After my so-so NDB performance the other day, I knew I needed some practice. So I started up FSX and got to work. I put in about an hour of practice tonight and it seemed to help drill the NDB intercept procedures through my thick skull, so I would consider it time (and money) well spent.
You might recall that in an earlier blog entry I mentioned that I had bought and read Bruce Williams’ book, MS Flight Simulator as a training aid. The great thing about Bruce’s book is the companion CD that comes with it, which contains many VFR and IFR practice flights, several of which are aimed at NDB procedures. The practice flights make it easy as everything is set-up for you which in this case means you are in the air and in the proximity of an NDB, without the need to takeoff from an airport and fly to an NDB. This is a huge time saver, and really allows you to get right to practicing only what you want to practice. Sure, I could set-up my own flights in FSX, but I don’t have time for that.
While nothing replaces flying the real airplane, a sim (FSX) is perfect for things like practicing IFR procedures like VOR or NDB intercepts. And at today prices, it’s certainly a lot cheaper that burning avgas. The only downside to practicing at home, is the interruptions. The wife, the dog, the kid, all seem to want me to do something else the moment I sit down at the desk and launch FSX. Oh well, that’s what the pause button is for. 
I’ve decided it’s time to let the cat out of the bag. From now on, in my posts I am going to use my instructor’s real name instead of saying “my instructor” and the actual name of the flight school where I am flying istead of “flight school”. I don’t have a good reason as to why I’ve kept this private until now, but perhaps I wanted to give it a few hours to see how it all worked out before I disclosed this information. It’s not like this stuff is sensitive information, or something that I would want to keep private, but I guess I am just sort of conservative when it comes to sharing personal information, which is somewhat ironic because you are reading this on my blog. 
I showed up at the airport on Tuesday half hoping we would fly, half hoping we would not. It’s not that I don’t want to fly, but I spent most of the the weekend on the couch at the mercy of my bad allergies. I was feeling better by Tuesday, but still not 100%. I wouldn’t have flown solo, but I figured I felt well enough for a lesson, although I suspect it wouldn’t have been all that productive. As it turns out, my instructor wanted to spend some time on the ground talking about VORs. Perfect!
This lesson almost didn’t happen because of weather, but we went, and I am glad we did because it turned out to be a great flight. We’ve had another couple of days of not-so-nice weather, and with its multiple layers of clouds and crazy winds, today was no exception. We reviewed the TAFs, radar and satellite imagery before walking outside to make our final decision. It looked like we had plenty of holes in the clouds which we could use to get out, buy my instructor decided to file an IFR flight plan for our return in case the clouds closed in behind us.
During my private pilot training, I had gone through several instructors. No, not because my flying scared them off, but simply because I moved several times during my training and had to find new flight schools. Then when I had finally settled into a new location, one where I would be for a while, I had an instructor leave the flight school at which I was training to go on to charter operations. I was very disappointed as I was already into the cross-country phase of my training, but the flight school teamed me with a new instructor Chris; who they assured me would get me through the remainder of my training and onto my checkride.
