Lotta hand flyin' goin' on

Took off from KSJC in the Daher TBM bound for KSMF (Sacramento Intl.) and inadvertently turned what should've been an easy 30-35 minute flight mostly on autopilot--save for the last few hundred feet AGL--into a 49-minute skills test. I was at 1,400 ft. on final for an ILS approach to RWY 31L-- and fiddling with my Logitech multipanel trying to activate the ILS approach while watching the Garmin 3000's PFD to see if the AP had in fact latched onto the glideslope--when I accidentally turned off the AP. (I'd been turning the APR and ALT buttons on the multipanel on and off when I disengaged the AP without meaning to.) I didn't notice the AP was off until I glanced up from the instrument display to discover I was badly misaligned with the runway. ATC noticed this as well and ordered me to climb to 3,400 feet and go around. I pushed the throttle forward, raised flaps and gear and did as told. The autopilot was of no use to me at this point (to be fair, there might have been a way to use it, but I was clueless about that), so I went around without it.

This turned out to be a useful exercise in: (1) hand-trimming the Daher for level flight in the downwind and base legs of a somewhat cock-eyed landing pattern, (2) using the PFD's localizer and visual cues to line up with the runway for the final approach, (3) using visual cues to descend to the runway, and (4) keeping a constant eye on the Daher's airspeed and throttling up/down as necessary to make the runway without stalling the plane short of it. The end result was a gratifyingly smooth touchdown. The Daher is really a pleasure to fly--in the sim, anyway.

I remain confused about how to activate an ILS approach in the Working Title-modded G-3000. In the modded G-1000, you have an option at the start of a flight to either "load" or "activate" an ILS approach. The other day, I flew the Beech Bonanza from Watsonville to San Jose on autopilot, loading the ILS approach to RWY 31L at KSJC into the MFD before taking off and activating it on final by pressing the APR button on my Logitech multipanel. The Bonanza immediately commenced following the glideslope down to the runway. The G-3000's MFD PROC screen doesn't give you a choice between loading and activating an ILS approach. The only option is to "activate" it. Today I activated the ILS approach on the MFD screen before I took off, in hopes it would kick in when the time came, but it did not, and pressing Logitech multipanel's APR button didn't activate it either. Would waiting until the start of final to activate an ILS approach on the G-3000's multi-flight display work better? Or does the modded G-3000 need more work? Anybody?