Real Life (in IMC) IFR training

T,

Find a school or instructor who uses a simulator to train. A plane in
the air is a bad classroom.


I guess if he wants "real life training", it will have to be real life,
not simulated.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

On Thu, 02 Nov 2006 12:59:30 GMT, "Roy N5804F"
wrote:


I am training for my Instrument ticket.
My CFII has a strong belief that during training we fly on actual IFR flight
plans and in IMC as much as possible.
He tells me where we are going and my task is to plan the route, file the
IFR plan and fully brief him, before getting my own clearance.

Other than the first time in actual he had me flight plan, file, and
go. (The only briefing was where we goin'?) How'd ja file? Direct,
airways, or direct nav aids. He knew I liked to go direct from one
VOR to the next, or use the RNAV offsets for long haul direct. That's
someting you don't hear much in clearances any more.

One time coming back out of OSH the VOR was out at Manitawak (or how
ever you spell it) I just took a guess at the distance from green bay
and filed GRB 180 at 20 or 30 or what ever it was.

I also get to decide which instrument approach to request at the destination
airport.
Wherever possible we are flying in IMC and then I get the chance to take the
hood off.
If we cannot find IMC altitudes, I keep the hood on for the entire flight

We used to just ask for non cardinal altitudes if they were available.
I think we were only refused once.

after passing 500ft until down to Minimums at the destination airport.
He allows some, but not continual, use of the single axis autopilot which is
coupled to the GNS530 via a roll steering convertor.
In fact these flights are achieving objectives for both of us.
For me - I am training for my Instrument ticket, for my CFII - He is getting
help from me in using the GNS530 as a full flight management tool.
When I get my ticket, for sure I will pretty familier with working in the
System [and in IMC], but it is a steep learning curve doing it this way !


Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

T wrote:

Find a school or instructor who uses a simulator to train. A plane in
the air is a bad classroom.

Hahaha. I read somewhere that Robin Williams is looking for a new opening
act.


--
Peter

"T" wrote in message
...
Find a school or instructor who uses a simulator to train. A plane in the
air is a bad classroom.

Yes and no. Yes, a plane in the air is a bad classroom, but a classroom on
the ground is a good one. Any school that doesn't have a good chunk of
traditional whiteboards-and-hand-waving ground school/preparation for each
flight, and then a decent chunk of debriefing afterwards, is likely not to
be a good place to learn. This doesn't mean that you have to brief all
flights for ages (if there's not much to say, don't say much) but that you
should brief _appropriately_.

When I did my IMC rating (a 15-hour UK-only course) we probably averaged
30-40 minutes on the ground for each hour spent in the air. Sometimes it was
less (e.g. "We're going to go and do some more ILS stuff like we did
yesterday") and sometimes more. Without fail each flight would be followed
by one or two cups of coffee, over which we'd go into what I did well, what
could be improved, and how to improve it - and this was all written into my
folder so that any instructor I went up with could know exactly where I was
up to and what my shortcomings were.

As for simulators: they have their place, mainly as:

(a) An introduction
If you can show someone how an ILS behaves when you're too
high/low/left/right, how to ident a beacon, etc, etc on the ground then this
is cheaper and quicker than doing it in the air. My instructor used to
instruct on commercial helicopter sims, and he loved them because if you
wanted to (say) fly an approach again, you got the guy outside to press the
button and *bang*, there you were at the start of the approach - no farting
about flying around for 15 minutes to get back in position.

(b) A stress-free consolidation tool
I practised approaches a lot on a PC flight sim, and I found it helped - and
in fact I find maintaning height/speed slightly harder on a PC sim than in a
real aircraft because on a sim power control can be quite coarse and also
you don't get the "feel" of the result of your power changes that you get in
the real thing. Flying an ILS or NDB approach on a sim with a coffee beside
you and the knowledge that you're not going to kill yourself is a good way
to practise the processes and concepts.

It is, however, hugely important to actually get out and do this stuff in
real IMC. Yes, you can simulate howling winds in your sim, but actually
spending time doing it for real and trying out the techniques you've been
taught for flying a hold in a stiff wind. And I don't know a sim that can do
a talkdown (weirdly, I found talkdowns immense fun).

In the average (i.e. general aviation) case, then, a sensible course will be
a mix of ground school and flying, and simulators can be used as well (but
they shouldn't be used instead). Obviously this doesn't apply to commercial
types with their full-motion simulators, but that's an entirely different
world!

David C

On Fri, 10 Nov 2006 00:47:02 -0500, T wrote:

Find a school or instructor who uses a simulator to train. A plane in
the air is a bad classroom.

That may have been true when I trained. Screaming over noise made it
impossible to student and instructor to communicate and an analysis
had to wait until you were on the ground. Now everyone uses an
intercom, creating a completely different training environment.

IFR training in actual is different from training under the hood, or
even worse, a simulator. The hood or simulator can substitute for
clouds when no clouds are available, and a simulator may be helpful to
the spatially impaired, but a student who hasn't been taken into
clouds at least once has missed some important lessons. Even better
would be going into clouds under difficult conditions. Pity the newb
who has to face thunderstorms or ice alone for the first time, though
I have to wonder how an instructor could legally and safely devise
such a lesson.

RK Henry

In article ,
RK Henry wrote:

On Fri, 10 Nov 2006 00:47:02 -0500, T wrote:

Find a school or instructor who uses a simulator to train. A plane in
the air is a bad classroom.

That may have been true when I trained. Screaming over noise made it
impossible to student and instructor to communicate and an analysis
had to wait until you were on the ground. Now everyone uses an
intercom, creating a completely different training environment.

It's certainly true that headsets and intercomms have made the airplane
cockpit a vastly better place to teach. I still think there is value in
taking time on the ground to go over what you're going to do, and taking
time on the ground to reviewing what you've done.

On the ground, if I'm not getting my point across, I can stop, pull out a
reference book, draw on the whiteboard, etc. I'm also not distracted by
watching for traffic, listening to ATC, keeping us from busting our
clearance, double-checking that the student isn't about to kill us both,
etc. The student is also not distracted by watching the tach click over at
a buck or two a minute.

On the other hand, real time in the air (especially in IMC, and especially
in challenging conditions like turbulence, T-storms, icing, or night) is a
something that cannot be simulated (at least not in the kind of sims any of
us can afford time in).

I did an interesting X/C last week with a student. IFR, but we weren't in
clouds for more than a couple of minutes the whole day. Icing, flying over
open bodies of water, and hitting our designated time slot to meet customs
were the concerns. Most of the education value of the flight was working
to get in-flight route and altitude changes from ATC to keep us out of
icing and over land, and dealing with re-routes that messed up the time we
told customs to expect us. You don't get much experience working through
those sorts of real-life problems in a sim.

RK Henry wrote:
IFR training in actual is different from training under the hood, or
even worse, a simulator. The hood or simulator can substitute for
clouds when no clouds are available, and a simulator may be helpful to
the spatially impaired, but a student who hasn't been taken into
clouds at least once has missed some important lessons. Even better
would be going into clouds under difficult conditions. Pity the newb
who has to face thunderstorms or ice alone for the first time, though
I have to wonder how an instructor could legally and safely devise
such a lesson.



My first actual experience with a thunderstorm came when I had all of 1.4 hours
of hood time and a private license. I was flying a Cherokee Six down to Florida
one Friday night and was occasionally flying through little clouds... just a few
seconds worth at a time. I knew I was supposed to stay away from them but it
seemed harmless enough; like I said I'd be in and out again in just a few
seconds. No problem.

Then I flew into one that lasted longer than a few seconds. All of the sudden
all hell broke loose. It was all I could do to keep the wings level and not
lose control. I have no idea what my heading was or anything else; all I was
concentrating on was keeping the wings level. It was truly a preview of hell.

Almost as quickly as I was in it, I flew back out of it. I no longer had any
idea where I was and was totally flustered. I ended up getting a DF steer into
Dublin, GA, where I landed and regrouped. Jesus, I have never been so scared in
my life.

Anyway, I managed to complete that flight down to Panama City. Coming back, I
got stopped by widespread IMC and was quite inconvenienced. I started my
instrument training the next week.

Here we are 30 years later and I've flown through several cells in that time.
They still scare the hell out of me but sometimes you get what you get. That's
the price I sometimes have to pay to fly in the southeastern United States when
there is IMC about. I try to stay well clear but you don't always know what's
in the next patch of clouds. The embedded ones are the worst for sneaking up on
you.

Anyhow, that was my first experience in actual IMC. Made quite an impression on
me!



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN
mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com

"Mortimer Schnerd, RN" mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com wrote in message
...
My first actual experience with a thunderstorm came when I had all of 1.4
hours of hood time and a private license. I was flying a Cherokee Six
down to Florida one Friday night and was occasionally flying through
little clouds... just a few seconds worth at a time. I knew I was
supposed to stay away from them but it seemed harmless enough; like I said
I'd be in and out again in just a few seconds. No problem.

Unless you happen to collide with someone who's flying IFR.

--Gary

RN,

I knew I was supposed to stay away from them but it
seemed harmless enough; like I said I'd be in and out again in just a few
seconds. No problem.


Your no problem is my worst fear when flying IFR.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Thomas Borchert wrote:
RN,

I knew I was supposed to stay away from them but it
seemed harmless enough; like I said I'd be in and out again in just a few
seconds. No problem.


Your no problem is my worst fear when flying IFR.



I believe the statute of limitations has expired. You missed your chance to
have me flogged.




--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN
mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com