Coming together!

Once again, there were a few lessons between this and the last one, but there was nothing exciting enough to report. I’ll do that more no doubt, but this is the last time I’ll mention it.

Tonight we went out to do more maneuvering work, and ended up doing holds instead. I’m at the point now where I’m tracking VOR’s accurately, maintaining altitude, and generally flying the plane much better. Coupled with trimming (which I’m working hard to master) this will significantly reduce the workload that is so hard to manage during IFR flights. The holds went fine as well – I need to be more careful about not changing groundspeed during holds (it wreaks havoc on the timing) but I nailed the entry, and eventually got the time right.

Kent took the approach back into Van Nuys, which was a good learning experience for me. Seeing him 1 dot off the localizer 2 miles out was a real eye-opener. He was WAY off course from just 1 dot.