Today was a fairly short day
and covered IFR procedures. We started
off in the classroom where the instructor made it clear that his purpose was
not to teach us how to fly IFR or say we had to do things a certain way. Rather, the idea was to get us to understand
the “system” a little bit better so we could develop our skills in manipulating
it.
One of the things he
suggested was how to take shortcuts on things like procedure turns. Although I didn’t necessarily agree with
everything he said, he did offer some new insight. For the most part, I plan to continue flying IFR the way I was
taught and will let my own experiences dictate the shortcuts and manipulation
of the system I decide to make use of.
We went through an IFR
flight that we would all be taking in the simulators later in the day. Our flight was from Fullerton (FUL) to El
Monte (EMT). Our clearance was to turn
left direct SLI, V8, V394, POM at 4000 feet, then the NDB approach into El
Monte.
The simulator I used was an
AST300, a multi-engine sit-down type flight training device. I found it to fly pretty much like a PC
simulator except the controls were of course more realistic. The flight was pretty straightforward and
other than a couple of minor altitude busts it went very well. My instructor didn’t really seem like he
wanted to be there, but considering he had been with Ameriflight for all of two
months, he probably would have preferred to be out flying on this beautiful
day.
We finished up at about 1430
and that was it for the day. Bummed a
ride home and spent a few hours with the laptop by the pool getting some work
done. Tomorrow, it is back in the
simulator.
During lunch I had the
opportunity to take some photos of the facility and the aircraft.
This is a Piper Lance (PA32R). Luckily, I won’t have to fly one of these since there are none in
Portland. Don’t need more single-engine
time.
This is a Piper Chieftain (PA31). This is a turbocharged twin and similar to
the Cessna 402 I will be flying when I get back to Portland.
This is a Beech 99 (BE99). It’s a twin turboprop, similar to a King Air. Pilots at PDX generally transition into
these after five or six months.
And of course, I had to take
a picture of the Learjet 35A. This is pretty much a pipe dream. Ameriflight has six of these.
Here is the Ameriflight facility. Whoosh!
