Lesson #25

Log Book - 6/2 C172 IA24 KOTM IA24 2 1.8

I arrived a little early today as I was able to sneak out of work early. It was all for not as the plane wasn’t back from an earlier lesson. Oh well, Dale and I were able to work on polishing my knowledge for the oral part of my exam. Once the plane arrived, I went out and topped off the tanks as we had planned our journey to KOTM again. I filed a flight plan as conditions were supposed to be OVC at 4000’, but that didn’t happen and the weather turned out better than forecast. 8^( I had flown the ILS 31 and VOR/DME 13 approaches into KOTM several times, so we thought it would be best to work on flying the LOC/BC 13 and VOR 31. We departed and I picked up my clearance airborne. I was cleared as filed to KOTM direct IOW and as filed at 4000’. This part of the trip was getting boring as I had done it several times in the past few months. I was handed off to CHI CTR and he was once again unable to find me on radar. As we progressed towards Ottumwa he asked what approach I wanted. I responded with LOC/DME BC 13 and then the VOR 31 (Links located below) approaches. He gave me vectors and then asked how far from the FAF I wanted to start the approach. I told him 3 miles, but wished that I would have said farther. The reason is that in order for him to have me on radar I needed to stay at 4000’ as long as I could and that ended up proving to be a problem as I started my published descent. As I started there was no way that I was going to get down in time without hitting about 1200 FPM. I tried my best and was able to get there, but then the plane was ahead of me and that is a situation that asks for trouble. I was a little behind on the LOC and given the altitude that I had to bleed off along with the added distraction I also forgot that the BC gives a backwards indication. After realizing my errors, I finally corrected and was only 1 dot off the LOC at MDA. I flew the missed, which was direct to the OTM VOR and called CHI CTR. I told him that I wanted to fly to the VOR, enter the hold and then fly the VOR 31 approach. He gave me the instructions and it was then that I finally was able to collect my thoughts after the previous approach. Once I arrived at the VOR, I executed a teardrop entry into the hold and finished the racetrack, only to be lined up for the next approach. This was good practice as I am pretty sure my flight exam will be similar in the fact that it will go from one right into the other. Once I was at the FAF, I started my descent down to the runway. Without the distractions of the high approach, things went much better on this approach and once at MDA, I pulled off the Foggles and did a touch and go (need those x/c hours). After climbing out to pattern altitude I called CHI CTR to get my clearance back to IA24. I had originally filed IOW CID but once I started receiving the CID VOR I asked for clearance direct CID. I filed for 5000’ hoping that I would get into the clouds on the trip back. There were some scattered cumulus clouds with bases around 4500’ that I passed through, but that was it. As we approached IA24, I cancelled my IFR plan and then switched to UNICOM for an uneventful landing.


http://flightaware.com/resources/airport/OTM/IAP/VOR+RWY+31/pdf
http://flightaware.com/resources/airport/OTM/IAP/LOC_DME+BC+RWY+13/pdf