Needles and Racetracks...

This week has been an interesting aviation week... I was "Re-educated" in the use of an E6B by a very knowledgeable instructor... I also learned more about Automatic Direction Finders (ADF's) in 20 minutes in a briefing room with this instructor than from all of the reading I have been doing of instrument rating study guides.

I then proceeded to spend over $1000 flying around in circles... and I didn't even get to enjoy the view!! :P

Yesterday was basic ADF tracking... or "How to make a needle point where it should" ;)

This involved taking off from Ardmore and flying out towards the Surrey and Miranda NDB's (Non-Directional Beacon's) and flying to and from the beacons on various headings as instructed by Instructor Phil... By learning a couple of basic principles, the "smoke and mirrors" of ADF tracking suddenly became a reality...

1. You're not on track if the needle is pointing at the wrong heading


2. The head of the needle "falls" to the tail of the aircraft


3. When tracking "TO" an NDB, to make the needle rotate right, you rotate the aircraft left (and vice versa)


4. When tracking "FROM" an NDB, to make the tail of the needle rotate right, you rotate the aircraft right (and vice versa)


5. If the head of the needle rises, you haven't made enough allowance for wind

Today was ADF holds... or "How to fly nice racetrack patterns in the sky". This lesson built on the basics from yesterday, but threw in some added fun bits, like holding pattern entry procedures (Parallel, Offset and Direct entries)...

I had another student tagging along, who brought along his Garmin 296 GPS, so when we got back I could have a look at my flight path, and while the first couple of holds were a little "wobbly", the steadily got better and better, until I was flying very nice racetracks indeed :)

A very solid 2 hour workout!

Then in prep for our club trip to Taumarunui on Sunday, I went and go current in the 152 this afternoon... with 3 quick circuits in JFY in an almost empty circuit... BLISS!


These Flights: 1.5 Dual (1.2 IFR) + 2.0 Dual (1.6 IFR) + 0.4 PinC
Total Hours: 305.6 (143.4/136.2 Day, 8.6/17.4 Night, 14.7 IFR)