Before moving on, there is one more flight routine that will really sharpen your flying skills. Appropriately enough, it's called:

Practice, Practice, Practice

This practice session is fairly simple, incorporating airspeed control, level turns, descents and climbs. Fly the practice pattern with the visibility and ceiling set to minimums so that you have only the instruments for reference. All later flight manoeuvres will be simple once you have mastered this pattern.

Seven minutes is all it takes to fly this practice pattern.

It's easiest to fly this practice pattern if you first click here to download the picture and flight instructions.

Begin the flight at 1000 ft AGL, then:

1. Slow to approach airspeed, and fly straight and level for one minute.
2. Begin a descent for one minute at approach airspeed and a 500-fpm rate of descent.
3. Level off at 500 ft, and fly one minute at approach airspeed.
4. Make a level, standard-rate turn. Remember that a standard-rate turn is 3 degrees per second. Make this turn for one minute, which should result in a turn of 180 degrees.
5. Climb for one minute at climb airspeed and a 500-fpm rate of climb.
6. Here you should be at your initial 1000 ft altitude. At this point, accelerate to cruise airspeed and cruise power.
7. Make a standard-rate level turn for one minute, rolling out on your initial heading.

When you fly this pattern the second time, make the turns in the opposite direction, and alternate the directions of the turns from then on.

During the descent segment—B—you should use as many different aircraft configurations as you can. In other words, make one simulated approach in the clean configuration, using only power to adjust the rate of descent. Then, make a descent by lowering the gear, adjusting power as necessary to maintain a 500-fpm descent. Finally, use various flap settings, with and without the gear, paying attention to the specific pitch attitude and the approximate power setting needed for each type of descent. This sounds complicated, but the variations are only for one segment, B.

Next, fly the level turn segment—D—with the gear down and the flaps in the clean and the proper manoeuvring position. No matter what configuration you are using in segment D, you have to remember to clean up the aircraft—raise the flaps and gear—when you begin the climb in segment E.

Learn the DC-3 thoroughly. Practice this pattern once a day until controlling the aircraft becomes second nature, which will happen sooner than you think.

Practice until:

• You can change the gear and flap configurations without gaining or losing any altitude.
• The airspeed remains nailed where you want it.
• One minute of descent results in a loss of exactly 500 feet, one minute of climb results in a gain of exactly 500 feet, and the one-minute turns come out to exactly 180 degrees.

Once you have mastered this basic pattern, you can make one change in it that will turn it into a procedure that at one time was part of all ATP flight tests: the Canyon Approach was, and is, an excellent test of aircraft control.

As the captain of an aircraft, you have been cleared for an approach to an airport located in a canyon. You reduce power to approach airspeed in segment A. At the beginning of segment B you cross the initial approach fix—a radio beacon theoretically located on the rim of the canyon—at 1000 ft, lower gear and flaps, and descend to a minimum descent altitude of 500 ft.

Once down to the 500 ft minimum descent altitude, you fly out the allotted time, which in this pattern is depicted as segment C—one minute at approach speed—and when you don't see the airport, you initiate the missed approach procedure. In this case; the missed approach procedure calls for an immediate 180-degree climbing turn as depicted in segment D, which will take you back to the 1000 ft initial altitude. Naturally, the gear and flaps must be retracted during the wave-off.

The one change you have made to the original practice pattern is that you no longer make that nice level turn at D. Instead, you have combined segments D and E into a climbing turn. Still, it's necessary to be at the initial altitude and the reciprocal heading as you complete the one-minute climbing turn.

Courtesy, J. R. Williams, The Art of Instrument Flying