Gotchas in Paradise

Knowing Good and Evil was a problem in the original Paradise, but around the PDZ VOR, managing direction, altitude, and what’s next is your only hope of success.

Ryan Koch and Jeff Van West

Sunday, November 24, 2024 at 08:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

This sim challenge involves four complex instrument approaches near Los Angeles, designed to test pilot skills under challenging conditions including significant wind gradients and low visibility.
Each approach contains specific "gotchas" such as inoperative VORs, unusually steep descent angles, awkward course changes, and the potential for misidentifying parallel runways.
The exercise emphasizes the critical need for meticulous pre-flight briefing, precise hand-flying, accurate navigation, and strict adherence to published and alternate procedures in instrument flight conditions.

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This Sim Challenge will keep you busy with four complex approaches in close proximity. Choose any plane you want. Brief each procedure carefully as each contains both subtle and not-so-subtle traps and gotchas. Use an FAA-approved sim and you’ll be 4/6 of the way to resetting currency.

Position the plane at Bracket Field (KPOC). Set surface wind to 310 at 10 knots, and another layer at 4000 feet of 030 at 40. That’s a significant wind gradient that you’ll have to anticipate and manage as you fly these approaches. We recommend hand flying to make things even more, um, interesting.