22 Feb 2006: Intersection Holding at Night!

After a couple of weeks of lousy weather, it was time to hit the skies and demonstrate some holding patterns.......this time at night! We departed Bedford at 6 p.m. The Cessna 172 climbed out at almost 950 feet per minute in the cold air, even with both of us and full fuel. I turned the plane to the northeast and headed direct to the Lawrence VOR. My CFII instructed me to hold over WITCH intersection which is under the Boston class bravo airspace so we contacted Boston and were assigned a squawk code on the transponder. After crossing the Lawrence VOR, I tracked the 125 degree radial outbound using VOR #2, slowed the plane down to 90 knots and identified Pease VOR on my #1 navigation receiver. Soon the HSI needle began to move and when both needles centered, I had arrived at WITCH intersection.

I made a standard rate turn to the right to a heading of 021 degrees and tracked outbound for 1 minute, then turned around again and intercepted the Pease VOR 201 degree radial. It took two minutes to get back to the intersection with the headwind so I shortened the next outbound led to 30 seconds. This made my next inbound 1 minute.........great. I set up all of the right corrections with only 1 loop around the holding pattern.

Next, I put WITCH into the GPS and swithed the HSI to get its VOR information from the GPS. It worked like a champ; just like holding at a real VOR. Next, the CFI directed me back to the Lawrence VOR to the west and wanted me to enter a right hand hold on the 270 radial. In the way, he asked me what type of entry it would be. The rest of the exchange went sort of like this:

"Parallel", I replied.

"Are you sure about that?"

"Pretty sure."

"Are you sure you wouldn't like to say 'teardrop'?"

"Yes, I'm pretty sure I'm comfortable with 'parallel'."

"Really. Well what do you think your going to do when you get to Lawrence VOR?"

"Fly outbound on the 270 radial for 1 minute, make a left standard rate turn to a heading of 045 degrees, intercept the inbound radial and once I get back to the VOR, start making right hand turns in the holding pattern."

"That's right, just trying to make sure you're really sure."

Actually, I'm pretty sure that he got confused himself, but what the heck, it served a purpose. I stuck by my guns and won. We entered the hold at Lawrence uneventfully. After 2 orbits, he asked me if I wanted to shoot the ILS approach back at Bedford.......cool! We received vectors to intercept the localizer and I descended from 2,700 feet to 1,800 feet as published. About 2 miles from the final approach fix, I slowed down to 90 knots and dropped 10 degrees of flaps. At decision height of 428 feet I took off my foggles and there was the runway, right where it was supposed to be ! I never fails to amaze me. I slowed the plane down and made sure I focused on the far end of the runway.......flare, keep it off..........pitch up higher......touchdown! What a great night!