Final countdown...

Last months have been a busy blend of performing my job as a night auditor, spending hours and hours in my car towards the airport, flying one mission after the other with the Diamond 40, running my household-business as well as trying to find some time for a power-nap in between ;-). It seems that I will be getting my master-degree in Time Management this year, hehe...!

Yes, time has been flying and... so have I! Many of you may be interested what I have been doing between mean sea level and the highest flightlevel obtained so far (for your information: that was a FL090 on a CAVOK VFR-mission to Baden Baden airport [Germany, Black Forrest] last month). Well, let me explain to you...

Since I obtained my first stripes last April, disregarding a few VFR-timebuilding missions, I have been mainly focussing on IFR-flying since my previous post. It all started with tracking of VOR (VHF omni radial) and non-directional beacons, as well as bearing and radial interceptions on these beacons... of utmost importance as correct tracking and intercepting, in combination with good airmanship when it comes to pitch & power control, can with no doubt be called a keystone to succesfull instrument flying. But yet it happens that an airplane is not in correct configuration to start an approach (too high, not within the 30° offset limit from the initial approach fix [point where the feeder route ends and the approach procedure becomes effective], too high mass for landing, ...) or that the aerodrome is not yet ready to receive it (traffic congestion, CB overhead, ...). In such cases there is the option to fly a pattern in the air while the time passes by, time which is needed to configure the aircraft for an approach or time for the CB to pass by or time for the congestion to fade away or ...
There are 2 patterns to be distinguished... they have about the same appearance but are slightly different: at first there is the so called "holding [pattern]". That one is to be found regularly at or near the initial approach fix and allows the aircraft to reposition to fly the correct outbound radial or bearing from the initial approach fix as well as it serves as a holding (stack) where aircraft keep on circling untill they are cleared for their approach or their EAT (estimated approach time) is reached. Apart from this one will also find en-route holdings on airways, some exist for instance at the North-Atlantic crossings to admit aircraft on their destinated NAT track at a pre-determined time. The second pattern is named the "racetrack" and is intended to allow time and space to reconfigure into the approach setting. Where flying a holding pattern takes 4 minutes, a racetrack lasts longer due the extra time to be taken on the outbound course. But it happens that for instrument approaches one must fly a racetrack to intercept a glide slope or to be able to descend at a "human" rate ;-). This is the case in Calais for example where the procedure for the ILS on runway 24 entry happens via the holding but the procedure itself is flown via the racetrack.

At Ostend Air College a practice chapter of 19 missions with an average mission time of 2hrs aids you to turn all this theory into practice. It all takes a good start in the FNPTII DA42 simulator and soon the student finds itself behind the stick for the real stuff in the real airspace, mainly EBOS CTR & TMA.

After the 20th mission, which is a progress check, I found myself back in the simulator to fly full procedure standard intrument departures, standard arrivals and full procedure approaches on EBAW, EBOS, EBCI, EBFN, LFQQ, LFAC, EBBR... a whole bunch of airports, you see. During these missions I learned how correct time management and application of the next-step-methodology (think ahead aloud in other words) turns what seems to be a complicated approach into a tasty bite. Now that I manage (or should so) to correctly read and perform approach plates, got skilled into preparing and giving approach briefings all those tasty bits & pieces get together into IFR-missions from one aerodrome to another across or within Belgian borders.

Still ahead are a few multi engine sessions on the Diamond 42, line operational flight training in the DA42 simulator and final step: the multi crew conversion course next month. Well, final step... actually ánd hopefully it is just the beginning of a challenging and attractive career, that is what I aimed for at the start almost 3 years ago from now. Fingers crossed!