starts giving me the usual vectors and altitude assignments on the Hayward Runaround. Time to let George do the the work. George stays engaged pretty much the rest of the flight until the last few hundred feet at Stockton (with exceptions noted below), which suits me just fine: I like being able to use it as a command instrument, dialing in a new altitude or heading. The only criticism I'd have of the G1000 / KAP 140 combination in this setup is the total lack of altitude coupling between the two (except for the ILS glideslope coupling), which seems a real missed opportunity — it'd be nice to just dial in a new altitude and vertical speed on the G1000 when coupled and have the KAP 140 respond accordingly. Not a big deal, just one of those minor irritations (as someone who spent most of his instrument training in aircraft without GPS, let alone a glass cockpit or an autopilot, I guess I still feel astonished that I have access to any of this technology at all, let alone the ability to complain about some its imperfections…).
We enter IMC about 1000 feet and spend most of the rest of the flight out to Stockton in and out of IMC. The flight out is routine except for two things: at some point after a bunch of vectors we're given a clearance direct to Manteca VOR (ECA) and we set the GPS and autopilot accordingly, but after a few minutes it's obvious the autopilot's developing a mind of its own, and we're increasingly off course. In a classic case of getting distracted by the unimportant, I start trying to debug what the hell went wrong, rather than just turning George off and starting again with a suitable (manual) heading, and using the autopilot in heading mode doing the various corrections with the heading bug until we're back on course and I can set it up properly again. D'Oh! It's the whole (Dis)Grace Under Pressure thing all over again, but with more sophisticated equipment this time. A very useful lesson, needed several more times today as George doesn't always do what I think it will (usually because I don't get the right key sequence). The good news is that (so far) I'm always noticing the problems; the bad news is I try to debug them in real time instead of reverting to something more basic then setting things up again at my leisure.
The only other bit of real interest on the way out was the DME arc John made me do to the final course for the VOR 29R approach into Stockton (in and out of IMC). He'd explained what he'd be asking me to do when we were still in the runup area, so it wasn't a surprise, and NorCal was OK with the request. The surprise was just how much easier it turns out to be to do a DME arc with the RMI-like superimposed display using the HSI with the NAV1 pointer pointing to ECA VOR over the left wing. Sweet! And really a lot more intuitive and easy to visualise than the old OBS-twisting / DME-watching method. I don't think I was more than .2 NM off on the whole arc, a much better result than the last time I did one for real. The following VOR approach is pretty standard, breaking out at about 800 feet (I think), with a quick touch and go and return to NorCal approach on the missed.
We're getting late, so I ask NorCal for a pop-up clearance back to Hayward, which comes a minute or so later, and we head back to Hayward, this time mostly above the clouds for the enroute segments. I get to spend some time playing with the MFD and learning a bit more about how to use it effectively beyond the usual engine instruments and moving map pages (the default versions of which are useful enough in themselves anyway). The LOC/DME 28L approach back into Hayward is routine, breaking out fairly high, and in fact by the time we land the sun's shining over most of the Bay north of about Hayward. We land roughly, really quite badly — last week's landing practice doesn't seem to have had as good an effect as I'd hoped…. Hmmm.
* * *
Once again, a really enjoyable and worthwhile lesson, despite and because of my screwups. No, I still don't have the G1000 IFR signoff, but it's all coming together well, and the next time I fly with John we basically don't have to run through much more than a decent circling approach and a few holds. Cool! And, once again, I find myself actually enjoying even the bits I flew terribly — always a good sign that you're learning. And I learned a lot today, especially about keeping cool under pressure and learning to fall back to something simpler without letting things get out of hand. Yes, I already knew a lot of this, but it's something that needs to be hammered home in a realistic environment (e.g. IMC in a new plane and using new instruments) to be really effective.
January 16, 2006
Around and Around...
I used to hate pattern work when I was a raw student — all those variants on the same theme, again and again, with Dave sitting there trying to distract me, with me sitting there trying not to land too long or too short or too hard, with all those other planes in the pattern trying to kill me, and a poor overworked tower controller trying to keep the whole circus afloat (just to mix metaphors)….
Nowadays it all just seems like light relief, and I'm in the pattern at Livermore (KLVK) just going round and round watching the world go by for an hour. It's hypnotic, and I get a lot of fun out of doing endless variations of landings — full flaps, no flaps, short approaches, etc. — on Livermore's little 25L in 8SA (one of our 172SP's). It's such a change from being under the hood or from endlessly following the charts in IMC…
Yes, I should be continuing on with the whole G1000 glass cockpit thing, but a new job (and a short vacation) is making that difficult to schedule (thanks to John for his patience with this…). So I decide to take a couple of hours to try to improve my VFR flying skills, especially my landings. And the first landing is pretty rough, but after an hour in the pattern dodging Livermore's usual busy mix of Citations, Cubs, Cherokees, 172's, and experimentals, my landings seem a lot smoother again, and I depart back to Hayward (KWHD) feeling relaxed and fairly pleased with myself. A good lesson.
* * *
OK, one of my generic pet peeves: wide patterns. I used to do much of my pattern work on Oakland's 27L, where you have to keep things tight to avoid the heavies and such on the neighbouring runway 29. And at most airports around here, there are similar reasons (or terrain or noise abatement procedures) that keep you in close. So when, several times around the pattern today, I end up way inside the plane ahead of me in the pattern, I wonder what they're thinking — they're too far out laterally to return to the airport if their engine fails even abeam the numbers, and they're making downwind legs so long I (once again) contemplate facetiously asking tower if I'm cleared to TRACY or something just to be snarky. Especially since tower has already gently chided the guys ahead of me at least twice for the size of their pattern…. Oh well. All mild rants start sounding the same after a while, no? So I'll shut up now.
Nowadays it all just seems like light relief, and I'm in the pattern at Livermore (KLVK) just going round and round watching the world go by for an hour. It's hypnotic, and I get a lot of fun out of doing endless variations of landings — full flaps, no flaps, short approaches, etc. — on Livermore's little 25L in 8SA (one of our 172SP's). It's such a change from being under the hood or from endlessly following the charts in IMC…
Yes, I should be continuing on with the whole G1000 glass cockpit thing, but a new job (and a short vacation) is making that difficult to schedule (thanks to John for his patience with this…). So I decide to take a couple of hours to try to improve my VFR flying skills, especially my landings. And the first landing is pretty rough, but after an hour in the pattern dodging Livermore's usual busy mix of Citations, Cubs, Cherokees, 172's, and experimentals, my landings seem a lot smoother again, and I depart back to Hayward (KWHD) feeling relaxed and fairly pleased with myself. A good lesson.
* * *
OK, one of my generic pet peeves: wide patterns. I used to do much of my pattern work on Oakland's 27L, where you have to keep things tight to avoid the heavies and such on the neighbouring runway 29. And at most airports around here, there are similar reasons (or terrain or noise abatement procedures) that keep you in close. So when, several times around the pattern today, I end up way inside the plane ahead of me in the pattern, I wonder what they're thinking — they're too far out laterally to return to the airport if their engine fails even abeam the numbers, and they're making downwind legs so long I (once again) contemplate facetiously asking tower if I'm cleared to TRACY or something just to be snarky. Especially since tower has already gently chided the guys ahead of me at least twice for the size of their pattern…. Oh well. All mild rants start sounding the same after a while, no? So I'll shut up now.
December 28, 2005
Chilling
As John mentioned elsewhere, a Cessna 172 recently went down a little south of here, killing all four people onboard in rugged terrain that many of us Bay Area pilots fly over regularly. The NTSB brief makes chilling reading ("The non-instrument rated private pilot and three passengers were fatally injured. The airplane was destroyed. Night instrument meteorological conditions prevailed [...]"); I remember hearing about it on the local news the next day and wondering how anyone would want to have been flying that evening (a dark and stormy night, so to speak), let alone someone intending a VFR cross-country with passengers...
December 16, 2005
Flying Glass (Part 1)
A quick early morning call from John as I'm getting coffee at Javarama, and an hour or two later I'm face to face with the Garmin G1000 in California Airways' glass cockpit C172, N14008, a few weeks earlier than I'd planned. I'm not sure what to expect -- I did my homework a few weeks ago, but with the short notice I can barely remember the various primary function display (PFD) features, let alone some of the crucial system and module failure modes. I tell John we should aim low -- the Cal Airways sign-off requirements for this plane are two hours of flying the G1000 with an instructor plus a written checkout for straight VFR use, and a full instrument proficiency checkout on top of that for IFR use -- so while I know we haven't got time to do the IFR thing today, maybe we can get most of the VFR flying done. I can fill out the four page checkout sheet (with all the usual questions about failure modes, etc., some of it common to the sheet I filled in for the SP's a few months ago) over the next week at my leisure. We'll do the IFR checkout early January, probably.
We go through the checkout sheet in the club, and I feel embarassed that I can't answer even some of the "obvious" questions about the unit and the plane -- luckily, though, these were mostly the sort of questions whose answers you typically wouldn't memorise anyway. But at least the questions about things like how to kill the autopilot, or display reversion, or soft field / short field (etc.) procedures have been burned into my brain one way or another enough that I could answer them (mostly). John shows mercy and lets me take the sheet home for filling out later -- he'll have to sign that off separately.It's a marginal VFR day at best, so I file IFR to VFR on top, something I realise I've never actually done for myself before (which surprises me). DUATS says it's basically clear on top of a broken layer that doesn't extend much above 2,000' locally, so we'll head off towards Mt Diablo and make things up as we go. I do the pre-flight, which is essentially identical to the other SP's, but when we get in and prepare to start the thing, the information overload begins creeping up on me, and I slowly become more aware that this is a system I'm playing with, not just a bunch of disparate instruments. In particular, things like backup battery power, fall-back instrumentation, etc., have to be armed and tested in a certain order before and after engine startup. This is the classic time for an official checklist, so on John's prompting, out it comes. It's a lot more complex than the SP's, let alone something like 4AC, where startup is little more than priming a bit, yelling "clear", and turning the key.... I feel curiously like, erm, a real pilot; I start feeling maybe I should wear a uniform....
I get it all under control eventually, and we taxi off to the runup area with John asking me questions about how I'd do this or that, and giving me a few hints, etc., and somewhere along the line we pick up our clearance, the standard "cleared to San Jose VOR (SJC), runway heading until 400', then left turn to 160, radar vectors to San Jose, report reaching VFR conditions" IFR-to-VFR on top clearance. Nothing too difficult. And programming the G1000 for this -- and later escapades -- turns out to be nothing too difficult, either -- it's basically the same as programming the GPS 530, with all of the pluses and minuses that implies (I share John's frustration at the "enter" key thing). We spend the time waiting for release going over details like how to get the HSI to superimpose bearing to a station, how to set up the cramped little situation window (whatever it's called) next to the HSI, etc., and the different multi-function display (MFD) modes such as traffic, nexrad, XM, etc. This stuff's magic. And the MFD engine data displays are a model of clarity, too, laid out logically and very effectively (for me, anyway).
After the usual long wait for release we're finally cleared for takeoff on 28L. The big test here for me is how well I'll cope with the vertical tape airspeed and altitude displays -- everything else seems at least somewhat familiar, especially the HSI and huge AI (finally, an AI in a C172 that's big enough to use easily and accurately, especially for pitch information!). So we start down the runway, and ... disappointingly for some of you, I'm sure, for the rest of the flight the airspeed and altitude displays (especially the altimeter) turn out to be little or no problem. Yes, I make a few mistakes reading them a few times here and there, and yes, I miss the quick-glance mode of readout available from the analog versions, but really it's just not that hard to adapt. Half way through the flight I catch myself thinking "I'm doing 108 KIAS instead of 110 -- let's just push the throttle forward 30 RPM..." (or whatever) and think, hmmm, this three decimal place readout thing might just be a little spurious... (but it's fun).
So we cancel IFR at about 2,000 feet and spend the rest of the time doing maneuvers, then two times around the ILS RWY 27R into Oakland, both times under the cone of stupidity. Nothing much to report about any of this, except the information overload caused me to miss a few radio calls, to screw up a simple VOR interception, and to fly really pretty badly during some pure VFR segments. Urgh. And it was a good workout for getting on top of the KAP 140 autopilot as well -- most of the time we left it coupled -- and John was full of the usual hints and help. I've tended to use it more in vertical speed mode, dialing in a positive or negative VS to get to the altitude I want, monitoring it myself and getting it to level off by hitting the altitude set button at the right time; John's getting me more comfortable with using the dialed altitude method. Unfortunately, I keep making mistakes with this -- it seems to be way too easy to reset the VS while dialing in the altitude -- which keeps reminding me why I started using the VS method in the first place. I'll get it right every time... eventually.
The first time around the ILS at Oakland we can't get the autopilot to couple to the glideslope, so the next time around we concentrate on getting it right by intercepting it from well below; this time it works. It didn't help that the NorCal controller vectored us straight through the localiser (I saw it about to happen and called him, but he responded -- apologetically -- too late); this is a first for me -- NorCal usually vectors you nicely onto the localiser... several thousand feet too high. One embarassment for me: the first time around the ILS, somewhere outside FITKI (the notional GS intercept point), John casually asks me where the glideslope indicator is. I realise in horror that it's not where I thought it'd be -- on the HSI. He lets me sweat a little then points out the tiny moving green blob next to the altimeter that's obviously (ha!) the GS indicator. I guess it makes sense to have it there, but it's way too small to be easily visible while you're monitoring the HSI on final, and I'm unimpressed by that particular design decision. I'd prefer to have the choice of bars against the HSI as well.
After the second time around the ILS we depart VFR through the murk back to Hayward; I embarass myself further during this leg by some really bad flying -- again, it's easy to blame information overload, but this time it was also caused by having trouble finding the airport through the mist (it's still MVFR) and by my obsessing about the engine instruments. I'll learn....
So now I'm basically checked out and ready to fly VFR with the G1000 (I need to get John to sign off on the paperwork early next week to make it totally legal); I'll be making another flight with John sometime over the next few weeks to get the rest of the IFR checkoff done. This is a lot of fun, I have to admit.
* * *
All in all, a good lesson. Not so much because of the G1000 itself, but because the rough bits of the flight once again rammed home to me just how much you need to guard against the temptation to put aside the actual basics -- keeping the airspeed up, ensuring you're listening to the radio -- to get some minor detail or other figured out or completely correct just because the bloody thing's there in front of you on the PFD or whatever (and thanks to John for his patience with this).
My overall impressions of the G1000 so far? This is a very nice way to fly, even in a 172. Especially in a 172, if you're serious about flying single-pilot IFR. Basic VFR flying with it is -- with caveats about getting used to vertical tape displays and a few other fiddly bits that seem incomprehensibly-designed or laid out -- as easy as with "normal" 172 instruments, and for the limited amount of IFR flying I did under the hood, the displays and the way everything's nicely integrated becomes very addictive after a while. Yes, as always, your mileage may vary depending on how much you like integrated computer displays (I'm a nerd, so they seem utterly natural to me...), but, if nothing else, the various redundancies and fallbacks -- including the steam gauges of last resort under the main displays -- strike me as just an order of magnitude more reliable (in every way) than something like the conventional instruments in, say, 4AC. If you're looking for a detailed critique of flying with a G1000, or second thoughts on the wisdom of digital flying in a GA context, you're reading the wrong guy, unfortunately. I liked it immensely, I'm enthusiastic -- the only downsides have to be the extra costs and the training.
But it's obviously not for everyone -- and I couldn't care less about the G1000 when I'm doing aerobatics or just pottering about the Bay on the Bay Tour -- and I couldn't afford to buy an old M-series 172 with steam gauges, so if I weren't renting the damn thing for not a lot more than a conventionally-instrumented 172SP, I'd probably have a very different view of the cost vs. safety / convenience tradeoffs here....
December 10, 2005
Reading Glass
Well, reading the G1000 manuals wasn't as bad as I'd thought -- what's a few hundred badly-written tech pages to someone who's motivated? -- but, as usual, the proof's in the pudding. I haven't flown for weeks (weather, and a new project at work, mostly), and I sometimes wonder whether I'll even remember how to take off, let alone what this readout or that instrument is telling me in IMC.... I've been in touch with John a couple of times about getting checked out (or even just flying along with him as safety pilot), but there's always some excuse on my part. So it goes. It'll probably be January; the good news (on the grapevine) is that Cal Airways is getting more glass cockpit 172's. Cool!
Anyway, as an old hardware and software engineering nerd, I'm impressed and intrigued by the G1000 system architecture and implementation. For example, it warms my heart that it uses ethernet to join the components together -- the sort of thing I predicted decades ago when ethernet was still done with temperamental inflexible thick co-ax cable and vampire taps (don't ask...), and when 1Mbps was pretty optimistic. I just love this sort of thing -- and the second-guessing and mental reverse engineering I do when reading about hardware and systems architecture like this keeps me occupied when I should be doing real work.
Something I don't love is the likely difficulties I'll have with the vertical tape displays for airspeed and altitude. Almost everything else looks straightforward about the G1000 -- the GPS seems to be a glorified GPS 530, and the rest of it is "obvious", at least while sitting here on the ground -- but, as both John and David Megginson have pointed out (see e.g. David's article here), the transition to this style of presentation can be rough.
As my over-used catchphrase has it, we shall see.
Anyway, as an old hardware and software engineering nerd, I'm impressed and intrigued by the G1000 system architecture and implementation. For example, it warms my heart that it uses ethernet to join the components together -- the sort of thing I predicted decades ago when ethernet was still done with temperamental inflexible thick co-ax cable and vampire taps (don't ask...), and when 1Mbps was pretty optimistic. I just love this sort of thing -- and the second-guessing and mental reverse engineering I do when reading about hardware and systems architecture like this keeps me occupied when I should be doing real work.
Something I don't love is the likely difficulties I'll have with the vertical tape displays for airspeed and altitude. Almost everything else looks straightforward about the G1000 -- the GPS seems to be a glorified GPS 530, and the rest of it is "obvious", at least while sitting here on the ground -- but, as both John and David Megginson have pointed out (see e.g. David's article here), the transition to this style of presentation can be rough.
As my over-used catchphrase has it, we shall see.
November 25, 2005
Going Glass
I've decided to take the plunge and get checked out in California Airways' G1000-equipped 172. Why? Mostly because it's there, of course, but also because I'm curious, and because it seems like a good way to fly IFR -- if I'm serious about those trips to Klamath Falls (KLMT) or Portland (KPDX) or Santa Monica (KSMO, again) or Arcata (KACV, again...) (all of which would be done IFR, most likely with actual IMC at both ends of the trip on most suitable days), the G1000 will certainly make the trips more enjoyable and safer -- as long as I'm on top of the systems. And it's only a few bucks more per hour than the 172s with GPS and autopilots I'm already flying (yes, it's a long slippery slope, but I'll burn that bridge when I get to it, or some such mixed metaphor...).
I'm in no real hurry, and will probably end up doing it with John (who's now associated with Cal Airways as well as the AAC) over the next month or two, but I think it's a good idea to start doing my homework now. Garmin has a G1000 simulator, which I'll probably get (it's dirt cheap, but may not run on my Windows box), and as always, Garmin has the full set of manuals, supporting documentation, etc., for free download on its website.
So I download the manuals. Argh! There's now nearly 30 MB of G1000 PDFs on my Mac -- literally hundreds of pages of stuff to absorb. Yes, most of it's relatively obvious if you're at all familiar with the conceptual architecture of the system and with glass cockpits in general (no problems here), but as I've said elsewhere, there's a big disconnect between mind and menu with these new systems (very little perceived affordance), and in order to feel confident-- and safe -- in using something like this in hard IFR over (say) LA while getting amended clearances from SoCal Approach on the way into Burbank or something, that disconnect's got to be bridged in ways that are burned into my brain (to bring the mixed metaphors full circle). There's something deeply discouraging or intimidating about a life-and-death system whose official quick reference card or cheat sheet is eight full pages long...
So I predict a ton(ne) of dense technical reading in my near future.
I'm in no real hurry, and will probably end up doing it with John (who's now associated with Cal Airways as well as the AAC) over the next month or two, but I think it's a good idea to start doing my homework now. Garmin has a G1000 simulator, which I'll probably get (it's dirt cheap, but may not run on my Windows box), and as always, Garmin has the full set of manuals, supporting documentation, etc., for free download on its website.
So I download the manuals. Argh! There's now nearly 30 MB of G1000 PDFs on my Mac -- literally hundreds of pages of stuff to absorb. Yes, most of it's relatively obvious if you're at all familiar with the conceptual architecture of the system and with glass cockpits in general (no problems here), but as I've said elsewhere, there's a big disconnect between mind and menu with these new systems (very little perceived affordance), and in order to feel confident-- and safe -- in using something like this in hard IFR over (say) LA while getting amended clearances from SoCal Approach on the way into Burbank or something, that disconnect's got to be bridged in ways that are burned into my brain (to bring the mixed metaphors full circle). There's something deeply discouraging or intimidating about a life-and-death system whose official quick reference card or cheat sheet is eight full pages long...
So I predict a ton(ne) of dense technical reading in my near future.
November 18, 2005
Strange Weather...
From the NWS San Francisco and Monterey website's weather discussion pages:
(As John has probably mentioned elsewhere, these discussion pages are often fascinating reading, with some open and revealing thoughts being posted about the various models' failings or successes, and a bit of thinking out aloud by the various meteorologists as they try to come to grips with the weather 'round here. The Weather Underground site — one of my fave general weather sites — contains links to these pages under the various local forecasts as well).
"UPDATED AVIATION: Discussion... the remarkably warm weather continues over the district under a very warm airmass and strong offshore flow. By 1 PM the temperature at the Monterey weather office had soared to 86 degrees making this the warmest day of 2005 here. The previous warmest day was March 11... when the high was 84. Summer is sort of a nebulous concept here on the California coast... it comes and goes without regard for the calendar. As on past days the warmest weather is from Monterey Bay S where 80s are common... 70s prevail farther north. Some inland sites are showing huge diurnal temperature ranges. At Bradley in the southern Salinas valley thursdays high was 89 but the mercury plunged to 32 this morning! It was back up to 86 by 1 PM."Ah, what's a Northern Californian to make of it all?! Severe clear skies, very bumpy rides, and air that feels like the western Mojave's without the pollution — at a time when it's normally grey, overcast, cold(ish), and damp. Luckily, I've got too much work to do to be able to fly...
(As John has probably mentioned elsewhere, these discussion pages are often fascinating reading, with some open and revealing thoughts being posted about the various models' failings or successes, and a bit of thinking out aloud by the various meteorologists as they try to come to grips with the weather 'round here. The Weather Underground site — one of my fave general weather sites — contains links to these pages under the various local forecasts as well).
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