Charts, Charts, Charts

Oh, man. AirCharts has sent me a renewal reminder. I ordered their VFR East book at the beginning of the cycle last year, and overall I guess I’m happy with it. Some of the pages are printed too dark—they need a better color management process. But overall, I’ve liked it. I didn’t get as much use of it as I expected since I flew less than I expected. It would have been cheaper for me to simply purchase sectionals whenever I needed them.

Except that I don’t always know when I’ll need them. On a Thursday night I’ll look at the weekend’s weather and ask Amy if she wants to go flying on Saturday. Except… it’s been a while since I last flew, so my sectionals are all out of date and it can be a crap shoot whether Midway Aviators (or even other area FBOs) will have non-Chicago sectionals when I show up to go flying. Sometimes I rent the plane before business hours in the morning—no chance of picking up any sectionals then. So AirChart provides me an easy way to stay current, legal, and never needing a sectional. And it lets me scan around all over the eastern U.S. for destinations and routes. Of course, Sky Vector and Runway Finder let me do the same thing, but there is something about the tactile sensation of paper…

Still, I’ve almost always purchased sectionals in addition to having the AirChart. Maybe it’s because I’m a new pilot and new to AirChart—I don’t trust AirChart completely somehow. What if I missed one of the changes when I went over the last update, or there is some other breakdown in the system? Better to have a current sectional on hand in case I need it.

And then there is my AeroPlanner subscription. I plan every trip on AeroPlanner and print PDF TripTicks that I bring along during the flight. (I have a color laser printer, so printing 60 page TripTicks is fast and cheap—it wouldn’t be a tolerable solution for InkJet owners.) The TripTick contains all the charts (TACs, Sectionals, WACs, and Low-Altitude IFR) with a nice overlay of the planned route on each. It also includes extensive airport information about all airports included in the flight plan and six alternates. Radar, METARS and TAFs for area airports along the route, NOTAMs along the route. Really, if the AeroPlanner printouts made me VFR legal (and, eventually, IFR legal), I’d be a happy camper and pass on NACO’s charts and AirChart.

All of this comes up because I’m contemplating my IFR charting solution. Jepp: expensive, a total pain to keep updated in paper form, but the best charts out there. Whether they are so much better than NACO charts to warrant the cost and headache is open to debate. Airchart is an interesting twist on the NACO charts for updates. Hmph. Why oh why doesn’t someone have a really good EFB yet? (And “good” strongly includes not being based on Windows Tablet Edition. Ew.)

Instrument Lesson #3: Doesn't Really Count

On Thursday night I opened LogTen Pro to review my night currency for Saturday’s flight to St. Louis. I needed two night take-offs and landings to be night current! I scheduled a lesson with Alex to take 9DS over to GYY to fuel it up, get my landings, and spend any available time under the hood. We did all of those things in an unremarkable and very short trip.

One item of note, GYY tower was very cool and demoed their light gun to us even though it was low on charge and getting a new part to make it all better on Monday. At first the tower controller declined because of the low charge, but I think my “thanks anyway” made him feel bad so when we taxied for take-off he demoed them. I was shocked how clearly they could be seen. No problems spotting those! Thanks, Gary!

Another 1.5 in the log book, of which all was night and 0.9 was simulated instrument.

2006 Stats

I own and use LogTen Pro as my electronic flight log book. I was inspired to start using an electronic flight book when I had the nightmarish experience of not being able to find my logbook in late 2006. I did eventually find it, but in the team time I was freaking out that I’d lost very important records! Midway Aviators had a copy of all my pages up to my FAA check ride, so all would not have been lost, but I really woke up to the fact that I needed a backup of my log book.

I spent a lot of time with the offerings for the Mac and LogTen Pro is, by far, the best software available. It took me most of a day to transfer all of my information from my Jepp Pilot Logbook into LogTen Pro. Once it was in, though, I found out all kinds of useful information. For example, I hadn’t properly added columns together on some pages, or carried number forward to the next page properly on other pages. It took me most of another day to verify that I had entered the information into LogTen Pro correctly and that I had made numerous math errors and clerical errors in my paper log book.

Using the program makes easy work of keep track of my day and night currencies, and my medical. It also automatically calculates the distances between airports, so it’s easy for me to track my XC solo time toward IFR. All in all, I wholeheartedly recommend LogTen Pro.

Anyway, I made a quick smart group to sum up my 2006 flight statistics:

Total Time:    85.0
Distance (airport to airport direct): 3,303.76 nm
Day T/O:    164
Day LDG:    160
Night T/O:    11
Night LDG:    12
Night:    5.2
Sim Inst:    3.3
Simulator:    1.4
XC:    25.6
Dual:    62.0
Solo:    23.0
PIC:    28.1

Weather Grounds Me

Weather grounded me all three days this long weekend. I had to cancel my two instrument training flights on Saturday and Sunday, and my $100 hamburger flight on Monday. I spent a lot of that time watching the King DVDs for the instrument written exam. I’ve made it through three of the DVDs so far. I’ve learned a lot from them about the instrument charts, but it’s all very mind numbing after a bit.

I haven’t flown much in my simulator—other projects have required my attention. Same with morse code. I’ll be refocusing on those items this week.

Instrument Lesson #2: Scan and ILS

Earlier today I flew on my second instrument lesson. Alex was unavailable at the last minute, so Pete (different Pete than during my private training) joined me for the flight. After some initial turns, climbs, and descents under the hood, he thought I was doing well enough to start throwing more my way. He set me up for a hold at the Chicago Heights VOR (CGT), which I executed pretty well for my first time out—but I can see that I’ll need lots of practice with these to get to PTS. The stiff crosswind was a factor.

Then we shot the ILS 30 approach at Gary (GYY). I didn’t have an Indiana approach book on me, so Pete gave me the vectors, altitudes and nav frequencies. Gary’s tower can’t approve instrument approaches, but the controllers have told Midway Aviators to simply request a “long, straight-in VFR approach” and they’ll know what we’re doing. I narrowly avoided full deflection down on the indicator. I was high and a little to the right when I got to 1,300 ft and Pete had me look up at the field. I had to spend a few seconds looking around for the runway since it wasn’t directly ahead of me. I can tell that the transition from instruments to visual approach will be a skill on which I’ll need to spend some time.

We landed, topped off our tanks, and Pete had me perform a 0/0 take-off. Whee! That’s fun! I was straying a little to the right of the center line so Pete had to make one correction for me, but I can see that’s it’s not going to be too hard—just a matter of practice.

Instrument Lesson #1: Under the Hood

I had my first instrument lesson on Friday night. 1ZM remains down for G1000 fixes and its annual, so I flew 9DS. Not a lot to report—straight and level, turns, climbs, descents, turning climbs, turning descents. I did well, even when Alex started making me handle dialing the radios. My next lesson will be more of the same, with the addition of map reading, VOR tuning, intercept planning, and the like to distract me and start developing my positional awareness.

I’ve been using X-Plane to practice my instrument skills in the evenings. I’ve been concentrating on random instrument failures so that my scan doesn’t grow too reliant on any particular instruments. It also makes me diagnose and handle instrument failures. Of course, I’m flying a Cessna with steam gauges in X-Plane, so the system failures are traditional rather than the kind I’m likely to experience with a G1000.

I have the G1000 simulator from Garmin, but I can’t run it under VMware or Parallels on my Mac mini, so I’m trying Boot Camp later tonight. In the mean time, I’m making steady progress through the G1000 book and software. The software is just an abridged narration of the book, but well done. (Those of you who are Web developers may be interested to learn that the software appears to be written in Adobe Flex.) If computer- or Web-based training is more your speed than reading, I recommend the software.

In other news, I’m learning Morse Code to make VOR identification easier—and because I’ve always wanted to learn it. I picked up a program (PC only, unfortunately) that uses the Koch training method. I’m training at 25 words per minute and only have 3 letters so far. Fun, fun.

On top of all of that, I’m reading the Jepp and Machado books. So far, I’m shocked to say that I find the Jepp book much better. Also, on your advice, I picked up the King DVDs and will work my way through those some time “soon”.