Sim Time

Today the visibility was low, winds were gusty, temperatures below freezing, and very low ceilings. So, guess what? I got to fly.

Just not outside.

I stayed warm inside and flew in the simulator again. I flew a cross country from Clarksburg to Charleston. This was technically a solo flight, although you can't use the simulator without your instructor, so I still payed for dual time.

This lesson is actually stage three. I still have two lessons and a stage check left in stage two, but since the weather has been so bad lately, we skipped ahead and did my other simulator flight from stage three.

I planned my flight appropriately, received flight following, and opened a flight plan. The only error I made in communicating with ATC was not turning on the Nav frequency when opening my flight plan. Let me explain.

In Clarksburg, in order to open a flight plan,

you have to tune your radio to the FSS frequency, and listen to the VOR frequency. So I called up FSS (Flight Service Station) and announced that I wanted to open my flight plan. My instructor (playing the role of ATC) never responded. When I realized I hadn't tuned to the VOR frequency, I felt stupid.

Everything else I did succesfully without commentary from my instructor. He tried to trick me a couple times- putting another plane on a collision course with me to see if I would catch it, or making the oil pressure zero. I caught it everytime.

The landing was a little rough, but apparently its fairly difficult to land in the sim.

Hopefully sometime this week I will get to fly for real.