I'm still beaming with excitement from my SOLO flight! Today RC says that we are going to get back to work. On the way out to the plane, I notice he is carrying an obnoxiously large visor... I came to learn that this obnoxiously large visor is affectionately known as a hood. In FAA speak, it's a "view limiting device."
The hood, when worn, limits the pilot's ability to see outside the aircraft. Thus the pilot must fly the plane solely by reference to the instruments. Seems pretty straight forward...
Once we were up in the practice area, he had me put on the hood. Instinctively you want to tilt your head back so that you can see. Not good. For the next hour he had me fly straight and level (plus or minus 400 feet, or so) and perform turns to a particular heading (plus or minus about 40 degrees), climbs and descents.
It's sort of odd that since the beginning of my training, RC would constantly be telling me to "get outside" of the aircraft. Meaning that he wanted me to look at my instruments less and look outside more. Today's simulated instrument flight was counter intuitive to the previous 40 hours of flight training. Hey, I'm just looking for any excuse to NOT fly under the hood.
After what seemed like 3 hours, he told me to take off the hood and head back to the airport. I logged 1 hour of simulated instrument flight and it seemed like a lot more than that. The other interesting thing is that I was physically and mentally exhausted after this flight.
Good times.
Flight time: 1.5
Total time: 40.1
The hood, when worn, limits the pilot's ability to see outside the aircraft. Thus the pilot must fly the plane solely by reference to the instruments. Seems pretty straight forward...
Once we were up in the practice area, he had me put on the hood. Instinctively you want to tilt your head back so that you can see. Not good. For the next hour he had me fly straight and level (plus or minus 400 feet, or so) and perform turns to a particular heading (plus or minus about 40 degrees), climbs and descents.
It's sort of odd that since the beginning of my training, RC would constantly be telling me to "get outside" of the aircraft. Meaning that he wanted me to look at my instruments less and look outside more. Today's simulated instrument flight was counter intuitive to the previous 40 hours of flight training. Hey, I'm just looking for any excuse to NOT fly under the hood.After what seemed like 3 hours, he told me to take off the hood and head back to the airport. I logged 1 hour of simulated instrument flight and it seemed like a lot more than that. The other interesting thing is that I was physically and mentally exhausted after this flight.
Good times.
Flight time: 1.5
Total time: 40.1
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