Archief - [PC] Microsoft Flight Simulator

Allow me to retort. Wall of text incoming.

I had a newly minted commercial pilot's license with multi and instrument ratings in my pocket when i got a job flying fire patrol VFR out of New Bern, NC. In a Cessna 150. Without any IFR certified instruments. I had about 275 hours of flight time and an Advanced Ground Instructor papers in my pocket just to make sure i know how to fly. July or August 2010 or 2009. Flying in eastern NC in the summer is like this. Would you like good visibility? OK, but it will come with moderate turbulence all day. Are you tired of the turbulence? No problem, but the visibility will be cut down to 3-5 miles in a haze.

OK, so I had been on the job a few weeks, when some pop up thunderstorms made me land back at New Bern one day. I figured, OK fuel up and check the radar pictures on the ground. There were a few cells here and there but the conservative pilot that I was, I decided to wait a bit.

My boss said I should at least fly to Washington, NC. Just across the river. A skip and a jump. I refused but finally he convinced me by saying that it is a VFR flight after all. See and avoid. Daytime. What can go wrong.

Turns out peer pressure nearly killed me.

So I take off from EWN, runway 22, VFR TO OCW. New Bern tower approves left or right turn, my choice. I choose right and head for the river. I see some scattered clouds at about 1000 feet so I level off at 1500. Not bad. Then I see some more random clouds pass below me. Then The scattered clouds form a broken layer. Still good. I can still see the ground.

Almost there. Then I look up and I see some cumulus clouds at about 4000 feet. Then the broken layer below me closes shut. Damn. I look across the river and I can see Little Washington. Almost there. Then the layer above me fills and begins to turn dark. Damn. Almost there.

Then I hit a wall of rain. The world outside turns dark gray and water begins to literally pour through the open ear vents in both windows. My instrument training immediately turns my head to the panel which I can't really trust and despite the training in unusual attitudes i become momentarily disoriented and I feel the airspeed building up. Not good.

I look at my attitude indicator, i appaer to be straight and level. Airspeed building. I pull back the throttle, put in a notch of flaps. I look again and in my fear of dying I had missed the the attitude indicator was indeed straight but not level. The nose of the aircraft was slightly below horizon, therefore the airspeed buildup. Aviate, navigate, communicate. Ok, plane is flying. I turn to my yoke mounted VFR ONLY GPS and punch in emergency, nearest, select KOCW, enter. A magenta line provides me a beeline for the airport which i cannot see at this time.

I turn on OCW weather. The frequency comes to life..Washington, warren county airport, says the automated voice. Then it proceeds to tell me that the visibility is half mile in heavy rain and that the ceiling is 600 feet. I'm screwed. Even in an instrument airplane i cannot legally land there because of the weather minimums. I can't go back to New Bern. I decide to fly an improvised instrument approach with the VFR GPS.

I punch in the virtual runway centerline for the most convenient runway. Fuck the wind direction. I need to be on the ground now.

I intercept the extended runway centerline and decide to stay high and then pretty much dive into the airport environment. I am unable to maintain the centerline which seems to oscillate between my 11 oclock and 1 o clock position. WTF? turns out my nerves are making me overcorrect course deviations. Calm down. Small but immediate corrections.

I'm very close. The GPS auto zooms the picture. Thank you scientists! I dive for the decision height and nothing. Gray. Rain floods the windscreen. I manually zoom in the gps and decide to die very close to the airport. I descend another 50 feet. Nothing. Then a big red light passes below my feet. A tower perhaps. Why is it there?

I push the nose down expecting to crash into one of several obstructions that litter the area. another 50 feet. I'm in no-mans land. No aviation chart guarantees your safety once you go below safe altitudes. then I break out of the clouds and I'm staring at some weird symbols, diagonal lines and such. Then I realize that I am looking at the RUNWAY NUMBERS with the nose of the plain pointed at them at a crazy angle.

I pop in full flaps and land. It is raining so hard that I can't even see to taxi. I pull off the runway and sit. My knees hurt. I realize that the whole time I was shaking like a leaf and apparently my knees were hitting each other and the left knee kept hitting the door. I don't know. It hurts.

I didn't fly for the rest of the day. I was sick to my stomach. What saved me was my instrument training and my own time i put in at home flying such scenarios in Microsoft Flight Simulator before i took the job because I was afraid of exactly what had just happened. I would program random failures and make it a point to fly it as if i'm in a real plane. Once aloft (in the simulator) no bathroom breaks, no pausing the game, no phone. Pretend it's real.

What did i learn that day? If you fly long enough and frequently enough, it will happen to you. Will you be ready? thanks for reading. Cheers. edit: typos