Day 16

Another good day for instrument flying in the simulator. The next item in the syllabus is 'partial panel' which means flying with some of the flight instruments not working.


For the CPL it is assumed that the instrument air/suction system has failed, knocking out both the Artificial Horizon and the Direction Indicator (the two instruments in the centre of the picture above). The AH gives the pilot pitch and bank attitude information (nose up/down, wings banked/level) and the DI gives heading information more accurately than is possible with a magnetic compass.

So without these two, instrument flying becomes much more tricky. The procedure is to use the remaining instruments to derive pitch attitude and heading information, which is not as easy as it sounds. You need to use the Turn Coordinator (bottom left) to assess bank angle of the wings and make heading changes, and you need to use the Altimeter (top right) along with some reference to airspeed (top left) to work out pitch information.

For example to turn left from 090 (east) to 315 (northwest), you need to use the Turn Coordinator, rolling the wings to the left until the wing lines up with the little mark just above the 'L'. You then start the stopwatch, and hold the wing on that mark. This gives you a 'rate 1' turn to the left, which is 3 degrees per second or 180 degrees in 1 minute. So by returning to 'wings level' after 45 seconds (135 degrees divided by 3 degrees per second gives 45 seconds), you should roll out on your intended heading. Then you wait for 10 seconds or so for the magnetic compass to stabilise and then have a look to see whether it worked.

Surprisingly (at least to me) it works brilliantly. I was able to roll out on heading, to within 5 degrees in most cases, just by using the Turn Coordinator and stopwatch.