ILS

By Pat Highgate (27 June 2007)

So, when my fiance's co-worker's husband offered to take me up in his Piper Cherokee, I of course jumped at the chance. Who wouldn't? The man had thousands of hours of real world experience and was a certified flight instructor, and he owned a partial interest in his own airplane. It sounded like a wonderful dream.

Before we left, he told me that he'd allow me to take the left seat and I'd have the controls for most of the flight. It was, as he said, just an excuse to go up. I was ecstatic. I have a couple of hours behind the stick of real airplanes. I can fly straight, can make turns, and am overall quite comfortable piloting an aircraft, due mostly to the hundreds upon hundreds of hours behind my CH Yoke in front of my computer.

For the most part that's what we did. I neglected to take any Dramamine before taking off, so I found myself somewhat nauseous through the entire two hour flight, but I was willing to let that slide just for the experience. Controlling the small Cherokee was worth any amount of air sickness that came, and I wasn't about to tell him "I feel sick. Can we take her down?"

Then he asked me a question: "Have you ever shot an ILS approach?"

"Yes. Many times...", then sheepishly I admitted "Simulated".

"Have you ever done an ILS approach for real?"

I had to admit that no, I hadn't.

"Do you want to try?"

That ranks up there as one of the top 10 silly questions ever presented to me. Do I want to try? Is water wet? Is the sky blue? Of course I'd want to try. It took me some minute fraction of a second before responding "YES! Oh goodness YES!"

He smiled. I think, but can't be certain, that I had been smiling during the entire flight. When he radioed to request an ILS approach to runway 30R at KBFL, my heart jumped. I was really going to do it.

He asked me if I wanted to take over the radio. I thought about it for a minute. I knew what I needed to say; many hours on VATSIM had prepared me for radio chatter. But I declined.

"No," I decided, "I want to concentrate on flying this aircraft"

Still, I paid close attention to Bakersfield Approach as they vectored us around to set up the landing. It seemed to take forever. We were north of the airport when we radioed in the request, and they sent us several miles south of the airport. It all made sense to me. I had done this hundreds of times before under the direction of a VATSIM controller or the mechanized voice of a MSFS controller.

And then, we were set. The pilot tuned the radios to the proper frequency (111.90...I had known this for years) and the magnetic bearing of 301. Then he left everything up to me.

Just as I had done so many times with the Flight Simulator, I paid close attention to the instruments. For several minutes, I don't think I glanced outside the aircraft (this is one of the many reasons why one should do this first with an experienced pilot). My focus was on following the glideslope down as closely as possible.

For the most part, I hit it perfectly. There was very little deviation during my descent. The pilot was impressed, and a little shocked. He later asked me suspiciously "Are you sure you've never done this before?" "Never in a real airplane. Never. Just on my computer."

At about 300 feet he took over the controls. While I think that I could probably take it all the way down by myself, I was more than willing to let someone who knows what he's doing actually land the Piper.

Once we were down, all I could say was "wow!". Just "wow!". It was the most excitement I'd had in a real aircraft in my entire 32 years, and it was more than a little amazing that so much time playing MSFS put me in a situation where I knew exactly what to do.

The pilot was gracious enough to not ask for any money, not even for fuel (and I asked him if I could pay for it). He even offered to fill in the hours into my pilot's logbook. I repaid him for the experience in the best way I knew: I sent a bottle of '04 Garsa Sonya (easily my favorite wine) with my fiance to give to his family.

All in all, I am extremely happy to have had the experience. It proved to me again that pilots are a great bunch of people. It also proved to me that MS Flight Simulator really is an invaluable tool for learning how to pilot and control an aircraft, even if I'm just taking in a small Piper at a small airfield.

I saw the pilot this last weekend at a barbeque and he informed me that he had been telling his instructor friends about this amazing kid who could shoot an ILS approach having only done it before on his computer. I felt flattered. Then he asked me "When do you want to go up again?" Soon is not soon enough.

Pat Highgate
pathighgate@gmail.com

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