Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads!

I’ve been getting some great experience lately flying outside the Pensacola area. Last weekend I was part of a group of helicopters that flew to Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi (ostensibly for "instrument navigation training") with intermediate stops at Andalusia and Tuscaloosa, Alabama, as well as Jackson, Mississippi. Biloxi, with its casinos and miles of white beaches, was a great weekend trip. In a stunning reversal to every previous casino visit, I walked away with fifty more cents than I started with. Apparently, the house doesn’t always win!

I also flew to Tallahassee, Florida (flying along the beach to Panama City, then cutting northeast), as well as Montgomery and Mobile, Alabama. These trips make for some long days, but I’m happy to escape the Pensacola area for a short while and get some practical, “real world” experience. And the free food is great too (most airports provide free meals or rental cars when you buy jet fuel from them). I highly recommend the barbecue sandwiches in Tallahassee! Most of my flying has been in the late afternoon/early evening...coincidently my favorite time to fly. That, coupled with the collegial environment assosicated with this type of flight have been a nice break from the more intense instrument flying I had been doing.

In case you’re wondering, the picture above is of one of our low level instrument navigation charts (ironic legal disclaimer: not to be used for aerial navigation). Without delving into any detail, just think of it as a system of highways in the sky, or “Victor Airways.” For example, last night I flew from South Whiting Field to Mobile Downtown along the route highlighted in yellow (you can click on the picture to enlarge it). Leaving Whiting I got radar vectors to join Victor 198 (the black line labeled V198-241) at BAKOS intersection and flew east to Crestview (the compass rose looking thing with the bubble coming off the top left corner labeled Crestview). From there I flew north along Victor 115 (the black line labeled V115) to ROMEK, then west to Monroeville, then south along Victor 454 (labeled V454-552) to Mobile. I hope you enjoyed the crash course in flight planning and instrument navigation!

In any case, that portion of the syllabus is now complete, and I’ll be back in the instrument phase next week. Only five flights stand between me and a standard instrument rating. Needless to say, it’s going to be a crazy week for me. As an added bonus, I’m scheduled to take an eight hour class on night vision goggles Monday morning. How cool is that?

Weekend Update

I apologize for the lack of updates lately, but I’ve been “heads down” in the instrument phase of training for the past several weeks. The good news is that I passed the written exam this morning covering flight planning and regulations. Understandably, there is a significant amount of regulation regarding instrument flight! In any case, I’m heading back to the plane tomorrow to start the actual flying portion of the instrument syllabus. Sure, I’ve been experiencing my own version of Groundhog Day lately, but the end result will be a standard instrument rating that lets me fly in weather down to 200-¼ (200 foot ceiling, ¼ mile visibility).

Last Friday my partner (another student) and I completed about thirty hours of instrument simulator events. The simulators are amazing, by the way…full motion with a visual screen and all kind of other goodies. American taxpayers will be happy to note that the Navy tries to get as much as possible from every simulator event (they run $750 an hour, by the way) by throwing as much at us as they can in the shortest amount of time possible. I imagine the typical instructors thought process goes something like this: So you think you can shoot this approach? Great! Can you shoot it with a failed directional gyro, no hydraulic system, an impending engine failure…and just for fun, how about an engine fire light while on short final? I wonder what this student would do if I gave him a total electrical failure right about now. Hmmm, lets find out!

So not to blow my own horn, but lately I’ve been pretty amazed by my decision making, crew resource management skills, and actual ability to fly the aircraft with degraded systems in a variety of weather conditions. Luckily I learn best through experience, and this is a safe way to experience casualties that are too dangerous or impossible to simulate during actual flight. I’m still proud of my performance during the first event when my aircraft experienced a tail rotor failure while in the clouds. That will get your heart racing! I entered into an autorotation and landed in a field when we broke out of the clouds. Come to think of it, we had a system failure or simulated emergency on every simulator event, and I’m glad we did. I’d rather practice scenarios like this in the sim than in the actual aircraft any day!

You actually fly each simulator event twice: once as the pilot, and then again as the copilot. This is a little different from all previous flight training where the emphasis was on developing a single pilot mentality. Flying a multi-piloted aircraft requires a slight mindset shift, and I found it nice to have someone else to bounce my intentions and thoughts off. I’ve now seen two students grab an aircraft, take off into instrument conditions, experience an emergency along the route of flight, execute proper procedures and use good judgement to land safely. Pretty amazing when you consider my first helicopter flight was three short months ago.

So, long story short: I’m making progress towards Wings of Gold. As painful as it is sometimes, I have to admit the training pipeline works. Flying the TH-57C has allowed me to expand my repertoire to include ILS and NDB approaches in addition to the more familiar TACAN, VOR, GPS, PAR, and ASR approaches available. Good stuff! And in case you’re curious, here are a few photos of the simulators (they look like something out of Star Wars). I do have one tip for any prospective instrument pilots out there: play Guitar Hero! Nothing improves your hand-eye coordination (or wastes three hours) faster!