Tightening things up

As the checkride approaches, it’s time to start getting things tight. Tolerances are now lower – 50 feet on altitude, 5 knots on airspeed, 2 degrees on heading. We thought we’d head to Camarillo, then to grab a bite at Santa Monica (SMO). We departed VFR, with the plan being that Kent would give me vectors. No dice. It was practically IFR anyway, so we called up for the approach into Santa Monica. No problem. Vectored back to the Van Nuys VOR, then on to the approach.

It was an interesting one, too. In and out of clouds until we got established on final, and then it was solid IMC down to the MDA. Low visibility made it hard to see the runway until we were a few miles out. I tried to stay ahead, and paid good attention to the altitude, but forgot to get the ATIS coming in. Not good. I’ll be more ahead next time.

After a nice dinner, it was back up to shoot the ILS at Van Nuys. An interesting departure procedure, then somewhat routine flying back. As I got to the outer marker at Van Nuys, I was asked to maintain best forward speed on the approach. OK, then. At 120 the whole way, I had to really concentrate to keep it on the glideslope. It got away from me a bit at the end, but not too bad. More Wednesday, then my cross country Friday!