IFR practice approaches

Today we spent some time shooting approaches. We did the Wakefield GPS-20 approach, the Franklin VOR-DME-27, and then the Franklin VOR-9.

Things I need to improve on:


  • Maintaining assigned altitude
  • Talking on the radio with more position reports
  • Remembering to start the approach timer on time


We did touch-and-goes for the Wakefield and VOR-9 approaches with a bit of a crosswind. The landings were interesting but I did fairly well. The Williamsburg landing was not quite as smooth, I kind of plopped it in pretty hard at the last second. I had a great descend going and once I crossed the threshold the descent rate picked up a good bit. I tried to get a quick flare in, which helped, but we still kinda smacked it in. There is a "swamp monster" off the approach end of JGG runway 31 (a weird wind pattern over the swamp) and it grab us a bit just before the fast descend kicked in. I came in intentionally high to avoid it and we didn't get it too bad. :)

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