Last sim session today! I had 2 hours 10 minutes to complete.
We started with the startup, calling ground for clearance to Seville. We were given the Seville 1C departure from Malaga Airport and cleared to 10,000 ft. Once in the air, approach control gave us some vectors, as the standard departure is some 40 miles long.
Once we were about 30 miles from Seville, we were given a frequency change.
The instructor had given me the preference of the approach I would like to do, so I picked the NDB approach runway 25 in Seville. Once safe to descend we did so, and we got a radio failure at that point.
We were already cleared to the Seville NDB and our expected approach time was 1100 zulu, and without hesitation we set 7600 on the transponder and set us up for a direct entry to the hold at Seville. The hold was a standard right hand turn, using the fixed card ADF. I did one round of the hold, and made the correction on the next one.
When you are holding about a radio navigation aid such as an Non Directional Beacon you dont have any reference or datum on the outbound leg, only timings. So to prevent your nice racetrack type holds from turning into triangles, or squares, or for that matter – circles, there are corrections to be made!
The corrections are to do with the timings and wind component on the outbound leg only, as you already have a datum such as a radio aid to fly to on the inbound leg. So, we did about 10 of those with various wind directions and speeds.
Once we reached our approach time, we made the first NDB approach of the day! It went very well. The instructor usually is controlling the weather to a fine point on the non-precision approach. He will often have the visibiltity down to 100 metres untiI I reach both the missed approach point at minimum descent altitude/height. He is trying to stress the fact that you might not be able to see the runway if you are above MDA at the missed approach point! Or you may in fact, go around once reaching Minimum Descent Altitude because you are not visual, well that is incorrect, as you must have both.
The missed approach point on the non-precision approach can be many things, such as distance from VOR, passing a beacon/locator, timing from the final approach fix.
That went well and we landed. Time for the Jerez 1A Departure from Seville, and on to an approach at Jerez Airport. Once in the cruise, the instructor asked again what approach we would be doing and I told him the NDB. He almost fell off the chair with the shock.
I think he was a little sick of NDB approaches, so on the outbound leg from the NDB he gave me an engine failure. I had it all cleaned up and ready to make the base turn when I had another engine failure.
My mind wasnt prepared for a dual engine failure today, but I quickly got working, picking a field, feathering both props. Field in sight, gear down, full flap and made a great landing.
So, the end of my 35 hours in the Beechcraft 76 ALSIM 200 ended up in a field… Great!
Will be back on Thursday to report my first flight.
Andrew