No-Gyro Approaches

Malko

Why…..? It’s so tiring. 🤙
Staff member
Went up today and shot a couple of No-Gyro approaches and it stunk. It was a frustrating day. Any suggestions for these types of approaches. I did get a bit of help from the tower when they called with....."Cessna5088Q, I show you 1/2 mile north of course". Oops, quick turn to the right and I was back on. When doing these approaches on a checkride, can you request No-gyro vectors without any grief from the DE? Just curious?
 
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When doing these approaches on a checkride, can you request No-gyro vectors without any grief from the DE? Just curious?

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Not!!!
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Practice... They get easier.
 
Didn't think so. Just wishing.
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I took the hint from the tower about course and corrected right away. I am sure they will get better.
 
Don't most DE's want to do approaches full procedure for the ride? Vectors are easy, full procedure approaches can be a little more tricky.

Just practice them man, they suck but they do also get easier.

No gyro NDB approaches with the missed to a hold SUCK!

Cheers


John Herreshoff
 
Well...to start with do timed turns. Forget that crap about compass turns and all that north, south, lead, lag, crap. Keep the wings level until the compass is calm, read the heading off it, figure out how many seconds you need to turn and then make a timed turn.

Use your course as a reference, too. Once you are close to your course, you can make small turns in the direction of the needle and wait and see what happens.

Whatever you do...don't sneak a peek out the window when checking your compass heading. That would be cheating.....
 
Its weird that you started this thread today because I had a possible vaccuum failure today and had to shoot a real no-gyro approach in IMC. Here was the conditions the conditions that I was in:
KAKR 312111Z AUTO 35011KT 3SM BR OVC003 06/04 A2980 RMK AO2 CIG 003V006
Thank God for ATC!
 
Jonny...seriously....nice job. Pump failures have killed a lot of pilots. How did you recognize the failure, initially?
 
There's a difference between no-gyro approaches and partial panel approaches, folks. Many towers don't have the time to accommodate you if you request a practice no-gyro approach. Remember, no-gyro approaches are the ones where ATC is giving you "Start turn" and "Stop turn" instructions. Generally for use when actually partial panel in turbulent conditions such that the compass is useless for all its bouncing. Standard rate turns are expected until you are turned onto final, at which point all turns are half standard rate.
 
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When doing these approaches on a checkride, can you request No-gyro vectors without any grief from the DE? Just curious?

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They won't give you any grief about it, they'll just calmly simulate the radio call "Uhh...[callsign]...unable at the moment. Report procedure turn inbound."
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How did you recognize the failure, initially?

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We were set up for the VOR-A approach and after I made the right procedure turn inbound the needle kept showing full deflection to the left, so I turned to the left and noticed that the attitude indicator was still showing a turn to the right while the turn coordinator was showing a turn to left. I then leveled the wings (with the turn coordinator), with the AI still showing a 30 degree turn to the right. Then I looked at the compass and it said I was heading about 200 (the approach course is 289), and the CDI was still showing a full left deflection. We figured that we should have crossed through the final approach course by now, so we contacted approach and asked if they could give us some help on our actual location and also mentioned that we could have a possible vaccuum failure. They told us that we were showing a course of 190 and was well south of the VOR (which meant the CDI should have been deflecting right). We then thought that there was something wrong with the VOR instrument, and the AI (because it was stuck on a 30 degree bank to the right). We contacted ATC again and said that we have a problem with our AI and VOR instrument but we have full control of the airplane and would like a no-gyro ASR approach.
So we got radar vectors to the approach course and while my instructor was executing the approach I tuned in the frequency of the ILS for the runway that we were landing on, and the localizer needle showed full left deflection while the controller said that we were on the correct course. We broke out of the clouds around 600 ft AGL and finished the approach visually, taxiied to the maintanence hangar, told them the problems, and now we are now waiting on word of what the actual problem was.
 
Well...the flight school owner should be shaking you and your CFI's hands for a job well done and be glad he doens't have a wrongful death lawsuit to worry about....

Not that a lawsuit would be justified, but that's the way it works.
 
Dang, almost beat you to it. But I suspected as well this was partial panel work. NO GYRO stuff, is the start turn, stop turn thing. That is one of the advantages of being in the area I am for training. It can be easy to find a time of day when no gyro can be done. I got to practice it a few times with controllers during my IFR training, and the other times, my CFII played controller calling my turns. I highly recommend you have your II do this for you, each time you go back to an airport area. Just go missed on your last approach, cancel, and go out do some timed turns, and have him give you no gyro vectors back.

On my checkride, had the first 2 approaches under vectors, and the last one, did own nav, partial panel, then 'lost' everything but an altimeter and a compass (icing sux, huh? was the comment from the DE) while decending on the localizer. But my point for saying all that, is the DE wanted me to ask for no gyro vectors onto the localizer, but ATC wasn't able, so we went own nav. On the way out for that, we discussed what I would have done, standard rate, then to 1/2, and he was happy with that.

Flying an arc for a VORDME approach partial panel is fun
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Don't think I've done that full panel since after the first couple times I did it, and that is one of the approaches into my home field, so get to do it all the time.
 
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But I suspected as well this was partial panel work.

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Jeez, we can't all be as smart as you.
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NO GYRO stuff, is the start turn, stop turn thing.

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Really.....

Anyhow, the reason I said NoGyro is becuase in the event that it happened in real life, it would be NoGyro. Right?

Enough venting for the day. I flew before work and now I will be in the computer room until 6am.
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Give or take a few breaks. At least I have a couple of T1 lines to keep my JC connection cruising along.
 
It has been about a year since i have had my instrument check ride, but there are two things that i can tell you. First when doing an approach with no gyros, always do the barb if it is offered in the approach, gives you more time to set up while outbound. Also, in regards to your checkride and whether you should ask the examiner about doing an asr approach or talking to atc about the situation, it can not hurt to mention that these would be options that you might use. The reason is that you are showing the examiner that you are thinking about the safest solution first.
 
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