Lesson #3

Log Book - 12/12 C172 IA24 IOW IA24 2 1.4

With a fresh snow on the ground, my son Nolan and I spent the morning digging snow out around the hangars so that we could open the door. I braved the cold pulling the 172 out of the hangar and preflighting. Since getting my license, I have always been a fair weather pilot and have never ventured out with it being cold or having any snow on the ground. Well, today changed all of that. We discussed our plan in the office and decided that we would do some more VOR intercepts, holding patterns, the IOW VOR-A approach (see the link below) and the missed approach procedure. I took off, donned the Foggles at 500’AGL and flew direct IOW. As the DME counted down, Dale said that we would fly to the VOR and intercept the outbound radial to the Muscatine VOR (DDD) which is about 20 miles from the IOW VOR. During the time while flying, he explained to me the proper procedures for using the second VOR in the plane and thinking ahead and tuning appropriately. After reaching the VOR, I went through the 5 T’s mnemonic (Turn-Twist-Time-Throttle-Talk), and started flying to the DDD VOR. With the needles correctly centered, we flew a few more miles. I was then asked to head back to the IOW VOR and for me to figure out how to get there. I knew it was behind me so I started my standard rate turn to the left and centered the needle using the OBS. I then flew direct to the VOR and started watching the distance start to wind down on the DME. Our next maneuver was to enter the published holding pattern over the IOW VOR. Dale asked me what the proper procedure to enter the hold at the IOW VOR. Given the direction of our flight, I answered correctly that we should enter the hold with the teardrop entry. Once over the VOR, I turned to a heading of 230 and started the timer. After a 1 minute on that heading, it was time for the left hand standard rate turn. We then proceeded back to the VOR and did one more published hold before starting the VOR-A approach. I flew the entire approach down to minimums (in VFR conditions) and then proceeded with the missed approach. The air was so calm while flying above 2500’, you could certainly tell when I was descending to the airport. The missed approach takes you back to the VOR, where I flew the full approach back to IOW. Dale did most of the communications with CID Approach during the procedures so that I could concentrate on my flying and not worry about the radio. At first I had hoped to do it all, but am happy with his decision to handle part of my tasks. We then departed the IOW area and headed back to IA24. With Green Castle in site, Dale had me remove the Foggles and I contacted CID and was switched over to Unicom. After a successful landing, it was time to get back to the office and discuss out flight. Dale said that things went well and if there was one thing that I needed to work on it was my altitude deviations while make turns. It seems that I am always applying back pressure on the yoke when making turns and need to make sure to lighten the pressure. He said everything went well and that he could tell that I was using Flight Sim in a positive way. We discussed what our next lesson would entail, and that we would spend the time doing ILS approaches at KCID. WooHoo, I cannot wait. The bad thing is that we are expecting several days of bad weather over the next week. Hopefully we can sneak a session in between the snow.