My instructor had some more time on Friday afternoon, so we booked the simulator, did the preparatory work for instrument flight and for unusual attitudes. I went home to study, eat, and do some domestic duties, then came back to the Club in the mid-afternoon.
Back to the Club at 3pm, and we did some instrument flying. It is a bit weird to be flying a dashboard with no tactile input (ears, balance, noise, or seat of the pants).
But the "flying" went reasonably well. We started with the tach and Attitude Indicator only, did some flying around, then added additional members of the six-pack to build up the scan.
Then I crashed. Turns out I had runaway trim because the trim rocker switch on the yoke had a 100% contact to set the trim nose-down. In a real airplane you could still fly but there would be significant muscular force involved. In the Sim the nose just kept going down, no matter what I did with the yoke. We turned off the electricity (which cost me the Turn Coordinator, and impacted the objectives of the lesson), but it killed the electric trim. The instructor set the trim to more-or-less the middle using the mouse and gave me control. More throttle nose-up, less throttle nose-down, so by changing power 100rpm at a time I could get back into straight&level trimmed flight, which was a good enough starting point for all the manoeuvres I was doing.
Instrument Simulated: 0.6
Landings: 1
Done well:
- The scanning methods taught in the Flight Training Manual work very well.... I followed them in the Sim and had little difficulty.
Needs Improvement:
- Lesson was too short to come to any conclusions here.
I suspect my Flight Simulator days will be of future use, but it is yet to be determined if the FS time will be of practical use beyond the introductory level.
Next Lessons (all are subject to the Wx Gods):
- Next Friday: Cross-country dual
- Next Saturday: Dual instrument time, hopefully some crosswinds
- Next Sunday: Cross-country solo
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