"Richard Hertz" no one@no one.com wrote in message
et...

"Fred" wrote in message
ink.net...
Have you ever carefully studied what the regulations actually REQUIRE
regarding the
various experience requirements for an instrument rating?

The XC requirement in particular, is one that oftentimes unnecessarily
adds
to the cost
of an instrument rating and delays getting it.

According to the FAA, a pilot who already has a private pilot
certificate
and is
RATED in the airplane, can log PIC time, even while receiving dual
instruction.

This means that an instrument training XC trip, which is NOT on an
instrument flight plan (you don't have an instrument rating yet so you
can't
file IFR as PIC) but is under the hood with an instructor as safety
pilot,
can be logged as PIC XC.......so you can make the same time do double
duty.

Much instrument training is done this way, with the instructor acting as
ATC.
Most of your instrument training will be hood time. Do it on a XC
using
instrument
navigation procedures and you can save as much as 20-30 hours or more of
the
additional cost of having to do it over twice. (The rules do not say
SOLO
XC
the rules say PIC XC )



How do you come up with 20 to 30 hours?

The rules require 10 hours with an instructor. The rest can be PIC with
an instructor as safety pilot. 40-10 = 30. That adds up to 40 hours.


Doing cross countries is no place to start learning IFR procedures. You
should spend time in a sim beforehand, then make your way to a plane.
Your
proposal I think is something that most people are aware of. Thanks for
the
"help."

Actually, I find a lot of pilots under the mis-impression that they have to
have
the 50 hours BEFORE they start the IFR or that the 50 hours has to be
separate
from the IFR training or in addition to it.

I would respectfully disagree that doing cross countries is no place to
start
learning IFR procedures.

I would suggest that cross countries are a very good place to start
learning them, to practice them, and to master them because this is what IFR
flying is all about, namely
using the plane for XC under acceptable weather conditions that are not VFR.

Flying IFR is not much different from flying VFR except that you are using
the gauges
instead of getting confused by looking at all the clutter on the maps and
looking
outside all the time.

IFR charts are easier to read, easier to interpret, and easier to navigate
with.

You learned how to navigate by pilotage for your private and you learned how
to
dead reckon, deal with lost procedures etc so you already know how to do
this.

The next step is to learn to control the plane more precisely and doing it
with the slight
additional workload of keeping up with your times, etas, etc is not much
more, IF you
have learned to PLAN properly in the first place.......

There is nothing wrong with practicing VFR XC when you feel like it, but if
you are interested in getting on with getting your skills up to the highest
level, as soon as possible, the sooner you learn the IFR procedures the
sooner you can use them and, within limits,
I would assert that you will be a safer pilot because of it.

An Instrument rating certainly brings your skills to a much higher precision
level
and the training makes you much more aware of weather, the limitations it
imposes,
and gives you more latitude in dealing with the problems that weather
presents
and certainly makes you a more precise pilot.

As you gain experience, hopefully your judgment gets better and better.

The reason that I like to teach IFR things on an XC is that

1. You have to plan the trip, in advance, very well. This means that you
have to
think about the trip more, BEFORE you leave the ground, so you can have a
low
stress, enjoyable flight. This is what you should be doing VFR, but the
IFR
routine enforces it more.

You have to consider the weather, terrain, winds, altitudes, etc a lot more,
which
you should on a VFR XC also.......but doing it IFR (or IFR under the hood in
training) gives you more practice, sooner, rather than later, so you learn
these
important skills earlier in the game.

That translates into thinking about setting up your frequencies ahead of
time, setting up your radios ahead of time, and setting up your COURSES
ahead of time, so mostly what you have to deal with is waiting for things to
happen. i.e. to get to an intersection and change the direction, fly your
new heading while maintaining your altitude and wait for the next heading or
altitude change.

Otherwise, all you have to do is keep the plane right side up, on heading
and on
altitude, and talk with ATC or your instructor and adhere to your
"clearance".

2. The basics of navigation remain the same, except that it is a lot easier
to navigate
with radios than it is to navigate by DR and pilotage, especially at night,
as well as,
being generally safer, because, you can get a positive fix from your radios,
whereas you
often cannot when flying VFR at every second of the flight.

When you learn this way, you reduce the overall problem to one of aircraft
systems
management and because you take things in the order that they happen and
learn to
expect them, you reduce a complex problem to something that comes in natural
stages
with a purpose.

This all reduces the problem to controlling the airplane within IFR
tolerances
+/- 100 feet and +/- 10 degrees of heading and you have almost the entire
flight
to practice this skill, so you get a lot of practice tracking the VOR,
intercepting
courses, and when you get to the other end, you get to make an approach,
which
for the most part, is just flying headings and maintaining altitude.

You need practice to get your skill level to stay within the altitude and
heading
tolerances. This is a good place to do it, because you don't have a lot of
distractions
and it has a purpose....ie.to get you to your destination.

Mastering the ability to stay ahead of the airplane means PLANNING.....which
means setting up your radios so you stay ahead of the airplane and wait for
them
to indicate you have reached a checkpoint, so you can do the next thing
required.

PLANNING is the essence of a stress free IFR flight and I have found that it
is most easily learned by doing......which is what IFR flying is all about.

When I was working on my instrument rating, I found that instructors usually
would
go out to teach a subject, such as intercepting a course, maintaining an
altitude,
flying an ADF course, or just holding heading and altitude, without having
another
purpose

Sure, I knew we were "going to practice IFR under the hood", but it didn't
have
the same purpose of actually going somewhere and it made it much more
difficult
for me to understand why each thing was important...so we didn't go through
the
PLANNING stage which is essential to building IFR skills quickly.

When I finally got to the XC stage, I had an additional burden of putting it
all together
and would continually forget to do things that needed to be done, well ahead
of time,
because in the incremental way I was taught, the crucial PLANNING OF THE
FLIGHT was neglected, because we were really not going anywhere......just
out to
the VOR across to the ILS and down for an approach.

This PLANNING is crucial when learning to fly IFR because you have to learn
to
stay ahead of the airplane. Going through the steps on an IFR XC gives
you a
lot more practice, it doesn't hit you so fast, so you have a little more
time to get
your flight stabilized, and is an overall better way to learn.

Also, if you need a break, just tell your instructor and let him fly for a
while.

(Remember. If you are RATED in the plane and you have agreed that you are
PIC in advance, you can still log the time. That's a privilege of being
Captain
and letting your instructor be your co-pilot, even if he is an instructor.
He still can
log the time also because he is an instructor. That is one of his
privileges.)

Another important part of the XC hood work is that you build up some
endurance
on a 2-3 hour flight.

In the beginning, IFR can be tiresome, so you need to build up the
endurance. When
you do it for real, and are really in the soup, you are in it until you
break out. You
can't just take the hood off. So you need to build up your endurance. The
more
practice you get the better you can tolerate it.

Last, this actually builds your overall skills very quickly.

You might like to read how one pilot did it at
http://10day.cjb.net
(When the page comes up, wait a moment for the popup which is the story
of David Sears, a candidate for the US Air Force Academy who wanted
an instrument rating on his resume for his Congressional interview. David
did it in 7 days of flying with 3 days when the weather was too bad to
fly.).