V-2 - First Practice Flight - what an experience ...

[ChristophPreinfalk]

After my first shell-shockedness, followed by V-1 practice flights and then my V-1 rating, I spent about a week off-line, getting familiar with the V-2 flight with no ATC, and to familiarize myself with the X-Plane stock Baron. After thinking hard about whether or not I want to use the autopilot, I decided I want to use the heading mode, the pitch hold mode for climbing and the altitude hold mode once I reach cruise altitude. Yesterday I finally went back on-line to do my first V-2 practice flight. What an experience! I feel like I did everything more or less correctly (I think ), so this was another tremendous confidence booster and learning experience.

What I really liked is that after practicing the V-2 flight off-line for a week, sticking with an initial 2300ft and then a 3000ft altitude and then landing on 26R (as per the V-2 video), ATC made me go to 3500 and then land on 8R. This is exactly the kind of dynamic environment that I was missing during years of off-line flying.

When I did my off-line practice flights, I flew as fast as possible and the flights were kind of boring. But boy, once I did the flight PE style last night, I was so stressed out, I actually restricted myself to 160knots just to get a little bit more time to react and respond. And that flight was not at all boring!

What helped me a lot to get from pattern flying to flight following was:
- Keith's statement "this is not really a scripted environment". Within reason, of course. But listening to ATC on PE I noticed that every controller has a different style, and every pilot has a different style. As long as I include the right information and make my responses as short as possible, I seem to get where I need to go.
- Reading that 13 page PDF about flight following, linked from within this forum. That explained a lot. Extremely helpful.
- Practicing off-line so I can focus on ATC communication instead of fighting the plane.
- Watching the PE Youtube videos again and again until every bit of communication makes sense to me.

PE is awesome!

[julio.elizalde]

Sounds like you're having a blast! This makes our work really meaningful. Thanks for sharing your experience!

[Steve Anderson]

Congratulations and well done! Sounds like you were well practiced and ready. If I may, consider taking your time and flying a number of VFR flights with PE before specifically practicing for the V-3 exam. Instead, practice cross country flights without transitioning class B but that require you to use pilotage and VOR radial navigation. Refrain from GPS navigation for now. Try transitioning class C and D airspace. I find the flights posted each day on the PE homepage great for VFR cross country and generally help me with VFR navigation. Once you are comfortable with regular cross country flights, VOR navigation, and class C and D transitions, study for the V-3. The V-3 exam is all about transitioning the KLAX class B airspace on specific routes. Each of the VFR transition routes through KLAX class B airspace require you to fly specific VOR radials. Have fun and happy flying!

[ChristophPreinfalk]

Julio,

I can't state often enough how incredible the service is that you guys provide.

Steve,

That's good advice. I've been focusing on the scripted V-2 flight and picking up VFR knowledge along the way. I do agree that doing VFR flights outside of that script makes a lot of sense. The daily pair of focus airports is a great way of providing daily challenges. I am watching those VFR Youtube videos that Keith linked to, and I think it will be a good learning experience to come up with my own route between those daily pairs. Or use today's pair and spend the next few days figuring out how to best fly them.

[Cyrus]

Christoph, I'm right there with you. I did a V-2 practice run a few nights ago, but with the GPS on. I'm still building skills using only visual cues and basic instrument navigation. Sometimes, even at 120kts, things happen way too fast for me to keep up with. Yet I take comfort knowing that countless others have gone through the same learning process. My overall learning is definitely in overdrive when the GPS is off.

[ChristophPreinfalk]

Did another V-2 practice flight last night. Again an awesome experience.

I'm flying it mainly in a scripted way and I have to say I understand only about 90% of what's happening.

Here are some questions:

- Handover from Socal departure to Socal approach: Once I got Chino in sight, I make the call to Socal departure accordingly. Then Socal departure hands me over to Socal approach. Then I request Socal approach for Chino D transition. Question: Does my report of "Chino in sight" trigger the handover fro dep to app? Or is it just a coincidence that it happens in that order? If I don't report Chino in sight, would Socal dep still hand me over to Socal app?

- What if I report to Socal dep that I got Chino in sight and I request in the same sentence Chino D transition? As far as I learned in the last few weeks, there's only one ATC with jurisdiction over certain things, so the fact that in my scripted flight I request Chino D transition to Socal app means to me that Socal dep surely won't be able to give me that clearance.

- I looked at the LAX TAC on Skyvector and tried to figure out how, if I wouldn't know the "script" of the V-2 flight, I would figure out that I need to request D transition once I'm close to Chino. Is that easily answered, or will I figure that out when I go through all the VFR learning videos and write ups? I did read up on class b, c and d airspace write ups, but that doesn't tell me how I figure out, based on TAC maps, what transition in essence to request. Also, I "studied" the Chino airport on airnav.com and didn't see anything that would point me towards the type of airspace that this airport uses. Or is it like "if it's not a class B airspace (which I know how to figure that out) then in certain altitudes you have to request D transition and in certain other altitudes you have to request C transition"? If it's too complicated and there isn't a simple blanket answer then I don't expect a full answer to my question right here, I'll probably figure it out when I do my further readings and video watchings.

- Yesterday I got really really really close to Ontario, so I reported to Socal app that I got Ontario in sight, and only then did Socal app hand me over to Ontario tower. That leads me to believe that as soon as I see the airport I need to tell Socal app and then they hand me over to Ontario tower. Is that correct?

[Pieces]

Check out the recordings of the VFR flying workshops: viewtopic.php?f=42&t=2424. They should answer a lot of your questions.

[ChristophPreinfalk]

Thanks, that's on my to do list.

[Keith Smith]

In the recent thread regarding the Class C bust, I mentioned that being in communication with the satellite tower controller doesn't cut it for entering the outer core of the Charlie. I also remarked that being in touch with approach, practically speaking, does allow you to transition the Deltas.

I was reading the Instrument Flying Handbook last night and came across a note which I was happy to see, as I'd heard it from controllers before, but I was ecstatic to see it in a pilot-oriented publication. It stated that it's very common for the top 500ft of towered airspace to be delegated to the overlying approach controller to facilitate transitions of overflying aircraft.

In other words, in many cases, approach effectively owns the top 500ft of many Deltas, so they don't even have to coordinate with tower for the over flight.

Furthermore, the regulations regarding how controllers do their job states that if an aircraft is receiving radar service, the radar controller will coordinate passage through tower-controlled airspace for their route of flight.

So, if you're talking to approach, you're in pretty good shape for a transition of towered airspace at a reasonable transition altitude.

You don't need to explicitly request transitions of the CNO Class D to get through to ONT, although there's no harm in mentioning it for absolute clarity. You almost certainly won't be handed over to CNO tower, though, unless you want to transition so low that you'll interfere with pattern operations there, then the tower controller would absolutely want you on his/her frequency.

Reporting the field in sight is not a legal requirement but is frequently used by approach as a trigger for sending you over to the tower. They don't want to send you to tower if you have no idea where the field is This is less of an issue in the GPS-age, but it would've been an issue 20 years ago when people were navigating by looking out the window. The approach controller would be your last source of help because many of the towers were non-radar and couldn't help you out a great deal. Hence, "advise when you have the field in sight."

[ChristophPreinfalk]

Thank you for the response! Very helpful. Did some more reading and now I know how to identify Class D airports and what altitude the class D space goes up to. Turns out Chino Class D is up to below 2700ft. I do my V-2 flight at 3000, so no Class D transition request necessary! Not that it's an issue to do it, but it cleans up the flight a bit. So I repeated the flight and did not request transition. Everything went smooth (except that I claimed to have a Baron 38 instead of 58, and I didn't state my location when I requested taxi to the active ... silly mistake/oversight on my part ).

Apart from the Class D transition, I studied the side bar of the LAX TAC map and I think that I can figure out VFR routes by looking at the map ... this weekend I think some focus airport VFR flying is in order!

PE is making me learn all this stuff that I couldn't bother learning, because flying off-line VFR seemed pointless to me. With PE, flying VFR in X-Plane is the best thing ever!!!!