Proficient Pilot: Getting rid of the rust

Following retirement, however, those IFR skills began a long, downhill slide. What I found most interesting was that this erosion was so slow and inexorable that I didn’t fully appreciate how rusty I had become even though I had been maintaining legal instrument currency. After all, I was having no trouble making instrument departures through coastal stratus layers or shooting approaches to conditions well above minimums. These are the typical IFR operations required of those who live in Southern California.

During a recent flight under the hood, an instructor/friend took it upon himself to increase my workload and test my limits. The results were embarrassing, and I was compelled to acknowledge that I needed to remove some serious rust.

A good friend, Michael Phillips, owns and operates the Aviation Instruction Simulator Training Center at Camarillo Airport, my home base. He had been inviting me for what seemed like forever to try out his Redbird simulator, an FAA-approved advanced aviation training device (AATD) configured to emulate a Cessna 182 or a Beechcraft Bonanza, take your pick. I never accepted his offer because, you know, I was a product of multimillion-dollar Level D simulators with six degrees of motion. These simulators are so sophisticated that a pilot can obtain a type rating in such a “box” without ever having been in the actual airplane it represents. I hate to admit it, but aviation training devices seemed, well, beneath me. I was too good for them.

Nevertheless, I needed some instrument instruction in a hurry, and the convenience of Phillips’ AATD was difficult to resist. Such instruction, I thought, would also cost much less than in a rented airplane. So what the heck. I decided to give it a shot.

My first hour was one of frustration. At first I blamed my sloppiness on the sensitivity of the flight controls, especially in pitch. But that wasn’t my problem. It seemed as though I had left my instrument scan in the trunk of my car. The slightest distraction—such as changing a frequency—resulted in excessive altitude and heading excursions. I was sloppy.

My second hour was better, primarily because I stopped fighting myself and accepted the fact that I needed to concentrate more. I began to settle down and relax, but as soon as I did, Phillips threw an approach plate in my lap. There would be no lollygagging, and in the period of an hour we did more work than could have been accomplished in twice as much time in an airplane.

A great advantage of the Redbird simulator as compared to a real airplane is that the instructor can fail any of several instruments without warning to the student. Recognizing and coping with such insidious failures can be challenging. My first appreciation of this was when Phillips failed the HSI without notice as I rolled onto final during a back-course localizer approach. This was truly confusing, but I was able to save the day by concentrating on the indications of other relevant instruments. The secret, I was learning, was to accept the Redbird as an airplane. Problem recognition and solving then became more realistic. This, I was beginning to understand, was not the “toy” that I had expected it to be. This was a truly effective training device.

I began to understand why the FAA allows using an AATD to remain or become current. It can even be used after your currency has expired by more than six months to obtain an instrument proficiency check, except that the circling approach and unusual attitudes portions of an IPC must be demonstrated in a real airplane.

The AATD is programmed to allow practicing almost every instrument approach in the United States and has an effective wraparound visual system. During my most recent session in the box, Phillips handed me the chart for the VOR/DME approach to Runway 15 at Martin State Airport in Baltimore, Maryland. Now this was a challenge. You intercept and fly 86 degrees of a 14.7-mile DME arc (including stepdown fixes) to the missed approach point. If a miss is required, you turn toward the VOR and intercept another arc. It keeps you busy.

The instrument panel I have been using consists of steam gauges, but I soon will be flying the same AATD configured with a Garmin G1000 glass cockpit. This is getting to be fun.

Web: www.barryschiff.com