Real-world IFR currency

Matt Barrow wrote:

"Matt Whiting" wrote in message
...

I found that as I gained experience, I found it easier to stay current
and took less effort. After taking a 4 year hiatus and returning just
recently to flying, I'm feeling again like you are now. A month or two
between approaches makes a lot of difference. When I was flying 100
hours a year, I could take a two month break and hardly notice it.


Damn!! I flew nearly 400 hours last year and find I get rusty if there's a
long period without AMC thrown in. And As I mentioned, nearly all my flight
plans are IFR.



Yes, IFR doesn't mean IMC. I was talking about IMC (the between
approaches) comment as flying IFR in VMC is trivial.


Matt

"Matt Whiting" wrote in message
...
Matt Barrow wrote:

"Matt Whiting" wrote in message
...

I found that as I gained experience, I found it easier to stay current
and took less effort. After taking a 4 year hiatus and returning just
recently to flying, I'm feeling again like you are now. A month or two
between approaches makes a lot of difference. When I was flying 100
hours a year, I could take a two month break and hardly notice it.


Damn!! I flew nearly 400 hours last year and find I get rusty if there's
a
long period without AMC thrown in. And As I mentioned, nearly all my
flight
plans are IFR.



Yes, IFR doesn't mean IMC. I was talking about IMC (the between
approaches) comment as flying IFR in VMC is trivial.

I file IFR to keep those skills sharp since letting them deteriorate would
make the time gaps for IMC even harder to handle. That way all I have to
concentrate on is my claustrophobia instead of adding the mechanical skills
to the mix. :~)


--
Matt
---------------------
Matthew W. Barrow
Site-Fill Homes, LLC.
Montrose, CO

Matt Barrow wrote:

"Matt Whiting" wrote in message
...

Matt Barrow wrote:


"Matt Whiting" wrote in message
...


I found that as I gained experience, I found it easier to stay current
and took less effort. After taking a 4 year hiatus and returning just
recently to flying, I'm feeling again like you are now. A month or two
between approaches makes a lot of difference. When I was flying 100
hours a year, I could take a two month break and hardly notice it.


Damn!! I flew nearly 400 hours last year and find I get rusty if there's

a

long period without AMC thrown in. And As I mentioned, nearly all my

flight

plans are IFR.



Yes, IFR doesn't mean IMC. I was talking about IMC (the between
approaches) comment as flying IFR in VMC is trivial.


I file IFR to keep those skills sharp since letting them deteriorate would
make the time gaps for IMC even harder to handle. That way all I have to
concentrate on is my claustrophobia instead of adding the mechanical skills
to the mix. :~)

Yes, I do likewise, but I haven't found that my skills in talking
deteriorate all that fast... :-)


Matt

I've been flying over 30 years, and I have no problem staying current by FAA
standards. The problem I have with IFR currency is that when I fly my own
plane, it is just too easy to turn on that autopilot. Even though I fly
about 500 hours a year and dozens of actual IMC approaches, my hand-flying
skills are not what they should be. I have to force myself to hand-fly
enough approaches to stay safe even though that's not required by the FAA.
This usually amounts to two or three hand-flown approaches every three
months or so. That's not really enough to stay perfect, but it is enough,
coupled with the ones flown with the autopilot, to stay safe.

Russ


"Paul Folbrecht" wrote in message
...
Anyway, the question I find floating around my head a lot now is just how
much instrument flying, sim or actual, do I need to do to stay current?
Of course I'm not talking about what the regs say - I know what they say
and I know that 6 approaches every 6 months is not likely to keep me at a
level of currency that I'm comfortable with.

I'm looking for input from you guys that have had your rating for awhile
and who do stay current and fly in IMC regularly. What does it take,
realistically, for you to feel proficient and safe flying and shooting
approaches in actual? If you don't get actual time, do you still
regularly practice approaches simulated with a safety pilot? As your
overall time increases, does it take somewhat less flying to maintain that
same level of comfortable currency?

The regs say no. That's why many use hoods and safety pilots to keep
current.

Here in TN, we seem to get enough actual to stay current. That's not to say
I don't do recurrent training. The Beech Proficient Pilot program is great
for me.

Thx, {|;-)

Victor J. (Jim) Osborne, Jr.

You've gotten responses all over the map, so what's one more...

I fly about 20 hours of actual IMC a year, with a an approach or two
most months. All of this is hand-flown. Because I never turn on the
A/P in IMC, any shortcomings in proficiency are immediately obvious.
Also, I don't really feel like I'm getting enough IMC time to be giving
any away to the autopilot.

I find that this is enough to feel comfortable with the routine tasks
of flying IFR, but no reasonable amount would be enough to be
comfortable with the abnormals - engine failure, GPS failure, gyro
failure, etc. For that reason, I do recurrent training every 6-8
months, and this is typically 5-10 very intense hours.

I used to do more recurrent training (more frequently) but I find that
as the years and the hours accumulate, the skills take longer to
atrophy and less time to rebuild. I'm a firm believer in training to a
higher standard than the worst likely emergency because skills WILL
atrophy some. You probably won't be able to do it right out of the
gate, but you should be aiming for being able to do a night circling
NDB without moving map assist, partial panel, to a short obstructed
poorly lit runway. And if you're in a twin, you should do it single
engine.

My general recommendation is a 3-10 hour recurrent training cycle
(depending on the complexity of your airplane and its systems) on a
regular basis. I think every 6-8 weeks makes sense for a novice IFR
pilot. Once you accumulate your first 25 hours and 25 real approaches,
you can probably back that off to a 3 month cycle. At 50/50, a 6 month
cycle becomes reasonable. And once you pass 100, you will pretty much
know when you need it as long as you are flying IMC regularly. I find
that a year is still too long to go for me. I went 10 months once and
it was too long.

Michael

Victor J. Osborne, Jr. wrote:
The regs say no. That's why many use hoods and safety pilots to keep
current.

Which specific regs?

Hilton

Victor J. Osborne, Jr. wrote:
The regs say no. That's why many use hoods and safety pilots to keep
current.

Sure wish you'd include a little context from the posting you are replying to so
I'd have some idea what you are talking about. You can't depend on people seeing
the same sequence of postings that you see, and just backing up one posting. The
order of arrival of postings is server-dependent. Thanks.

In article 1108486843.338708@sj-nntpcache-5, Dave Butler
wrote:

Victor J. Osborne, Jr. wrote:
The regs say no. That's why many use hoods and safety pilots to keep
current.

Sure wish you'd include a little context from the posting you are replying to
so
I'd have some idea what you are talking about. You can't depend on people
seeing
the same sequence of postings that you see, and just backing up one posting.
The
order of arrival of postings is server-dependent. Thanks.

The original question was: under what circumstances can an approach be
logged for the purposes of maintaining IFR currency? Obviously if
you're under the hood with a safety pilot or in hard IMC to minimums you
can log it, and if you're in VMC without a hood you can't. But where is
the line?

rg

There is no requirement to fly an approach "in hard IMC to minimums".

The last thing I saw published by tthe FAA was that the approach had merely
to be "initiated" in IMC to be loggable.


"Ron Garret" wrote in message
...
In article 1108486843.338708@sj-nntpcache-5, Dave Butler
wrote:

Victor J. Osborne, Jr. wrote:
The regs say no. That's why many use hoods and safety pilots to keep
current.

Sure wish you'd include a little context from the posting you are
replying to
so
I'd have some idea what you are talking about. You can't depend on
people
seeing
the same sequence of postings that you see, and just backing up one
posting.
The
order of arrival of postings is server-dependent. Thanks.

The original question was: under what circumstances can an approach be
logged for the purposes of maintaining IFR currency? Obviously if
you're under the hood with a safety pilot or in hard IMC to minimums you
can log it, and if you're in VMC without a hood you can't. But where is
the line?

rg