Lesson #13

Log Book - 3/18 DA40 KCID 3 1.0

I wanted to finish my dual checkout in the DA40 and had been fighting bad weather the past few days. After having to cancel due to fog yesterday morning again, I decided to sneak away from work over my lunch hour. I made arrangements with Jim to meet him at the airport at 12:00. I arrived about 11:45, pulled the airplane from the hangar and preflighted it waiting for Jim to arrive. After Jim arrived we discussed our strategy for the day and decided that we would get as many approaches in during the hour that we had decided upon. GND was contacted with our intentions and we received our squawk code and taxi instructions. Runup was completed and we were ready to go. A Northwest CRJ was on a 3 mile final so we were told to expedite our departure or we would be waiting until they landed before we would be able to take off. We took off and I put on the Foggles. We were given vectors for the ILS27 (Link located below) approach. Things went very good this time. I was still a little off keeping my altitude at 2700’ while being vectored, but that will come as I gain more experience with the trim and power settings on the DA40. The first ILS went very good as I kept the needles within 1 dot on each side of center. I looked up at 1100’ and was very happy with where I was and could easily land from there. We then climbed out on RWY HDG per TWR instructions and waited for our call to contact DEP. I wanted to hand fly the GPS 27 (Link located below) approach this time so I entered the approach into the Garmin 530 and was vectored to CIBNO (IAF) and was directed to call when inbound from CIBNO. This was only my second GPS approach with the DA40, so I found out that there are still many things left to learn. The one thing that I was doing wrong was turning to the next waypoint before I was supposed to. The Garmin 530 would warn you of your upcoming turn, and I made the mistake of turning then rather than waiting for the actual “turn to HDG xxx” instruction. Obviously, that wouldn’t happen if I had been using the auto pilot to fly this approach rather than hand flying it. This approach went well and it’s really nice to be able to look at the screen of the 530 to track your progress. Another neat thing is that the HSI needle works similar to if you were flying to a VOR or ILS meaning that you need to correct towards the deviation indicated by the CDI needle. After the missed I decided that I was going to use the AP to fly the final ILS27 approach of the day. I punched in the ILS27 approach into the 530 and set the altitude on the KAP140. I then used the HDG functionality of the AP when given vectors for the approach. My altitude on this approach was near perfect (I wonder why) and as I was given vectors to intercept the LOC, I selected APP on the autopilot. This armed the APP and as the LOC needle started to move, APP took over. As we reached WAVUM (the FAF) the AP took over our pitch command as well. The only thing that I had to do was run the timer and make sure that I stayed at 90 knots. As we reached DH, I clicked the autopilot disconnect on the stick and configured the plane for landing. This might just be me, but with the funky gusty cross wind that we had today, I felt that I had better control of the HDG on my approach than the AP did. We landed and I received taxi instructions back to the hangar. Jim commented that the altitude issue that I had on the first approach was much better and getting more comfortable with the plane will really help with that. He signed me off as being competent to fly the DA40 solo. Not only did I get that, I was able to get some hood time in as well. It was a great flight and I look forward to many more.

http://flightaware.com/resources/airport/CID/IAP/ILS+OR+LOC+RWY+27/pdf
http://flightaware.com/resources/airport/CID/IAP/RNAV+%28GPS%29+RWY+27/pdf