PTW VOR-A

Finally, the weather was good. A cold front had stalled up in Canada leaving the weather here fairly good. I made the trip along Rt73 out to Wings in the sunshine. It was great.

I was a bit nervous since once again it had been two weeks, but I also had the touch of confidence. I am learning this stuff and felt that I could perform if I just allowed myself to think through instead of react to the situation at hand. I was ready to see what I really know about the system.

The airplane had been flown already so I knew to use the warm start procedure. The destination was quite close, therefore all the radio set up and briefings were done in the run-up area. Take off was normal, actually smooth and I refrained from clicking on George right away. Instead I climbed to 1300 and departed to the North manually. Once comfortable I exercised the knobology for the climb and set up the approach. He brought me in from the north, cleared me for the approach with one turn in the published holding pattern. So with George in Nav mode, I slected the VOR as my source, engaged approach mode as the CDI came alive and used the GNS430 flight plan to scroll down to the proper holding fix. As you can see from my track, I didn't select a great enough rate of descent to get down to the MDA before going missed.

The good news was I understood how to translate my clearance into the proper system sequence to get the airplane to execute the approach. Good stuff! Missed back to holding (learned a trick or two about the rev button) and did approach number 2. This time I chose about 900 fpm descent which got me down in time, and again executed the missed.

The big lesson: He asked me to execute the VOR-B into Pottstown Muni (N47) from the holding pattern. It is always a bit messy to thumb through the approach plates, find the right one and get setup. No paper approach plates in this airplane, insted you load the MFD. Getting this done smoothly will take some polish, but after multiple attempts I did get it done. I also needed to load the GNS430 and found that N47 should be inserted in the enroute section, not under the approach section. I have some research do for homework here, to find the easiest way to set this up. I think pressing and holding the clear button might eliminate the current flight plan allowing insertion of the new destination to be a bit easier. It was a good exercise.

Home to a VFR entry to runway 24 with an acceptable landing. I was really happy with this one.

Sr20
Time = 1.7