Glideslope testing


Last week I was experiencing some trouble with the glideslope indicator in 35388 so today I planned to test it at a another airport while building a little more time in the airplane using the VFR GPS for navigation. I also brought along the GPSMap 296 to test out the cigar lighter power plug (worked well).


We went over to KFCI since they have an ILS 33 that we could test against. We made sure to stay clear (south) of the KRIC airspace since we weren't talking to them today.

Unfortunately I found that the glideslope needle never came alive during the approach. The localizer worked fine but the glideslope flag never came alive and the glideslope needle just stayed centered. I double-checked my freq dial-in and ID'd the station via Morse code. I also twisted the OBS to make sure the localizer needle was correctly unaffected by that. All my tests seemed fine - except I was getting no glideslope. Guess we need to get it looked at.

We've also had some problems with water in the right tank so I'm hoping we can get that addressed - a co-owner suggested that new tank caps might help. The old ones have seen better days anyway.

K got some time in flying and I showed her how a forced landing would work on the trip back. She did a terrific job - once she finds a CFI she will be chugging through the private pilot stuff in no time!

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