I-10 Experience - lessons learned

[stevekirks]

Hopefully this will be helpful to others trying out the 1-10 Rating. Random thoughts dumped into bullet points

* Fly this in a slow prop plane unless you're a very experienced pilot. I thought I was "pretty good" and flew this in a Lancair and it was way too fast. So many things happened so quickly that I got behind the airplane and on final to runway 29 into KSBP, I became spatially disoriented and flew it into the ground. A scary lesson--it was CAVOK real world, airport in sight, cleared to land and while focused on the turn, I lost speed, overcompensated and stalled at pattern altitude. Chilling result in the sim, fatal in the real world.
* I think this one is the hardest one yet. I flew the I-11 using the GPS and autopilot (offline) and that seemed a breeze compared to this.
* Make sure you have all of the docs ready to go in the plane, stacked for easy reference.
* Verbally brief each section with each part that you'll fly like "Take off, climbing right turn, join the radial" etc etc etc.
* Mentally commit to the direction and type of procedure turn you'll make, like the course reversal on the departure out of Santa Barbara.
* When you're on final to Santa Maria, make sure you have the Guadalupe (GLJ) VOR tuned into a second radio with the heading bug set for direct to the VOR for the hold. You won't have time when you're under 3000 feet and 3 miles from the airport.
* The entry into the hold is standard and easy, but if you have autopilot, it will give you enough time to set the AP for heading, time the turns and brief the flight route and approach into San Luis Obispo.
* The second attempt was in a Cessna 172 and at 100kts true, it was easier to see what was coming and react to it.
* My night flying needs a lot more work.

[Kerbo]

Thanks for sharing, Steve.

[stealthbob]

Well said Steve, I had a very similar experience. It is amazing to me how easy these ratings are off line compared to on network, very good demonstration for the need to train with control in a simulated environment for RW pilots.

I only have the Arc Enemy left myself and have been delaying it, I flew it off line twice with good results but I know how things change once on control.

Thanks for your account of your flight, made me now want finish this thing and get the I-11 done.

[Keith Smith]

I flew this in an F-86 Sabre (in xplane) back in the day...it took a few years off my life, the workload was up there! The field was below minimums for the VOR-A, so I went missed on that one and had to shoot the ILS RWY 11. I was pretty spent by the end of it (this was before I had my actual instrument rating, mind you.)