pre-IFR training/preparation?

Is there anything in particular to look for in an instrument
instructor (in addition to the criteria used when finding a private
pilot
instructor)?

Look for someone who uses his instrument rating to actually go places
on a regular basis in IFR weather. It won't be easy, but they are out
there.

Michael

Jonathan,
I am a 'pre-IFR' student myself and had started a somewhat 'rigorous'
self-training routine since last Christmas. My current plan is to pass
the written by the end of this month while getting some official IFR
training so that I will be ready for an intensive 7 days or so East
Coast or West Coast IFR trip (http://www.dsflight.com/new-england.html
or http://www.ifrwest.com/enrollment_westcoast.html) or a similar
accelerated training program to get the rating in the spring.
Since both my husband and myself plan to get the instrument rating
this year, we have quite a 'library' of instrument training books. We
have probably every book which I found recommended at
rec.aviation.student etc. with the exception of Jeppesen book (based on
my bad impression with the Jeppesen private pilot training series and
of course its high price). Rick, my husband, started his training about
a year ago and had pretty much read all the books (he passed his
written last summer scoring something like 98). The Gleim Instrument
Pilot FAA Knowledge Test is probably the cheapest and most efficient
way to prepare for the written (I had just completed the book in two
weeks and have scored 95 to 100% on all the online practice tests at
http://www.exams4pilots.com/ and http://www.webexams.com/).
For IFR knowledge gaining purpose, Rick recommended me to use Bob
Gardner's The Complete Advanced Pilot with more in-depth information
from Trevor Thom ASA-PM3 Instrument Flying. For practical IFR
learning, Rick liked 1) Mastering Instrument Flying by Sherwood Harris
and Henry Sollman 2) Ralph Butcher's Instrument Pilot Flight Training
Manual and 3) Peter Dogan's PIC's Instrument Flight Training Manual
(listed in the order of his preference). I have read only a chapter or
two of each book but generally agree with his recommendations.
For flight simulations, we started with MS FS 2002/04 and gave
X-plane a brief try. After seeing that the Elite FS is used by a nearby
flight school, we decided to buy our own version along with an IFR
training book ($190 or so for the program and $50 for the book). I
completed the training book in about two weeks practicing an hour or so
everyday. In our experience, this is probably the cheapest and most
efficient way for IFR training on your own. We wished that we had
purchased this program earlier. It would have made Rick's earlier
official training with an instructor much more efficient. Regarding the
FS hardware, we used to use a Thrustmaster joystick but had replaced
with a CH flight yoke and found it a bit closer to 'real' flying in our
Cardinal C177B.
Rick's last two lessons with an instructor was last fall where he
had to do the entire IFR cross country trips which left him completely
exhausted at the end. The extra pressure was ATC communication in
busy airspace. Although we have some experience with ATC communications
(our home base is at a D and we have done quite a bit of cross country
trips with flight following going to or through C and B airspaces), we
decided to increase our ATC exposure by listening to NY approach 132.75
on our IFR practices (serving as safety pilot for each other) and
purchased 1) Comm 1 IFR Communications Trainer 2) Comm1 IFR Clearance
on Request and 3) Jeppesen ATC Clearance Training Audio Tape.
In summary, after spending about 5 weeks of serious pre-IFR
training (3 weeks with the Elite FS, 2 weeks with the Gleim book), I
feel that I have a pretty good overall exposure to IFR training. I am
quite confident that I would meet my goal of passing the IFR written at
the end of this month and get the rating in the spring. BTW, we did
our IFR practice yesterday with VFR tracking, NDB tracking and NDB
approach. It was the first time that I actually completed a NDB
approach. I was a bit comprehensive in having to descend so fast for
landing and had to slip quite a bit but the landing was good. I
repeated the approach on the simulator last night refining all the
steps and added some crosswinds. Next time, I will make sure to get
more simulator time before the real flying.
Hai Longworth

Try to find an instructor with experience in the system...flying Part 135 or
the equivalent. A whole bunch of hours accumulated while training students
does not compare with experience outside of the training environment.

Bob Gardner

"Ray" wrote in message
...
Is there anything that recent (or not-so-recent) IFR students wish you
had done in preparation for training? (specific books to read, home
flight simulator)

I'm also in the pre-IFR stage and would like to add the following question
to Jonathon's. Is there anything in particular to look for in an
instrument
instructor (in addition to the criteria used when finding a private pilot
instructor)?

Thanks,
- Ray

Bob,

I never had any problems doing multiple approaches, holds or whatever in
IMC after getting a clearance from ATC... Even pop-up clearances were
not a problem for me around here anyway... Basically they would clear
us for whatever we wanted to accomplish and then talk to them when were
were ready to move on... This of course is not in busy airspace...

I agree that the fancy full motion simulators are great for training the
Big-Iron but the Elite Sim we have to use is pretty useless unless you
program in some scenarios that you could not practice live..

Jon Kraus
PP-ASEL-IA
'79 Mooney 201 4443H


Bob Moore wrote:
Jon Kraus wrote


Get an instructor that isn't afraid to get you into the clag... Seems
like I have been reading about some CFII's that don't want to get the
students up into the clouds... Why I don't know...


I'll tell you why Jon....As a 20,000+ hour former navy and retired
airline pilot who served as an instrument instructor in both services,
and has been an FAA authorized instrument instructor for 35 years...
I'm in charge of the training session...not ATC. I try my best to
maximize my student's lesson time as opposed to following ATC's
directions to keep me clear of other traffic. By using an enroute
VOR out in the sticks completely away from an airport and under VFR, I
can accomplish 2-3 times the number of holds and approaches in a given
period than I can under IFR control. I want to be able to allow the
student learn from his mistakes without incurring the wrath of ATC and
endangering other aircraft.
In the airline industry, we learned very early on that you did not have
to set foot in a B-747 in order to learn how to fly one, the simulator
is a much better training tool. The same holds true for instrument
training...the simulator is best followed by simulated instrument in
the aircraft.

Bob Moore
ATP B-727 B-707
Flight Instructor, Airplanes/Instrument
PanAm (retired)

I second this! I started off with one that wouldn't fly actual in the
rental birds, and migrated to one who loved to. WHAT A DIFFERENCE! If
you can find a CFI who is willing to fly hard IFR at night with you,
you'll be getting a much better education than otherwise.

As a side note, our local FSDO does accident talks and one of the big
causes of fatal crashes they are always listing is freshly rated
instrument pilots going into actual for the first time.

As for prepping, King CD roms/DVD are good. I'd also recomend
Kershner's instrument text and the Jeppesen weather text. You'll need
to undrestand wx like the back of your hand. Hood time with a safety
pilot under flight following is a good way to start building experience
as well as hours.

Helen

*AFTER* you have done the ground school and *AFTER* you have done at
least 2 different approaches, you might try to set this all up on a
simulator to get a better feel for things. On the simulator, use the
same airports that you are used to so you can use the same approach
plates.

Next, there is an XC that you need to do for IFR. TRY TRY TRY to
schedule this in an IMC sistuation. I was in a 141 school and actually
flew that in actual (went into the clouds at 700' AGL) -- one VOR
approach, one LOC approach (that I completely screwed up) with going
missed to get radar vectors back and try again, and finally ILS with
side-step to parallel runway (Burk Lake Front - BKL).

Maked a big difference for me in flying instruments. And flying at
night under the hood is also EXCELLENT experience. Real IMC on a
moonless night is a very high workload for a single pilot. Closest I
came to that was about a year ago when there was a lunar eclipse (and
my DG decided to precess while climbing out and picking up rime).

And the thing that I wish I had been able to do was to sit at an
airport during IMC and listen and try to copy clearances. Be sure to
make the instructor explain the procedures for using RCO, FSS w/
Clearance Void, and Towered Field procedures for IFR.

Lastly, read the book that your Instrument Ground School uses. Read it
before you take the class. Then you will be able to appreciate the
class more. And if you can, go to a WINGS program on Instrument Flight
issues.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Later,
Steve.T
PP ASEL/Instrument

On Fri, 04 Feb 2005 12:00:33 GMT, Jon Kraus wrote:

Get an instructor that isn't afraid to get you into the clag... Seems
like I have been reading about some CFII's that don't want to get the
students up into the clouds... Why I don't know...

I HAVE TO SECOND this opinion from Jon.

One of the absolute best things that happened to me, was my first
instructor had me in IMC and had me go down to ILS minimums. This was the
same lesson where I had to execute "real" missed approaches due to the fact
the ceilings dropped below minimums at my own airport and I had to divert
to the airport with an ILS.

I did three lessons at almost 2 hours each lesson in hard IFR. It was
brutal, but having been through that, all of my solo IMC experiences were
nothing to compare to as I was well prepared due to my first instructor.

To re-iterate Peter R's post, simulated hood does nothing to prepare you
for actual conditions. There is nothing like looking around and seeing
absolutely nothing and getting bounced around in turbulence with no visual
references and having to talk to yourself OUTLOUD to trust the instruments.

Not to take away from my second instructor skills, as he taught me many
different techniques that my first instructor did not show me, which more
or less refined my cockpit management skills to be much more ahead of the
plane then I probably would have learned from my first instructor.

My first instructor was in the school of thought, that the airplane doesn't
care what the weather is outside, and to fly hard IFR or VMC on top
shouldn't make any difference to the pilot.

My second instructor was a believer that the IFR rating for a single engine
plane was to launch, get through the cloud deck and VMC above and then
descend through the cloud deck and land.

So, in a nutshell, having two different instructor was a huge benefit for
me, as they both had their own strengths, and I was determined to take full
advantage of their strengths while I was under their wings.

By the I did my first IMC solo approaches in ceilings of 1000 feet, it was
no big deal. I am currenty up to 16 hours of actual, in which I have done
about 7.4 hours post training.

I only hope you get the same quality instruction that I received from both
of my instructors.

Allen

Thanks for all of the info!

I hadn't thought of passing the written before taking the actual lessons,
but it is an interesting idea.

I'll dive into the books and read as much as I can and hit the flight
simulator a bit in the next few months.

I have only been in true IMC once, when my CFI took me up to show me
what it was like - boy was my heart racing... I think I understand the
value of training in it. We do get quite a bit of fog here in the Bay
Area, so I should be able to work it in.

Jonathan


In Jonathan Sorger
wrote:
I will be starting IFR training soon and would like to minimize the
pain / maximize my learning potential.

Is there anything that recent (or not-so-recent) IFR students wish you
had done in preparation for training? (specific books to read, home
flight simulator)

A friend has invited me to tag along in the back seat during his
lessons and I have learned a great deal following along while looking
at the approach charts... I have found it an excellent way to become
familiar with alot of the terminology.

Thanks,