Kevin
As an old IFR CFI, I always tell my students that at between the
50%-75% point in the IFR training, they will throw their hands in the
air and scream..."I can't take it anymore...This is too much for me.."
All the time I am laughing outloud and making sure they see me do it
while telling them.."I told you so.."
At some point, it suddenly falls into place and comes together. There
is a lot of info and skill involved in becoming an IFR pilot and its
pretty difficult to do it in a short period of time. The brain is
processing the info and is affected by outside influences like daily
life? So don't be disheartened and keep in mind what I said! And, if
you become a CFII, you'll do well to remember your own frustrations,
and what I said.
It is so sweet to grind around in the goo and when you pop out of the
crud with the centerline right in front of you and all is under control
while you maintain a Mr. Studly cool voice on the radio.... it just
plain feels good.
I think my first actual IFR approach in a helicopter was in 1974 going
into Durban So Africa and it was an NDB. When I popped out of the
bottom of the cloud deck the tower was amazed that it was a helicopter
and they said they had never seen it done before. That was in a 206B
flying for Astra Helicopters at Rand Airport. Pretty straighforward
approach.
As for mountain flying. SoCal has some pretty hostile terrain and few
ever think of it. If you were to check on the numbers of crashes on the
hills east of Brown Field...? Or in the big hills east of LA, or on
Saddleback in Orange County...etc. once you get above about 4500' you
are in serious mountainous terrain and CA is full of such terrain.
I based out of SNA for about 20 years and that was nearly 20 years
ago.. So I guess that makes me a dinosaur. Woahh...gg
Ol S&B