Never again on PE - share your mistakes

[Pieces]

I think the point here is that coming from the North there isn't any airspace that requires established comms to enter, except VNY's delta. If you were not already on FF you would call VNY tower directly to enter their airspace and land. On the other hand, if you wanted to get into BUR you would call SOCAL because the outer shelf of BUR's charlie is controlled by SOCAL. SOCAL would also coordinate any transitions through outlying deltas in that case.

[Ryan B]

Yes you can see at the end of my post I essentially wrote that...

Facilities are just totally different depending on where you fly.

[ChrisS]

Yeah, for clarification I wasn't getting flight following as I was just coming in from L45. I just stayed below 3,000 ASL on the way in a ended up calling tower directly. I like the discussion on here though, nice to see guys thinking about these scenarios.

[flyingdrill]

So far, most of my efforts in PE have been reasonable, with the odd minor hiccup.

Today, however, was not so good

I thought I'd try the Coastal Route through the LA Bravo, from SMO to John Wayne. Using X-Plane (and Carenado's 206 with the new 530), and not reading the terminal chart as carefully as I should have done, and not receiving a definite instruction on which way to go, I almost bust the Bravo - but just got away with it, thanks to a brilliant controller. The rest of the flight went well. Encouraged (or discouraged!), I switched to FSX and the A2A 172 a few hours later. That really messed me up, as the DI precessed, and I also had a problem with the autopilot. The controller said I did bust a bit of the Bravo, but I'm not totally sure where. I had started out quite well, but the sim got the better of me. I ended up hand flying the trip on the VOR radials, and made a much better job of it, after the initial problems. A nuisance on a Mac in Carenado's planes in X-Plane is that you can only speak to PE on com 1. So, setting up a bank of frequencies in two radios, which is how we fly for real in busy airspace, is not on. I can only use com 2 for the ATIS. This increases the workload disproportionately, even though I've (thanks Keith) set up keypresses to tune the com 1 radio. I guess I'll just have to practice a lot more, as it's so much more difficult to do these things with a mouse or keys than it is in the real world. Also, trimming in these sims is quite hard, and some planes are very twitchy, so (if not on autopilot), holding altitude and heading with a joystick, while trying to sort out a frequency which is reluctant to be set, becomes a juggling act, which is not really like the real world. Similarly, exactly setting the OBS on a VOR receiver is very fiddly.

The big jet jockeys feed the route into the FMC, take off, fiddle with the MCP and the radios, and land. Once they are set up, I think PE is easier for them. I must try that sort of flying out at some time.

I'll have another go tomorrow, and I bet the PE staff will groan (or grin!) when I get on. What I find interesting is that I'm used to flying in congested and tricky airspace environments in the UK and USA, but got thrown in the sim. Never mind. Everyone says that you really have to know the LA airspace, and how it is worked. I've only flown though LA's Class Bravo once, many years ago, with an instructor by my side, who I asked to handle all the radio work, etc. while I just flew it and enjoyed the view.

My thanks again to the staff at PE. This whole concept is brilliant, and the people who make it happen are first class.

[Keith Smith]

Glad you're enjoying the challenge. FWIW, only use my 2nd comm in my airplane to monitor ATIS. I only ever transmit on the first com radio. It's definitely possible to hand fly these Bravo routes with a single radio. Trimming the plane is key. Don't be shy about setting a hat switch for aileron trim (even if the real plane doesn't have it) since real planes that don't have aileron trim will normally have a trim tab which is rigged for cruise flight.

Check out some of the V3 videos which are out there to get a feel for how people are setting up for the flight. It's manageable with some planning

[flyingdrill]

Thank you, Keith. I will definitely study some of those videos. I have the Saitek Cessna trim wheel, but I think I need to work on its calibration in X-Plane. It's also a bit tricky in FSX..... I use the one and only hat switch on my venerable joystick for panning the view. I have some other kit so, eventually, I'll get there
Even my pedals and toe brakes don't always give me the level of control I'd like. It's a case of a bad workman blaming his tools

I was taught and got my IR on steam gauges, in planes with no working autopilots. Now, I often fly G1000 - and sometimes with Garmin's autopilot, which is a dream.

I looked at my chart again (on an iPad) and saw that my bust was an altitude one, rather than a positional one. Having slept on it, I see that what happened was that I got behind the plane - exactly the sort of thing that we desperately try to avoid in the real world. I also fell foul of a slightly ambiguous instruction on the terminal chart, regarding getting the clearance. My mistake, but every area has its own local customs and procedures, which it's best to know about before you start. Of course, the methods of working are laid down (and I know them, and use them), but familiarity in an area is very helpful. As you know, more often than not, you know what the controller is (likely) going to say to you, when you want to go a particular way. I will be picking up paper charts for CA when I'm next in the USA, as I still like to pore over them in hard copy, even though I often use the iPad in flights - but I've briefed myself before I start. I need to apply myself to do this better in PE, but I have often spent quite a while sorting things before I connect. Yesterday, I was not thorough enough.

Regards

J

[theluckyone17]

Second flight on PE. Filed a route that included V137 west of the Palm Springs VOR, at 9,000. Apparently, there's a mountain in the way, which explains why the MEA is 13,500.

Y'all have mountains out west. Here on the east coast, I'm not used to anything anywhere near that high. I'll be checking in the future.

[ccapilot]

"I totally lost my bearings", I would have never imagined I would be saying this to a controller, however there I was completely lost with no idea where I was...

Everything happened in a matter of a few seconds. I was doing KSAN-KNYL with the ILS 21R from COVOK, which means a very nice half circle of arc dme practice... beautiful. I did it OK, however I did not liked that I began in a 8 dme instead of a 7 dme arc, anyway, halfway down the arc I was were I was supposed to be a 7 dme and It worked quite well until the final turn to intercept the final approach course which was 213 degrees, however for some reason I got distracted when my mouse decided to quit at that very moment and I turned to 113 instead of 213 degrees. After that, all was caos. I did not realise I was on the wrong course and I kept going, obviously something was not ok, the needles were all over the place, I was high, I was trying to look for the dme info and for some reason I was not receiving a dme, and I did not know where I was, why my needles were all deflected. I stop my descent at 3000 and gave up, I cheated by bringing up my map on Foreflight in my iPad and then I could see I was way out of were I was supposed to be... why? how was that possible? and right there is when the controller asked me for "my intentions"... well.. I had to say I was lost and requested another approach from COVOK,

He changed me to approach and received vectors for another try. this time everything went fine with the exception that I could not receive the dme on final approach course, but at least this time my needles were all centered and I even had the runway in sight, so I just continued. Later on I noticed that it was not on the chart!! amazing but true. I found the dme frequency on the AFD... I will definitely will give it another try tonight or tomorrow morning... It was a great learning experience and very humble experience as well, as you would thing I am a new pilot... well.. I am a 7000 hours pilot in real life... very humble... but great. I am so glad it happened, because I learnt a lot, and I am glad it happened in PE environment, in the safety of my studio and not in real life. Yes I feel embarrassed but I though I will share with you so you can also learn out of this.

I would like to invite all of you to practice this amazing approach. Next time I will study more carefully the charts, make sure I know were to find all the frequencies, thinking ahead what the courses and indications has to be. etc. etc.

Cristian

[Cyrus]

Hi Cristian, great story. Thanks a lot for sharing.

(and at least you didn't bust the LAX bravo... uhhhh, two nights in a row! )

[Keith Smith]

Cristian,

One of my first live cockpit streams on twitch was a flight where I practiced that same approach, and I was also surprised by the DME being hard to find to identify the non-precision FAF. In the end I found it on the low-enroute chart. It is an interesting approach for sure.