The standard training route for Instrument Rating training is PM-RUGVI-WU-FOXTN-PM, or Round The Block. A student of mine was due for a go at it, known as IN01 as part of the single engine IFR phase which is mostly in the sim and culminating in a sim check which is the equivalent of a single Engine Instrument Rating flight test. It's good for the instructor (me!) to be able to fly it for real too. It all helps for IFR currency. So, myself and student X piled into a trusty PA28 Warrior and climbed into the murk on a 25 ALFA 6 departure.
We popped out of the stratus at around 4800ft. We spent the next 30 minutes skimming the tops at 5000ft en-route to a reporting point, RUGVI. It's a cliche but there's nothing more awesome than skimming the tops of clouds.
You get a real sensation of speed, even if it is only 100kts!
Left turn to track 226 to WU (Wanganui) NDB. Usually a couple of laps of the NDB hold but due to inbound Eagle B1900D traffic we were instructed to commence the WU NDB/DME 11 approach from the overhead.
By this time we were down to 4000ft and back in the cloud. No worries, 'actual' is all good for the currency. Student X performed a pretty good approach. Then off to FOXTN for a couple of VOR holds at 6000ft.
We popped out of the stratus at around 4800ft. We spent the next 30 minutes skimming the tops at 5000ft en-route to a reporting point, RUGVI. It's a cliche but there's nothing more awesome than skimming the tops of clouds. You get a real sensation of speed, even if it is only 100kts! Left turn to track 226 to WU (Wanganui) NDB. Usually a couple of laps of the NDB hold but due to inbound Eagle B1900D traffic we were instructed to commence the WU NDB/DME 11 approach from the overhead. By this time we were down to 4000ft and back in the cloud. No worries, 'actual' is all good for the currency. Student X performed a pretty good approach. Then off to FOXTN for a couple of VOR holds at 6000ft.
Palmerston was reporting cloud at around 1500ft so again, lots of 'actual'. Awesome! After the second hold Ohakea cleared us for the VOR/DME 07 Circling 25 and gave us a radar vector for finals. Usually we'd get the 12DME arc but this wasn't available due outbound traffic. No problem, it's good experience for the student. We popped out fo the cloud around 1200ft at around 3 DME and then circled left for runway 25.The flight was 2.0 hours long, 1.7 of which was actual. All good stuff for the logbook.
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