In A Holding Pattern

G'Day, friends and followers! Hope you are all finding success in your individual dreams. As I posted earlier (and often!), my Instrument Rating Checkride was scheduled for yesterday, March 11th. Leading up to yesterday, the weather looked promising. The forecast called for sun, and calm skies. However, in the 24 hrs leading up to my impending test, things turned south. Each hour passed, and I checked the TAFs (Terminal Area Forecasts) for KROC only to find foretellings of low-clouds and rain. Furthermore, icing became a possible issue.

Regardless of the forecast, I kept in touch with the DPE (Designated Pilot Examiner) Ken Lindsay. We both noted that the forecast estimated clearing conditions by the afternoon, so we pushed the time of the oral test back an hour in hopes to emerge from the testing room to clear skies. I arrived at the airport a couple hours early, to do my flight planning. The skies looked awful, and not much improved by the time Ken arrived. We headed in to do the oral portion of the exam, agreeing to discontinue the checkride if conditions did not improve by afternoon.

Well, conditions did not improve! That is, until 1-2 hours before dark. The oral exam went well, overall, with a few trips ups on my end. I aim to improve on these for the next time Ken and I meet (soon!) I will be ready for the flight portion, and prove my worth on the few oral topics I flubbed as well. :-) The whole situation brings me back to a quote that I live by, courtesy of my friend Doug Rozendaal. "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!" Soon enough, I'll get this thing done.

In the meantime, this weekend has been, and will continue to be, filled with flying and aviation. For starters, today I "flew" in my flight sim (FSX.) I wanted to brush-up on my DME-arc procedure. So, I flew the VOR/DME instrument approach for RWY 4, @ KROC.

Until I get my Piper L-4, Yak-3UA, and P-51B, THIS is my airplane!

Looking at the VOR/DME RWY 4 approach, you can see the "Arc" I was talking about. Basically, here, we have to fly at a distance of 10.8 miles from the KROC VOR, all along the arc. This will, in turn, put us on course for the final approach to RWY 4. For a more detailed explanation of DME Arcs, check out this nifty YouTube vid...

KROC VOR/DME RWY 4 Approach Procedure

1.) Took-off RWY 10, intercepted and track ROC VOR Radial-096 to 10.8 DME

2.) ~1 NM before 10.8 DME, began turn to 90 Degrees right to intercept DME Arc

3.) "Twist Ten, Turn Ten" - As VOR needle deflects, I turn 10 degrees to right and re-center CDI on VOR. As you can see, my Arc was more of a "Squiggle." I had to adjust a few times to maintain a distance of 10.8 NM from the DME

4.) Turn inbound once GEE VOR Radial-343 starts to "swing in" to center of CDI on VOR

5.) Minimums of 1,200' MSL and 4,000' Visibility are met = Full-Stop Landing @ KROC RWY 4.

So, once again, there you have it! I was a little off on the Arc, but managed to make the corrections necessary to get back on track, and maintain the 10.8 DME. 

My Saturday was not done, in terms of aviation, after this. I met my good friend Bobby at our museum (National Warplane Museum) in the afternoon. Bobby and I met in college, at St. John Fisher. We took a few museum studies/history courses together. He is a great, cool dude. Turns out, his Uncle (Frank Giardino) was a belly-turret gunner on B-17s during WWII. Once he heard about our museum acquiring a B-17, he wanted to come and check it out. I am glad that we were able to make it happen!

Until next time, "Keep 'Em Flying," and "Never, Never, Never Give Up."