IR without actual IMC

Anyone IR without having actually flown in IMC? My checkride is around the
corner and I've no actual IFR yet. I'm itching to experience it but the
damned weather isn't co-operating (seemed the same way with the PPL!).


Iain

"Iain Wilson" writes:

Anyone IR without having actually flown in IMC? My checkride is
around the corner and I've no actual IFR yet. I'm itching to
experience it but the damned weather isn't co-operating (seemed the
same way with the PPL!).

Most of my actual came near the end of my training; until then, we
were just outside that nasty weather sitting over the U.S. east coast
in the Spring, so we just couldn't find any IMC at a reasonable
altitude to practice in. Even then, I was getting actual only in
cloud at altitude (i.e. for holds and enroute). We didn't manage to
find enough actual for approach to near minima until (I think) my
second-last lesson. I ended up doing my flight test a couple of days
later at 8:00 am with 400 ft ceilings, and it went great (it was
wonderful not to have to wear the foggles; the missed approach on the
NDB 07 was for real, and and the final ILS approach was the only way
we could get back home).

For now, you should be able to arrange some holds and enroute up in
the clouds, even if the ceiling is too high for approaches in IMC.


All the best,


David

--
David Megginson, , http://www.megginson.com/

"Iain Wilson" wrote in message
arthlink.net...
Anyone IR without having actually flown in IMC? My checkride is around the
corner and I've no actual IFR yet. I'm itching to experience it but the
damned weather isn't co-operating (seemed the same way with the PPL!).

I don't think it matters much whether your checkride occurs before or after
you're introduced to actual IMC. But if the checkride happens first, I'd
strongly advise against flying in clouds until you've had a chance to try it
with a CFII. Staying upright can be surprisingly more difficult when you
don't have the peripheral-vision cues that hoods/foggles usually fail to
suppress.

--Gary

Iain

It would be ideal to find some actual IMC and fly in it prior to the
checkride. That's not always possible, especially in the southwest, but it
would be a good idea. It might be a littel disconcerting to you to enter your
first cloud during your flight test.

A friend of mine who's a pilot examiner gets upset when instrument applicants
cancel their checkrides due to flyable IMC. He grumbles that they must not be
ready to fly in the clouds if they can't do it without foggles.

-Ryan
CFII-A/MEI/CFI-H

Iain Wilson wrote:

Anyone IR without having actually flown in IMC? My checkride is around the
corner and I've no actual IFR yet. I'm itching to experience it but the
damned weather isn't co-operating (seemed the same way with the PPL!).

Iain

I would grumble also! I'm not IR (nor have I even begun IR training yet) but
it stands to reason that if you're being tested for competency as it relates
to flying in IMC and you run scared from actual IMC during your checkride
due to fear of failure or whatnot, you're not ready for it. So it's a little
more stressful, so is a vacuum pump failure in hard IFR. Also consider that
the FAA Examiner can take over if you run into trouble. If you're not
comfortable doing it with that safety net, why sign someone off to do it
with pax in the plane?



Just my $.02



Scott



"Ryan Ferguson" wrote in message
...
It would be ideal to find some actual IMC and fly in it prior to the
checkride. That's not always possible, especially in the southwest, but
it
would be a good idea. It might be a littel disconcerting to you to enter
your
first cloud during your flight test.

A friend of mine who's a pilot examiner gets upset when instrument
applicants
cancel their checkrides due to flyable IMC. He grumbles that they must
not be
ready to fly in the clouds if they can't do it without foggles.

-Ryan
CFII-A/MEI/CFI-H

Iain Wilson wrote:

Anyone IR without having actually flown in IMC? My checkride is around
the
corner and I've no actual IFR yet. I'm itching to experience it but the
damned weather isn't co-operating (seemed the same way with the PPL!).

Iain

"Scott Schluer" wrote
I would grumble also! I'm not IR (nor have I even begun IR training yet) but
it stands to reason that if you're being tested for competency as it relates
to flying in IMC and you run scared from actual IMC during your checkride
due to fear of failure or whatnot, you're not ready for it.

I think there are two ways to look at this.

On the one hand, I buy it. When I took my IR ride, I was fully
prepared to do it in actual. I was in fact flying a non-precision
circling approach, to mins, within days of taking the ride, and I got
in. The guy behind me missed the approach.

On the other hand, that flight scared the crap out of me - and it had
nothing to do with my skills and everything to do with how unsuitable
my airplane was for hard IFR. By the time I shot that approach, I
pretty much had to get in. I had enough fuel to make my alternate,
but not much more - dealing with carb icing had eaten into my
reserves. On top of that, my alternate was down to 300 and 1, and it
was the best thing going - people were waiting to get in there. My
plane lacked the range to get out of the weather system which went
bad.

There was no ice, no T-storms - the IMC was benign - but it was still
pretty dumb. I made it because I was good enough to get in right at
mins, and because I used the GPS to supplement the VOR. I also had to
maneuver very carefully to proceed from the MAP (literally - I did not
see the runway until directly over the runway and with only seconds to
go on the clock) to the numbers while remaining clear of cloud,
because I broke out in a hole.

Basically, because of my flying skills and familiarity with my
airplane all was well, but if I had used good judgment I would not
have launched IFR in the first place. My airplane was unsuitable. It
should have told me something when a much more experienced pilot (the
ferry pilot for a famous aerobatic performer) who was flying a much
better IFR mount opted to scud run instead. And my airplane was a
Tri-Pacer - 4 place, 100 kts, 4 hour endurance - typical of the
standard IFR trainer.

Just because the IMC is supposedly flyable - meaning you're not going
to be falling out of the sky with ice on your wings or getting chewed
up by a T-storm - doesn't mean it's OK to fly hard IFR in a plane with
poor speed, range, and redundancy. It will be fine if nothing goes
wrong, but things do go wrong.

Quite often, refusal to take the average instrument trainer into IMC
is not a matter of low skill, but of good judgment. My last
instrument student took his ride in actual hard IFR. He passed. But
it wasn't in a rental. It was in a plane with reasonable speed,
range, and redundancy.

Michael

"Scott Schluer" wrote in message
...
I would grumble also! I'm not IR (nor have I even begun IR training yet)
but
it stands to reason that if you're being tested for competency as it
relates
to flying in IMC and you run scared from actual IMC during your checkride
due to fear of failure or whatnot, you're not ready for it. So it's a
little
more stressful, ...

*Is* it more stressful? In Europe we have to do a checkride each year for
the IR. I pray for some nice IMC. It's usually smooth (Texans note, YMMV)
and the airspace is much quieter. There's usually enough clear air somewhere
to do the unusual attitudes work with peace of mind. By contrast, on a
"nice" VMC day as we're getting at the moment in the UK, there seems to be a
thermal (whoops there's 200 ft!) every mile and about half of them have
gliders hanging in them. I'll take soup any day.

Julian Scarfe

Ryan Ferguson wrote:

A friend of mine who's a pilot examiner gets upset when instrument
applicants
cancel their checkrides due to flyable IMC. He grumbles that they must
not be ready to fly in the clouds if they can't do it without foggles.

I understood that VMC was required for the checkride.

- Andrew

In a previous article, Ryan Ferguson said:
A friend of mine who's a pilot examiner gets upset when instrument applicants
cancel their checkrides due to flyable IMC. He grumbles that they must not be
ready to fly in the clouds if they can't do it without foggles.

Our local DE won't do checkrides in IMC because he wants to be able to see
the horizon during the unusual attitude recovery.


--
Paul Tomblin , not speaking for anybody
"In My Egotistical Opinion, most people's C programs should be
indented six feet downward and covered with dirt."
-- Blair P. Houghton

In article link.net,
Iain Wilson wrote:
Anyone IR without having actually flown in IMC?

I guess I can't do that, since I got 0.1 actual during my PPL.
In fact, that dual XC made it crystal clear how useful an IR could
be even without every flying "hard" IFR. I flew the Farmington 3
departure from HIO and we broke out at about 3000' and the rest of
the trip was VFR (clouds burned off HIO by our return).

--
Ben Jackson

http://www.ben.com/