Hold Training Review, Aera 500, Google Earth

This is a quick analysis of the hold from a few days ago.  The track information was downloaded from a Garmin Aera 500 and uploaded into Google Earth.  This was easy to do, but the number of options in Google Earth mean that you can waste a great deal of time fiddling with them.

The hold was unpublished, "Hold south on 180 inbound, maintain 200, all turns left."  Since we were inbound on a track of 154, this results in a parallel entry.  The track enters from the north and turns right to take up 180.  It is angled with respect to the road boundaries since the courses are all magnetic.  This track centered the needle until the timer was up.

The first turn is to the right and returns to intercept the Whatcom VOR.  This is approximately 30 degrees past the reciprocal but I was "augmenting" the navigation using the VFR gps and flew direct to and over the VOR

The track then over-shoots.  The first left turn is delayed and so the track drifts east.  When the track returns to the first out-bound leg the aircraft is too far east.  So the inbound leg of the hold overshoots the 180 radial to the east as well and must re-intercept the inbound radial.  This is where the first error in judgement was made.  Despite checking the winds aloft and knowing there was a almost no wind, I assumed that was wrong, and that a more significant westerly wind had blown me to the east.  Instead, I had overshot the first interception and was too far east as a result.

On the subsequent outbound leg the course was corrected five degrees.  After the inbound turn the aircraft was too far to west this time and the radial was intercepted again.  At this point we declared the hold exercise complete and turned for Victoria.

In short, a positional error due to a late turn was interpreted as a wind drift, and the wrong correction applied.  If I had of simply maintained the outbound track a perfect intercept would have resulted.

Lessons learned:
 - wait until a definite correction is required while inbound on a radial with the needle centered and stable.
 - turn as soon as the flag twitches when intercepting on the inbound.