It’s all about the workload

Today was lesson in more ways than one. I’ve been frustrated in the past because I felt like things weren’t moving fast enough. Today I learned that the faster they move, the worse it gets.

We started out doing an intersection hold – something I’d only done on the simulator – and took quite a bit of time to get set up on. Kent gave me a pretty easy hold to start with – a direct entry, holding on the airway on which we were already flying. I made the HUGE mistake of saying “this should be easy”. That’s when my “amended clearance” came along. Now on the crossing airway of the fix, at a different altitude, and left turns instead of right. This irritated me a bit – too much too soon – but I figured it out on the way. I got into the hold OK, and actually flew it just fine.

Then came the real trick. Kent said “57 Echo, we need to reposition you for spacing. Hold north of Kimmo intersection (a different intersection than the one on which I was currently holding) on blah blah blah…” I looked at the chart, and saw Kimmo just south of my current position, but couldn’t for the life of me figure out how I was going to get into the hold. I said “Kent – I have no idea how to do this”. He gave me a hint, and I got in just fine.

What I learned here was that you can’t just throw in the towel whenever things get difficult. In IMC, this is going to happen, and there might not be anyone there to help you figure it out. I need to stay calm, focus on the task at hand (and more importantly the next task, and the next after that) and get the job done. I do this in other aspects of my life – time to apply it to my flying more seriously.

On the way to the LDA-C approach at VNY (the ILS was out of service), we did some unusual attitudes under the hood, which went OK. I haven’t done them since my private checkride, so I was rusty. I recovered OK, but it took me a bit longer than it should have. The approach went fine, and we circled to land on 34. It’s coming together now – I’m feeling confident I can be a proficient instrument pilot.