That’s 99% percent of the time gonna solve the problem, but you're still behind there.
I'm Jason Miller, a full-time professional flight instructor.
On the Finer Points channel, you can join me as I bring you tips and tricks that I've
learned from 20 years on the flight line.
Hello aviators and welcome back to the Finer Points.
In this video I'm going to show you three tips that will dramatically improve your instrument
flying and make sure that you don't make some of the
same mistakes I see students make all the time.
We're back to summer weather here in the Bay area, which means we have a regular marine
layer which blows in off the ocean, and it's beautiful instrument training, some of the
best in the world.
And as we get Joe ready for his check ride we recently went to Half Moon Bay to fly some
approaches to minimums – and these three things came up.
He's doing a fantastic job, but I thought that everybody could benefit from these three
tips that I gave him on our most recent flight.
Huge thanks to Joe for letting us publish his flight training to the internet, by the
way, so that everybody can benefit, he's an awesome sport about that.
The first thing is he started to fall behind the airplane, which can happen to any instrument
pilot, and I always say to people, you know the number one tool when you start to fall
behind the airplane is slow down, and Joe does that.
He does that without me prompting him, but that's not enough.
So there's a couple of other things that he could do, and I suggested he do, and you'll
see here in this video as we cut in he can ask for delay vectors from Air Traffic Control,
and he can use the autopilot.
So slowing down, using the autopilot, and actually asking Air Traffic Control for delays.
Don't let them push you into something.
Get them working for you to buy yourself some time.
[ATC] November 251 advise when you have the weather for Half Moon Bay.
[Joe] oh shoot – wilco 251.
[Jason] Let me give you a tool here.
You know you're feeling behind, so you did the right thing.
You slowed down, that's like 99% of the time gonna solve the problem,
but you're still behind here.
Why don't you ask ATC to help you.
Get them working for you, just say hey NorCal is it possible to give 6251 a delay vector
box pattern before we start in on the approach, or something like that.
Approach 6251, could we get a delay vector, to do a box pattern
before we head in for the approach?
November 251 turn left heading one three zero – Left heading one three zero, 251 thanks.
Now you just got him working for you, he tells you what headings to fly,
knows what you wanna do.
Autopilot would be another thing – altitude hold – there you go,
So I need to get this weather – I didn't even listen to the identifier.- OK, so this is
one two seven two seven five so I flip this.
[Radio weather observation]
So now they have control of the navigation, they're giving Joe vectors.
He can easily move on and brief the approach.
They even ask him to just let them know when he's ready to accept the approach and move inbound.
Approach 251 have the weather Half Moon Bay.
251 roger, advise when you're ready to proceed inbound.
We're ready to proceed thanks.
[ATC] N251, cleared direct JUMDA, cross JUMDA at or below
4000, cleared RNAV 30 approach Half Moon Bay.
Cleared direct JUMDA and then cross at or below 4000,
Cleared for the 30 at Half Moon Bay, 251
The second thing I wanna tell you is make sure that you turn on terrain.
This approach into Half Moon Bay has mountains all along the north side of the approach course.
So if you are off course to the North you are potentially in danger of hitting terrain
and for some reason in the G1000 Garmin does not just turn it on when you get to a thousand feet
You have to go into the map and actually turn on terrain, so don't forget to do that.
Here's when I remind Joe to turn it on, but I'll also show you what it looked like later
in the flight as we descend and get closer to the terrain.
Let's get a better situational awareness over here.
Your terrain's on so I would have it like this, with terrain on.
Yeah like now you don't wanna go too far north of course.
Lastly you wanna make sure that if you're flying a GPS approach you have the proper
scaling on your course deviation indicator, on your CDI.
It cannot say ENR for enroute or TERM for terminal, it has to say some kind of approach.
And most of us remember this on the first approach, but if you're doing multiple approaches
and your vectors don't take you out far enough outside the approach gate, sometimes it won't reset
So there's a couple of lessons, a couple of takeaways here.
One is to make sure that on any GPS approach as you cross the final approach fix, you verify
that you have proper scaling on your CDI, and if you don't you just execute a missed approach
So even if you're on a checkride I think noticing it and executing a missed approach would be
good, I mean it wouldn't be great, but they wouldn't fail you for that.
They would probably give you props for noticing that it wasn't there.
The problem would be is if you started the approach and didn't notice it, that would
definitely be unsafe and be a failure item on a checkride.
So the second takeaway is – and unfortunately my head covers all the button pushing that
I'm doing here – but to reset the the G1000 and actually have it scale properly I needed
to quickly delete the approach out of the GPS, reload the approach and then activate
the leg that we were on before we crossed the next waypoint.
And I just call that buttonology, it's a lot of kind of computer programming.
Delete the approach, load the approach, and activate the leg.
So you want to make sure that if you're using a system like the G1000 or really any GPS,
you are proficient with your buttonology and you can get in there and do that kind of stuff,
and make sure you're practicing having to do that stuff last minute for situations like this one.
... should be verifying too before you cross WOHLI, we need to verify linear scaling on your CDI
We cross WOHLI, verify linear scaling, it should go to LPV – yep or at least LNAV but
it has to be in some sort of approach mode, ideally LPV.
[ATC] Cessna 251 no traffic observed between you and the Half Moon Bay airport
change to the advisory frequency is approved. Your missed approach frequency will be one three five point one
OK, 6251 is cleared for the visual approach to Half Moon Bay.
Departure frequency will be three five point one on the missed approach.
Cessna 251 correct one three five point one on the missed.
Change to advisory frequency is approved
Advisory 6251.
We should really see that linear scaling within three miles of the final approach fix, and
two miles of the final approach, I'm afraid we're gonna see it.
We’ve got it set up right.
I’ve got the approach – I know, but maybe we need to delete the flight plan and reload it
Can I do that real fast?
Kinda buttonology here
Don’t follow your pink line just yet.
You're all set.
What I did over here was delete the entire flight plan then reload the approach and then
activate the leg we were on.
Alright aviators, that's all. I hope those three tips help you instrument pilots out there.
Again a huge thanks to Joe for letting us publish his flight training.
He's doing awesome and has a check ride coming up soon.
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