Thursday, September 16, 2010

Instrument training and longest XC yet

After finishing graduate school in Jun I resumed my instrument training (finally).  I did a few flights in a RedBird sim and then did an XC with my instructor recently.  We flew KJYO -> KECG (precision approach) -> KEDE (non-precision approach) -> KJYO (GPS approach).  I was under the hood most of the time and was much more tired than I expected when I got home.
I have a bad habit of not eating or drinking much before flying and I am pretty sure that 5-hours of flying dehydrated me.
On the return to KJYO we were hoping to get the COATT4 STAR which would have been a first for me. Unfortunately, KIAD got busy and had a commercial flight do a missed approach so we got vectored to the west and almost up to MRB before we were sent in.
In general the flight went well but from now on I am not under drinking/eating beforehand.  As usual, every flight is a learning experience one way or another.
I bought an iPad a few months ago and decided to try using it as an EFB for the XC.  I bought ForeFlight and have been very impressed with it.  It gathers and aggregates everything that you need to know for planning, filing and actually flying.   I recommend giving it a try if you have not seen it.  The only issue that I had with the iPad was that I did not have any way to attach it to my kneeboard so I fumbled with it whenever I wanted to use it.  I think I need a yoke holder for it or else some way to secure it to the panel next time.