Captain Wubba wrote:
: No reason you can't do both. To do your instrument training all you
: need is the pitot/static and transponder check. I did all of my
: instrument training in an old Beech Musketeer with only a pair of
: KX-170Bs. For your checkride, all you need to do is three types of
: approaches (and a hold and some other basic stuff), and if you get a
: 'VFR' plane with a glideslope (a great many do, even many old 150s),
: you'll do a localizer approach, a VOR approach, and an ILS approach.

: Would I take in the soup for real? Not for any length of time. But to
: earn your rating, you don't need dual Garmin 430s. The hardest thing
: about instrument training isn't the approaches. It's developing the
: skills that will keep you from killing yourself. It's managing to stay
: upside-up. And those skills can certainly be developed in a VFR plane.

Well-said. The term "IFR-Certified" gets thrown around primarily to try to
increase the value of a plane during a sale. Many (most?) VFR planes have IFR
equipment (VOR, LOC, often a GS). All an "IFR-Certified" plane means is one that has
the altimeter checked along with the *required* VFR transponder biannual check.
That's it. No more, no less. Now, to actually fly IFR (i.e. accept an IFR
clearance), it must not only be certified, but equipped to fly the approaches you
intend to use. Having a LOC/VOR/GS is a very reasonable set of equipment for IFR
training. You only need one precision and two non-precision approaches for the
checkride. For actual IFR, having some redundancy built in and maybe a few more
gadgets (digital radios, DME, IFR GPS) would be nice to reduce workload. For
training, dual (or even single) KX-170B's is perfectly fine, and in a lot of ways
better since it's more difficult to triangulate VOR's than read a DME. The biggest
part of the IFR rating (80% or more) isn't flying approaches, but keeping the
shiny-side up and executing precision airwork with minimal concentration required.
Approaches are a natural byproduct of precision airwork, with just a couple more
things thrown in (i.e. convertning the symbols on the plates into the required
precision airwork). It's mostly about constantly cramming more workload onto yourself
until you can function automatically on the basics and have some CPU cycles left over
to do other things.

-Cory

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* Cory Papenfuss *
* Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student *
* Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University *
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