I'm just getting started with PilotEdge (and serious flight simming in general), so this mistake might seem pretty basic, but I thought I'd share it anyway. It might remind some of the experts what it was like just getting started.
Here's a rather longwinded and dramatic account of my latest mistake.
I'm working through the CAT ratings. It's been slow going since I've become rather anxious about communicating over the radios, but I decide that I'm going to work through that anxiety and complete the CAT-03 today. I get all my frequencies prepared and find all the charts on Skyvector. I hop onto the radio and take off from San Luis Obispo without issue. I'm feeling pretty good as I get closer to Santa Maria. I'm expecting a runway 30 landing and at ten miles, I call the tower to report my 10 mile position. I'm assigned the instruction to enter the right downwind for runway 30 and report at midfield right downwind. No sweat. I repeat back the instruction and continue my flight.
As I get closer to Santa Maria, I start to wonder when the best time would be to descend into pattern altitude. Should I just immediately start descending and continue my approach at that altitude? Should I wait in an attempt to hit the pattern altitude as I hit the right downwind? I ultimately decide to stay high for a bit longer. I decide to re-familiarize myself with the Santa Maria chart and get confused. Entering the right downwind from my position would require me to execute a very extreme turn in order to hit it at 45-degrees. At this point, I begin to doubt that I remembered the instruction correctly. Surely the controller said "left downwind" and I incorrectly heard "right downwind". I begin to curse myself for not keeping a scratchpad. I decide to remain high and clear of the pattern altitude and call the controller to confirm that the instruction was, in fact, a "right downwind" and not a left.
At this point, the controller wants me to confirm my position. I explain that I'm high of the pattern but I'm in an upwind situation. He explains that he doesn't see anyone that happens to be upwind of runway 30 and asks me to report my position again. I'm mortified. I look out the side window and I'm sure that I'm upwind and not downwind. I hesitate in my response and get stepped on by other pilots. That's fine with me because I'm completely lost. The controller checks in again and explains that he'll have to fail me for the CAT-03 and that I must always know my position relative to the airport. It's a well-deserved fail but where did I go wrong?
I took a look at the chart again and realized my error. For whatever reason, I had mentally rotated the Santa Maria chart. When I thought I was upwind and expected to make an extreme right turn to get onto downwind, I was actually downwind of 30... just high of the pattern. The controller didn't want me to make an extreme right turn to enter the downwind. I should've entered the downwind with almost no turn at all.
Needless to say, I felt pretty dumb and went offline for a couple hours to make sure I was ready for the next attempt. I passed it on the second try but this experience was full of a lot of learning, so for that I'm grateful.
so the lesson is, when flying a sid with an intercept, or in fact any sid which isn't rnav, always tune your vors and go with the raw data! Rest of the flight was fine, looking forward to the next one and love the expansion and the huge increase in routes 