Citation II type rating - Day 10 - Cold weather day

Jepp charts. Lots of professional pilots use them. I never have, neither does almost anyone I know. But of course that's what we're using in training, so although I could just bring up FAA charts on Foreflight, I decided to just learn the Jepps. Approach charts I had seen enough before that I didn't need a whole lot of practice with them. But for SIDs and STARs I've never used and have only rarely seen the Jepp versions!

Compare:

With:

I definitely had to hunt around to find the information.

Today as you may have guessed we flew from Seattle Intl. It was simulating a cold weather day, with snow at SEA, low IFR, and icing conditions along our route, which took us down to Portland Intl, PDX.

It was another day of problems. Engine anti-ice failure, bleed air leak, anti-skid brake system failure, generator failure, engine fire, circuit breaker panel fire, low hydraulic level and pressure, and of course the landing gear wouldn't extend!

In addition to that, we flew three instrument approaches at PDX. The first one was the most challenging - the PDX LOC/DME RWY 21.

Of course we started at BTG VORTAC and had to fly the whole thing, procedure turn and all. Look at all those stepdown fixes! In addition, it's steeper than normal, at a 3.43 degree descent angle, and sure enough I was having trouble keeping the speed under control while making that descent. Had to use the speedbrakes a few times but I imagine I probably could have avoided that with a little better speed and descent planning.

The instructor must have had the visibility set at about 1/2 mile, because once we finally did see the runway I was too high and close (700 MSL/674 AGL) for a safe approach. Missed approach, the published one, of course! This approach is just as busy or even moreso for the copilot who has to set all the radios, altitude preselects, run the checklists and keep the pilot out of trouble. It's a good training approach!

Tomorrow we sweat - "high temperature day" and engine failures in mountainous terrain. That checkride is getting closer!