Partially there

After watching Tiger win yet another major (ho hum), I talked Kent into going up before he rushed home to watch the replays. Got to the plane and asked him what we would do today. He said “Let’s try this with a few less instruments” – meaning partial panel simulation. This is where your evil instructor covers up a few select instruments, and laughs where you try to fly the plane.

It turns out that this is not as hard as it sounds. We flew with the AI (Attitude Indicator or artificial horizon) and DG (Directional Gyro or heading indicator) covered for the entire flight. This leaves the electric turn coordinator, compass, and pressure controlled vertical speed indicator to control the plane. This is exactly what you would have if you had a vacuum failure in the clouds. We flew turns using the compass only, which is hard because it leads or lags depending on your heading, and is very unstable overall. It never fails though (unless it leaks out all it’s fluid) which makes it a friend in an emergency. We flew a “no-gyro” ILS back to Van Nuys – this is where ATC just gives you turn instructions (“turn left”, “stop turn”) to vector you to the approach gate. I flew well, and felt very good about my chances of survival if there ever was a failure.