Ron did it!!

Congratulations Ron! Nice writeup. Sounds like a very intense 10 days.


--
Jack Allison
PP-ASEL-Instrument Airplane

"To become a Jedi knight, you must master a single force. To become
a private pilot you must strive to master four of them"
- Rod Machado

(Remove the obvious from address to reply via e-mail)

Well, yeah but think of the fun you could have saying things like "Gee
Ron, it only took me 12 (13, whatever...but less than 25) years of
flying before I got my instrument rating. :-)


--
Jack Allison
PP-ASEL-Instrument Airplane

"To become a Jedi knight, you must master a single force. To become
a private pilot you must strive to master four of them"
- Rod Machado

(Remove the obvious from address to reply via e-mail)

Congrats Ron,

Great write up.

Enjoy the new privaledges...

Jay Beckman
PP-ASEL
Chandler, AZ

Ron Natalie wrote:

Cell towers rarely top 200', most are much less.

And most new ones seem to be shorter than typical old ones, as "cells"
get smaller and smaller.

"Bob Noel" wrote:


ok, take away the GPS too. :-)

I bet George wouldn't like that (George is our autopilot).

It's hardly useful practice to fly under the hood with the a/p on.
sheesh.

Ok, why?

I use the AP when flying IAPs for real; why shouldn't I practice with it?

--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

Dan Luke wrote:
"Bob Noel" wrote:


I bet George wouldn't like that (George is our autopilot).
It's hardly useful practice to fly under the hood with the a/p on.
sheesh.

Ok, why?

I use the AP when flying IAPs for real; why shouldn't I practice with it?


I'd like to hear the answer, as well.

Bob Noel wrote:
In article ,
Margy Natalie wrote:

ok, take away the GPS too. :-)

I bet George wouldn't like that (George is our autopilot).

It's hardly useful practice to fly under the hood with the a/p on. sheesh.



I thought the suggestion of doing my partial panel approach on the
checkride with the autopilot was cheating too, but the examiner
suggested it.

Roger (K8RI) wrote:

Yah, but that means you could brag that you were able to get the
rating in about half the time it took him.:-))


Not only can she probably do it in fewer years, but I suspect with
a little practice on the 480 in advance, she could probably do it
in fewer instructor days. While I had a reasonable amount of
button mashing experience with the 480 for VFR purposes and I had
managed to get it in approach mode for the one certification
flight test, I really didn't have much experience with it.

: Congrats!
:
: Now remember, IFR in a light plane can only really safely go in about
: 20% of the instrument weather mother nature can throw at you.
:
: However, an instrument rated pilot can go in about 40% of the VFR
: weather that would have been too risky for a VFR-only pilot to attempt,
: due to the the risk of weather closing in being too great.
:
: Therefore paradoxically, by getting an instrument rating you will find
: yourself flying a lot more VFR than you had before :-)

: Uh, ok. That's not the case for me, nor most of the pilots I know.

I can say that it *is* the case for me. Being in Virginia with most
cross-country flights to the north or northwest, actually flying IFR in a
non-high-performance piston-pounder is often less safe than VFR. Between the
convective activity in the summer, and the icing in the 6000' MEA's over West
Virginia, *filing* is often a fool's game. Flying 1500' AGL VFR is safer than getting
stuck in VMC on top of an icing layer IMO.

I don't know if I quite agree with your 20% of instrument weather number or
40% of the VFR weather. I'd probably double those numbers so long as you stay
current. Of course... there are some that say that flying IMC in a single is unsafe
at any speed.

-Cory

--

************************************************** ***********************
* Cory Papenfuss, Ph.D., PPSEL-IA *
* Electrical Engineering *
* Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University *
************************************************** ***********************

My number are just a swag. However my point is, an instrument rating
in a light plane does a lot more to give you *options* flying VFR than
to give you the ability to fly real, hard-core IFR.

A lot of IFR flights people done in light planes, if they really look
back and think about it, can be done VFR. However a VFR pilot
shouldn't really attempt those flights because there're great chances
of running out of options. An instrument pilot can however fly in
really crummy VFR weather while still have options. When icing
condition, TS, or terrain forcing MEA to be be well over 10k like what
we have out west, flying VFR while keeping the options of getting a
clearance is often the safest way of doing it.

Not to mention the fuel and time savings in flying VFR in many cases.

I don't know if I quite agree with your 20% of instrument weather number or
40% of the VFR weather. I'd probably double those numbers so long as you stay
current. Of course... there are some that say that flying IMC in a single is unsafe
at any speed.