Date:    Sunday, July 7, 2002, 1:32:03 AM
Subject: New IFR pilot!

Howdy all,

It was not pretty, but it was "within acceptable tolerances", so .. I passed
my IFR checkride today!

We did four approaches: a VOR/DME with a missed approach to a hold, (doing
steep turns on the way), which lead to a co-located procedure turn for an
ILS approach; followed by a partial-panel (no AI, no DG) GPS approach with a
circle-to-land; finally, another ILS -- also with a circle-to-land.

For some reason, even though I had practised these approaches a lot -- both
in recent actual IFR (with a CFI), and on sims, my brain wasn't working very
well today, and I struggled mightily to avoid exceeding tolerances. For
example, with the partial-panel, I had trouble keeping the GPS CDI centered
-- but it never got worse than 50% deflection (3/4 is the maximum
tolerance). And, on one of the circle to land approaches, even though I made
only standard-rate turns and eventually got the plane down to within 50 ft.
of the runway TDZ, it only vaguely resembled any kind of normal landing
pattern (imagine the outline of a lightbulb :^} ).

However, I did manage to do some things well: I managed the GPS panels
perfectly (and even taught the DE a trick about the Garmins); I made crisp
turns and maintained headings and altitude very well; and I nailed a smooth,
straight landing with a 14 kt cross-wind.

I will now file IFR for *every flight*, even for the short hops around SoCal
("tower enroute" filing makes this easy), and practise approaches as much as
possible.